Felicia finished putting on a coat of lip-gloss and smiled at her reflection after a quick glance at her watch. She’d gotten completely ready with two minutes to spare. With another quick glance down at her fitted, short dress, she felt a frisson of worry. Was it okay for a forty-two-year-old woman to wear a dress showing this much leg? At the store, the sales clerk had assured Felicia that she looked “fierce,” but what if she’d just been saying that to make the sale?

She turned to examine the dark-turquoise dress. Her legs were shaved smooth, and she’d slathered them in lotion so they were buttery soft. The strappy, silver high heels tested the strength of her muscular control so her legs looked completely tight and toned. Her ass was still good and high since she spent half her days squatting up and down onto the floor with her patients.

It was one of those things they didn’t say in vet school...how good of a workout a vet got from working with animals ten to twelve hours a day. But this was one of the good side effects.

Time had taken its toll on the perkiness of her breasts, but that’s what Victoria’s Secret was all about, right? And everything there seemed to be as good as she got. Besides this dress showcased the necklace her dad had given her when she’d earned her veterinary license.

He’d died two months later, and the memory of the exchange still made her smile, even as her eyes filled with tears.

Her life had been very different back then. She wondered what he would have thought of Steven. He’d never met her boyfriend that she dated all through veterinary medical school—that should have been her first sign of trouble for that relationship—but her dad had always maintained that guy hadn’t been good enough for her.

In the end, her dad had been proven right.

She shook her head to clear it just as a knock sounded at her door. The phone also rang for the vet clinic, which had been forwarded to her cell phone. This time of night, she almost always got a phone call from a nervous pet owner whose baby had to stay in the clinic overnight. That was fine with her. She’d much rather have overprotective animal lovers any day over the neglectful ones.

She grabbed her cell, answering it as she went to open the door for Steven. “Valley View Vet Clinic. This is Dr. Parks. What can I do for you?”

She pulled open the door, smiling when Steven grinned at her from behind a huge bouquet of beautiful pink tulips. Gah, this man. They just didn’t make better guys. She leaned up to brush a kiss across his cheek in greeting as she accepted the flowers, mouthing, “They’re gorgeous!”

And damn, so was he. Steven was a huge guy. If she didn’t know he was in the Air Force, she would have guessed him to be a professional football player. He had muscles upon muscles, and tonight, that incredible physique had been poured into a suit that had to have been custom-made for him to fit so well.

His golden hair glowed in the setting sun shining through the front doors of the house, making him look like the perfect all-American boy with those beautiful eyes that flipped from hazel to golden in a single moment of emotion. His dimples were in full effect tonight sending giddy sparks through her stomach.

Her mouth began to water as she scanned him from head to toe again. How had she gotten so lucky to catch his eye?

The voice on the other end of the phone connection snagged her attention. “Oh good, you’re still there. This is Emmanuel Carter. You took care of my beagle, Roxie, last year.”

“Oh, yes, I remember Roxie. Is she having complications with her hip?” The rambunctious puppy had gotten away from her preteen dog walker last year and had run into traffic. Her hip had been badly broken. The surgery had been tricky, and at the time, Felicia hadn’t been sure Roxie would ever have full mobility again. But Roxie was one of the lucky ones.

“No, no nothing like that. We just had a family arrive on base whose dog was in really bad condition. It’s an emergency, so I sent them to your clinic. I wanted to make sure you were still there and open when they arrive. It should be within the next five minutes.”

She glanced at Steven. “I’m so sorry, Colonel Carter, but I’m on my way out the door.”

Steven’s concerned gaze flew to her face. As a squadron commander at the base, he’d recognized the vice wing commander’s name.

“I’ll send them back into town to Dr. Bennett’s office. He’s set up to handle the after hours emergencies tonight.” All the Terravista vets had joined a cooperative of sorts several years ago to help handle emergency calls after hours. They rotated so that they were only on call one night a week. It worked out well for all of them.

“Oh, damn, I’m sorry Dr. Parks. I didn’t realize it had gotten quite so late. Can you give him directions when he arrives? They literally just drove into town, and Gage doesn’t have any idea of where anything is in Terravista. He had barely found the base.”

Gage.

The colonel kept talking, but ice slid down Felicia’s spine as her gut cramped. It couldn’t be, could it? Lots of guys in the Air Force were named Gage. There was no way, after all this time, that this could be her Gage. The guy she had known was probably balding, overweight, and working some cushy corporate piloting job now with a wife and a couple of kids at home.

“No problem,” Felicia replied weakly. She was being silly, reacting to a common name like that. “I’ll make sure the animal gets the care he needs.”

“Thanks, Dr. Parks.”

The line disconnected before she could ask anything else.

Steven lightly rested his palm on the small of her back, reminding her that her current boyfriend stood beside her, comforting her. No thinking about bad exes.

He kissed the top of her head. “Please tell me that everything is still good to go tonight. While I want to keep my commanders happy, you look too gorgeous. Screw Colonel Carter. I want to take you out and show the world that you’re all mine.” His words were hot and possessive, and warmth flowed over her.

She smiled at him and let his steady demeanor sooth her. She rose up and brushed a kiss across his cheek. “You clean up pretty nicely, too, Major Hardesty. It’s just a minor delay. There’s an emergency coming in, but I’ll send them over to Dr. Bennett’s and then our night can truly begin.”

“Hmm, okay.” Steven nuzzled the sensitive skin under her ear lobe. “I’ll agree to a slight delay, only because I could never tell you no for anything.”

A flutter of butterflies swept through her lower belly. “I’ll make it up to you later.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” he murmured as he cupped her ass, pulling her tight against his rock-hard erection.

Her eyes widened, and she pulled back to get a good look at him. “Where did that come from?”

While their sex life had always been decent, Steven had never been known for bouts of unprovoked passion. They had barely even touched one another since he’d arrived, certainly not anything to make him that excited.

His eyes blazed with hunger and desire. “Tonight is our night. The first night of forever, and I’m just excited about all that entails.”

She gaped in surprise. He’d been giving her hints about how important tonight was to him, and maybe, this was his way of stepping up their relationship. She’d been thinking he wanted to take a trip together or was considering making space in a closet for her. But this might be “it”...like a “getting down on one knee and proposing” kind of event.

Her heart rate ratcheted up as adrenaline surged through her system. What would she say? Her immediate reaction was Oh my god, yes, but what if that was wrong? She’d been wrong about a guy before, and it had taken almost twenty years to recover. Could she do that again?

But Steven was the perfect guy. If she didn’t say yes to him, then she was probably condemning herself to never getting married. She was forty-two now, as her mother kept reminding her.

He kissed her lightly on the lips. “Let’s head over to the clinic so you can get rid of any distractions, and then, we can begin our night.”

She swallowed and nodded. “That sounds good.” She could use the time to compose herself.

They crossed from her small, adobe house to the back of the clinic through the employee parking lot. She unlocked the back door, and they skirted around the kennel area. She didn’t want to disturb the animals that should be settled for the night.

After so many hours spent inside this clinic, she knew the way to the front and could do it blindfolded, so she didn’t turn on any additional lights.

Steven grabbed her around the waist and tugged her tightly to him. “Mmm, it’s dark in here. I kind of like the ambiance.”

She chuckled softly and gently pushed him away. “You are horny if you’re finding the inside of an animal hospital romantic in any way.”

“It’s not the setting; it’s the company that has me turned on.”

Her heartbeat skipped.

Greatest. Guy. Ever.

There were thousands of other women out there who would pay good money to be in her place. Steven had it all...good looks, amazing physique, he was fun to be with, and he genuinely cared about her. They may not have the most passionate relationship. So what... She wasn’t twenty-two anymore. That was just a fact of getting a bit older, right?

She dodged behind the counter at the reception desk so she could grab one of Dr. Bennett’s business cards with the emergency vet clinic’s address. A knock sounded on the door.

“Steven, can you unlock the front door?” she called.

“Sure.” The sound of the metallic lock being shifted echoed over the empty reception area.

“My dad’s coming in with Ralph,” a feminine, panicked voice said. “Where should we take him?”

Felicia stood with a business card in hand. “I’m sorry. You’re going to have to go to the emergency clinic.  I have the address here.” She held up the card for the teenage girl to see.

Despite her tear-ravaged face, there was no doubt the teenager was a classic beauty...porcelain skin, deep, dark, emotional eyes, and a trembling mouth.

The young girl’s face crumpled, and she erupted on a desperate sob. “No, he’s really sick. You have to see him. Here. Now.”

There was no way she could say no to that broken-hearted face. Besides, it would only take a couple of minutes to examine the dog. “Okay. Let me take a quick look, and then we can decide if he’s in good enough shape to go to the emergency clinic.”

She winced in Steven’s direction, but he grinned and shrugged good-naturedly. He winked at her to reassure her it was okay. He really was such a good guy.

The door opened again and another teenager—a boy this time, but he looked enough like the girl that they had to be siblings—held it open as a man backed into the room, obviously lumbering under the weight of the massive golden retriever. The dog’s head hung low. He looked to be unconscious or close to it. Steven rushed over to help, and Felicia ran to the dog’s side.

No wonder the girl was so frantic. Foam drooled from the dog’s mouth. Felicia went into trauma mode. “Get him into exam room one. I need to go grab some charcoal.”

“Doc?”

That voice...it still managed to haunt her dreams. Her gaze flew to the man holding the dog and met those green-silver eyes that used to look at her with passion and love. Now, they just held pure shock.

“Gage,” she whispered, her legs suddenly weak and shaky. She grabbed onto the wall before she fell. All of the blood drained from her face. “What—”

But then a low sound of pain rumbled from the dog, and Felicia refocused on her job. She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now. Bring him back here.” She took off at a jog—not an easy task in her heels—and called back behind her. “Do you have any idea what he might have eaten in the last few hours?”

“Not really, no,” Gage said. “But we stopped and hiked up at Snowcroft for about an hour, so he must have eaten something up there in the forest...a plant or something.”

Felicia nodded as she unlocked her medication cabinet in the hall near the exam room and rifled through it. A new species of mushroom had been introduced to the area that was highly poisonous for dogs. Two other animals had been reported in the area with the same symptoms as Gage’s dog. Neither of those animals had survived the fast-acting poison, which systematically shut down the animals’ organ function.

Adrenaline coursed through her as she raced to get everything she’d need to counteract the unknown poison. When she entered the exam room, she couldn’t even see the dog since the room was full of people...Steven, Gage, and both the teenagers.

Oh, hell.

The magnitude of what she was seeing here made her stumble. Those teens belonged to Gage. Children he’d had with someone else. She gritted her teeth as the pain swamped her with the knowledge. It had been almost twenty years since she’d seen him. This shouldn’t hurt anymore.

“Felicia, are you okay?” Steven asked.

For the first time since Gage had walked in, Felicia focused on Steven...her boyfriend.

Her very serious boyfriend watched her worriedly.

“Yeah, thanks, but I need to be able to work on...” She focused on the teenage girl. “What’s the dog’s name?”

“Ralph,” the girl choked out.

Felicia nodded. First order of business was to gain control over the situation. “Okay, I’m going to do everything I can to help him, but I can’t do that with it so crowded in here,” Felicia said soothingly. “Steven, maybe you can take the kids back to my office and offer them something to drink?”

“Sure. Come with me. My name’s Steven. What are your names?” He gently guided them out of the room.

Their voices carried down the hall, and Felicia focused on the dog, lying still except the hard panting breaths that shook his whole body. She grabbed her stethoscope and listened to his heart, not liking the rapid, staccato rhythm at all.

“Okay, since we don’t know what we’re dealing with, I’m going to treat him for general poisoning. I don’t have any assistants here tonight. Are you up for helping me?” She hazarded a look at Gage, something she’d been avoiding doing ever since she realized who he was. Even after all this time, having him so close hurt.

“Yes, just tell me what I have to do...” He gently scratched behind the dog’s ears. His breath hitched. “You have to save him, Doc.”

She wasn’t sure what hurt more, the quiet desperation in his voice or hearing his nickname for her fall from his lips after so many years.

“If he dies, my kids are never going to forgive me.”

She glanced up sharply. The worry and pain in his gaze as he looked at the dog clutched at her heart.

“Gage,” she said softly. “You said it yourself, they’re your kids. They won’t hate you for something you have no control over. That’s not the way things work.”

His chuckle was hollow and sad. “That’s what you think.”

She had no idea how to respond to that, so she just concentrated on treating Ralph. But that didn’t change her awareness of Gage standing just inches away from her for the first time in decades.

She worked in silence for about ten minutes, notating any changes in Ralph’s vital signs in the file that she’d quickly thrown together.

“What do you think his odds are?” Gage asked quietly.

“It’s impossible to tell right now. If it was something he ate while out hiking, it sounds like he started vomiting almost immediately. Anything else he had in his system, he’s vomited out here. I gave him charcoal and another drug which has shown to be helpful in the absorption of any traces that made it into his digestive tract. The main danger right now is that if enough of the poison got into him, it will start affecting his other organs. I’ll stay here tonight and monitor the situation.”

“Do you have another doctor you can call in? We obviously interrupted you on your way out.” He cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You look beautiful. It would be a shame to waste the effort.”

She glanced down at her less-than-pristinely clean dress after doctoring a sick dog for the last fifteen minutes. “I think it’s too late for that,” she said with a self-deprecating chuckle. “I know better than to try to embrace my girly side if I’m going to be around animals at all. I just hadn’t planned...”

There was no way she could have predicted this night. She’d never planned on seeing him again in her lifetime, but yet, here he was in her clinic, standing so close, too close. It was all too much of a shock for her to take in at once.

She met his stormy, conflicted eyes. “Besides, this is my clinic. I’m the only vet, so I’ll monitor him overnight. It’s okay. I live on the premises. I have a house in the back. I’m used to it, and Steven will understand.”

“Steven?” Gage’s voice sounded rough. “He’s your husband?” At the shake of her head, he raised an eyebrow in question. “Boyfriend?”

“Serious boyfriend.”

He made a grunting sound in the back of his throat. She wasn’t sure what to make of that, especially since he was here in her vet clinic with his children that he’d obviously had with someone else. It’s not like he’d been living like a monk. But she wouldn’t go there with him. He’d lost his chance to have any say in her life a long time ago.

“So, listen,” Felicia said. “I understand you just got into town. Ralph will need to stay here tonight. So, why don’t you go on? Get the kids out of here, and get settled wherever you’re spending the night. There’s nothing you can do here anymore tonight. I’ll do everything I can to get him through this.” And she needed time to recover from the shock of seeing Gage.

“Okay.” He ran his hand down Ralph’s side.

His hands had aged, but they were still the long fingers of the boy she’d once known. His forefinger still had the scar from where she’d accidentally slammed his finger in the door on their second date. That date had ended with him getting six stitches and her more than halfway in love with him.

Her throat tightened at the memory.

“Doc?” He touched her arm, and the skin beneath his fingertips electrified.

She looked up into his warm, cautious gaze and wanted to weep for no good reason. She’d cried all the tears over this man that she ever planned to.

“You really do look gorgeous.” His voice sounded low and intimate. “Time has served you well.”

A throat cleared from the doorway, and Steven frowned at them.

She stepped away from Gage’s reach. “Steven, I think Gage and his kids are going to leave.” She needed to keep reminding herself of that. He had kids and a whole other life now that had nothing to do with her. And somewhere, those kids had a mother. “Are they still in my office?”

Steven’s gaze shifted between the two of them. “Um, no, they’re back in the break room, watching T.V.” He approached the two of them, putting his hand proprietarily around Felicia’s waist while also lifting his other hand out to Gage to shake. “I probably should introduce myself, Colonel Winston. I’m Major Steven Hardesty. I’m your Aircraft Maintenance Squadron commander. Welcome to Vandeman, sir.”

Oh, hell. Steven introducing himself like Gage was someone high ranking on the base. Felicia knew some of the military hierarchy from when she had dated Gage before, but so far, Steven had mostly kept her out of that side of his life.

Actually, this week was the first formal event they planned to attend on base. Some sort of dinner party for the incoming wing commander.

Oh my god.

Felicia’s limbs felt a little weak as her mouth dropped open in realization. If that new wing commander were Gage, that meant he would be Steven’s boss. No, that wouldn’t be awkward...at all. Felicia swallowed her groan.

“Thank you,” Gage said. “It’s good to be here, although this wasn’t how I hoped to come into town.” He glanced worriedly over at the family dog again.

“Felicia’s the best vet in town.” Steven ran his hand up her spine and brushed it across the exposed side of her neck.

Gage’s jaw tightened as he watched the intimate gesture.

”Your dog is in good hands,” Steven continued as he beamed at her with pride.

Gage chuckled, a sound more mocking than jovial. “Yeah, of that, I have no doubt. Felicia always took care of animals better than anything else.” His jaw clenched. “I have to go.” Gage pulled a business card out of his wallet. “This has my cell phone number on it. Please call me if there’s any change with Ralph. Otherwise, we’ll be back tomorrow.” With that, Gage strode out of the room.

Felicia wanted to slump against the exam table but instead examined Ralph again to avoid Steven’s searching gaze. He stayed completely quiet and left her to work until the sound of the front door closing behind the Winston family echoed through the empty clinic.

“I think we might need to talk,” Steven said. “Want to tell me about your history with my new wing commander?”