Lilah's brows shot up so far they vanished into her hair. "You went with him?"

"I just showed up at his house in the morning and got into his truck. He had no choice."

Lilah laughed at that. "Honey, that man has all the choices in the world, and all the brawn. Believe me, if he didn't want you to go, you wouldn't have. He must have needed you there."

Now it was Jade's turn to laugh. "Need? Dell doesn't need anyone."

Lilah was shaking her head. "He might like to think it-all three of them do. But it's not true. Brady realized it with me. And someday Adam and Dell will know it."

"Know what?"

"That needing someone isn't the same as being weak. That they can still be big and bad and strong and still lean on someone. You're that someone for Dell."

Jade's heart stopped. "Lilah, I-"

"I know." Lilah covered Jade's hand with her own. "You're leaving. I don't want you to. I've been trying not to say that because you have to go back, I get it. But I'm sick over it, and if I feel that way, I can only imagine how Dell feels."

"I've got a temp service on standby and the front desk running like a charm. Anyone can take over, they'll be fine."

"You know damn well that's not what I'm talking about."

Brady walked through the door juggling two hot dogs and a large soda from the convenience store up the street, tailed by Dell and Adam. Dell was also armed with crap food, but Adam strode directly to the bakery's front counter.

Adam was the only one of the three who cared in the slightest about what he put into his body.

"He's going to order tea," Lilah murmured. "That man is hot, but he doesn't know much about how to eat."

Brady's gaze went directly to Lilah, and he gave her one of those smiles that told the whole world they'd very recently been naked together and were planning on getting that way again as soon as possible.

Dell was on his phone, but his eyes tracked to Jade in a way not all that different from Brady, and her pulse kicked up. Brady had already dragged a chair to the table and was kissing Lilah hello when Dell kicked another chair over. He glanced at Brady and Lilah kissing like their mouths were fused and something flickered in his gaze.

Jade wasn't sure what he was thinking, but she knew what she was thinking. That the intimacy between Brady and Lilah was so easy and real. Which stirred up a surprising twinge of envy.

A woman came into the bakery and saw Dell. "Finally," she said. "I catch up with you."

He looked up and gave her an easy smile. "Stacy."

Stacy was a petite, curvy brunette in jeans, boots, and a broad smile. "I wanted to tell you that Trickster's feeling so much better. We appreciate your house call the other night. I'm just sorry you had to leave so fast. Was everything okay with the emergency call?"

Brady and Lilah were preoccupied with something on Brady's iPhone. Jade tried to busy herself with her own cell phone, but her ears weren't on board with that plan and she eavesdropped shamelessly.

"Yes," Dell said. "It's handled."

"I was thinking maybe you could come back out tonight," Stacy said, hunkering at his side, giving him a nice view down her top. "My kitty needs a checkup."

Jade, who'd just taken an ill-timed drink of her water, choked.

Dell slid her a glance and she went back to studying her cell phone, like look at me, I'm just sitting here working . . .

"Tonight's not great," Dell said to Stacy.

"Oh. You working?"

"Teaching a self-defense class, actually," he replied, and this time didn't look at Jade at all.

"After, then."

Dell didn't say anything. Clearly taking that as agreement, Stacy leaned in even closer and whispered something in Dell's ear, and though Jade nearly fell out of her chair to try to catch it, she couldn't. Whatever it was, he had no reaction at all as Stacy sashayed out of the place, taking one last look over her shoulder at him.

Jade rolled her eyes and stuffed the rest of her croissant into her mouth in three bites, not even tasting it. Which meant that on top of being inexplicably irritated, she was also going to have to work out to lose the extra million calories she'd just consumed.

Lilah was helping herself to Brady's soda. "Was Lulu delivered to the kennels while I was gone?"

"Yes, and Dell had just come by to get me. She was very happy to see him, so happy that she ate one of his socks."

Dell pulled up the leg of his jeans. He had only one sock on.

"Sounds like she thinks she's a goat."

Brady leaned back in his chair, tilting it so that he was leaning against the wall as he grinned. "Turns out lambs don't recognize calm assertive. All they want is something to eat." He tugged a strand of Lilah's hair fondly. "Saw that new puppy you rescued. Cute little guy."

"Yeah, but I think I've given everyone in town a puppy by now. Not sure who I can get to take him."

"You've never given Jade a puppy," Brady said.

"That's because Dell's her puppy."

Brady cracked up. Dell kicked the leg of Brady's chair, almost toppling him over.

Brady dropped his chair back down and looked at the soda, which had spilled on his chest. "You do know I can still kick your ass, right?"

Dell leaned close to Jade, slipping his arm around her. "I have a kick-ass partner now. You can't take us both."

"I knew it!" Lilah grinned, pointing at them. "You're an us'!"

"Hey, man, this was a clean shirt," Brady grumbled, swiping his chest with napkins.

Lilah smacked him. "Did you not hear?"

Brady lifted his head. "Hear what?"

Lilah ignored him, looking between Dell and Jade. "So what is this? What does this mean?"

"It means that I can finally kick Brady's ass," Dell said. "With Jade helping me."

"And . . . ?"

"And we'll take Adam, too. Just on principle."

Lilah sighed. "One of these days you'll admit it."

Jade didn't look at Dell, because she knew better. She knew that while sometimes she and Dell were indeed an "us"'-like when they were working or possibly naked-most of the time there was no "us."

They both wanted it that way.

Besides, Dell wasn't interested in an us and even if he was...

You're leaving . . .

She kept forgetting that one pesky little thing. And maybe she kept forgetting because at some point she'd started thinking about not leaving . . .

Twenty.

At ten o'clock that night, Jade answered her door to Dell. She had The Notebook on pause on the TV and a half-empty box of tissues on the coffee table. "Dell?"

He narrowed his eyes. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

He pushed past her and entered her place. "Well, come right on in," she murmured.

He turned back to face her. "I thought you'd come over for some gym time but you didn't show. And you've been crying."

"I'm watching The Notebook."

He looked confused so she filled him in. "A go-to sob movie."

"Why would you have a go-to sob movie?"

Clearly the man had never felt the need to just cry. "Never mind. And I didn't come over because I thought you'd be with Kalie."

He looked even more confused than before. "Who?"

"Kalie, Cara . . . whatever her face, from the bakery earlier."

He pinched the bridge of his nose and studied his shoes for a long moment but apparently no wisdom was forthcoming on how to deal with Crazy Females. "I'm not sleeping with Melinda."

"You've said."

"And I'm certainly not sleeping with Karen. There's only one woman in my bed." He stalked toward her and hauled her in against him so hard the air escaped her lungs. "Her name is Goddess Jade, and she's got my full attention."

Her heart stuttered in her chest and her hands slid up his chest.

"So now if we're clear on that," he said, forehead to hers, "let's move onto the next portion of the meeting."

Her heart, her traitorous heart, took a hard leap thinking maybe he was going to say that he'd changed his mind about relationships and he wanted one. With her. "Which is?"

"Your to-do list." He lifted her off her feet and started toward her bed. "I know I'm on it, I put myself there. Now I'm adding you-" He broke off because his phone was vibrating between them. With a low oath he stopped, read the text, then swore again. "It's Adam. One of his clients has a dog in labor. She's in trouble and on the way to the clinic. Adam's two hours out."

"So more angry sex is off the table?"

"I wasn't angry," he said.

"Then what kind of sex were you hoping for?" she asked, grabbing her coat and purse as they moved in tandem to the door.

"I was wide open," he said as they made their way down the stairs and into the night. "Maybe boss-and-naughtysecretary sex?"

"Seriously?"

Unembarrassed, he shrugged.

She was quiet a moment, considering as they walked to his truck. "There's always doctor and nurse," she heard herself say.

He slid her a wicked bad boy smile as he opened his passenger's door for her. "You want to play nurse?"

"Oh no. I get to be the doctor. You'd be the nurse."

He tipped his head back and laughed, and she found herself grinning. Grinning. "So that works for you?" she asked. "Being the nurse?"

"For you, Jade, I'd be anything you want."

If only that were true . . .

An hour later, Dell was sitting on the floor in the surgery suite next to a large open box. Inside was Rose, the laboring golden Lab with the bad timing. Adam was on his way in, but for now Dell's only assistant was Jade.

She sat on the other side of the box, stroking Rose's face.

Rose lay quiet, her sides rising and falling quickly with her restless panting, eyes closed. She was clearly having contractions, readying her body for the pushing. Dell was waiting for her to start licking herself, a sign that birth was imminent.

Rose's owner was Michelle Eisenburg-the woman whose son had inadvertently caused Jade's parking lot breakdown all those weeks ago now. Dell had promised he'd take care of Rose as if she were his own, and sent her home to relieve the babysitter.

"You know," Jade said. "I've been here a year and a half and I've never seen puppies delivered." She shook her head in the quiet room. "I've never even had a puppy."

"Ever?" Dell asked.

"My mother's allergic. I sneaked a puppy in once, kept her for a week before my nanny ratted me out. I was grounded for a month."

Dell ran his hand down Rose's side, gauging her breathing, her contractions, as always fascinated by these little peeks into Jade's childhood, which were like fairy tales compared to his growing up years.

"What about you?" she asked. "Tell me about your first dog."

"Bear." He closed his eyes, remembering. "Adam and I found him when he was nothing but a few days old, blind, starving." Just a tiny handful of skin and bones, he'd been filthy and mewling. Dell had taken one look at the newborn puppy and had one thought, that it was even more pathetic than him. "We were living with our dad, then," he said. "My dad said the thing would die that night, but it didn't." Bear hadn't died the next night, either. Dell had nursed him back to health. "He grew into this huge mutt who took up more of my bed than I did."