"What were you, Jade?"

The gig was up a long time ago, she reminded herself. "Chief operating officer of a medical center. It's really just a fancy title for office manager and full-charge bookkeeper." She braced herself for the questions. Like why was she a thousand miles from home working a job she was obviously way overqualified for? And why had she given up that job in the first place, and did it have anything to do with whatever the hell had given her a near mental breakdown in the parking lot the night before?

But Dell didn't ask her any of those questions. He didn't ask her anything. He merely nodded and slid his hands into his pockets. Totally at ease.

"I should have told you," she said.

"You didn't have to." He walked back into her work space, Gertie so close on his heels that when Dell stopped, the dog bumped into him.

Gertie slid Dell a reproachful look.

Dell ruffled the top of her head, and Gertie's expression softened with unconditional love. "Down, Gert."

"Down, Gert," Peanut said, and Gertie plopped to the floor, the ground shaking under her graceless descent.

"I like hearing about you, Jade," Dell said. "I'd like to hear more."

"Trust me, you don't."

He gave her a small smile. "Not for you to decide, is it?" He leaned over her and reached for her keyboard, logging her in with his pass code.

That was new.

At her look of surprise, he said, "For the billing." He paused. "Unless you're leaving."

"Not yet."

He held her gaze until Keith walked through the reception area and unlocked the front door. Then he came up to the counter for the first patient file. "Dudes," he said. "We ready?"

Dell didn't break eye contact with Jade. "I am. You?" he asked Jade quietly.

They weren't talking about work and she knew it. Was she ready? Hell, no. Not for anything but she'd long ago learned that to fake it was to make it. So she nodded.

Dell smiled at her in approval before turning to head to the back, stopping to greet a Newfoundland who'd just come inside with his owner. Dell laughed at something the man said, and the sound scraped at something low in Jade's belly as she let out a careful breath. One more thing she wasn't equipped to deal with at the moment.

Completely unconcerned with that fact, Dell vanished into the back, his shoulders square, that long-legged stride confident and sure.

Jade had grown up with confident men. Highly educated men. Sophisticated and elegant. Polished.

Dell was highly educated. He had to be in order to become a vet. But he wasn't sophisticated and elegant, or polished. He'd as soon be on the floor helping a dog give birth than in a boardroom.

It was one of the most attractive things about him, how much he cared about his work. He had hundreds of patients and just about every single one of them was owned by a client completely and totally devoted to providing their animal the best care available. Dell was the best, and he was beloved in these parts.

Jade hadn't had pets while growing up. Her mother was allergic, and after Jade had been out on her own she'd just never thought of it. It'd been quite the learning curve when she'd first come to Belle Haven. Dell was fairly closed off emotionally with people, but he seemed to be able to access whatever an animal needed. An injured dog, a sick kitten, a horse in labor, it didn't matter . . . Dell gave his heart and soul, and in less time than it took humans to shake hands, an animal would become part of Dell's pack for life. But for as many animals in his pack, Dell's human pack was much smaller.

But he'd included Jade in that pack . . . which she'd resisted.

The room was filling up and Keith hadn't come back for the next patient to fill the other waiting room. With a sigh, Jade grabbed the file and stood. Typically, the morning brought in the clients and the animals that were the most sick or had become endangered overnight. These early appointments often began with Dell walking into the exam room to face worried and stressed-out people and animals.

He was good at assuaging fears.

He'd be good at assuaging yours . . .

"Sergio," she called, and managed a smile for Sergio's owner, Leanne Whitfield. Leanne could have been a Beverly Hills housewife, except she didn't have a husband and she lived here in Sunshine. What she did have was a shortterm plan to rectify the lack of husband pronto. She wanted to marry the most eligible man in town, and she'd decided that man was Dell.

To that end, Leanne brought in her kitten every few weeks, manufacturing odd illnesses. Leanne had somehow concluded that Jade was the biggest threat to her marry-Dell goal, which could be construed as amusing given that Dell was a serial dater and Jade was a serial social hermit these days.

As for Dell's opinion on the situation, he and Jade had an understanding. Jade's job included making sure Leanne never trapped Dell alone in an exam room, where she'd "accidentally" grope him. "What's the problem with Sergio this morning?" Jade asked, pen poised over the chart.

"I'd rather go over this just once," Leanne said, and flashed a smile that said, Bite me. "I'll just tell the doctor myself directly."

Jade smiled a Bite me right back at Leanne. "Sure. I'll just go tell him so. He's running a few minutes behind."

"Oh?" Leanne didn't look happy. "He have a late night last night?"

"Here you go," Jade said, ignoring the question as she showed her into exam room two.

"When we get married," Leanne said, "your services won't be necessary."

"Married?"

"It's only a matter of time before he realizes how perfect we are together," Leanne said, eyeballing herself in the small mirror over the sink. She adjusted her boobs higher and her neckline lower. "We'll honeymoon in Cabo."

Okay, Jade wasn't in the mood for this. "Listen, it's not going to happen."

"Why?"

Yeah, Jade, why? She thought about being brutally honest and telling Leanne that she managed to do what no one else could do-she terrified the big, bad Dell Connelly, but sometimes honesty just wasn't the way to go. "Because we're engaged." The lie rolled right off her tongue so easily she couldn't even believe she'd said it.

Leanne's sharp gaze flashed immediately to Jade's ringless engagement finger.

"Getting it sized." Jade left the room, hung the chart for Dell, and practically ran down the hall, nearly plowing right into him.

He put his hands on her hips to steady her. "Oh no you don't, you're not deserting me with her. Let's go." He began to tug her back to the exam room.

"Um," she said. "She won't exactly be bothering you anymore."

"What did you do?"

She patted his chest. His hard, warm chest. "A thing."

"A thing? What thing?"

"Yeah, we don't have to talk about the thing," she said, relieved when the phone started to ring.

He caught her arm. "We'll talk about the thing later."

"Sure." Or never. And because just his hand on her was stirring up sensations best not stirred up, she backed away and returned to her work.

Seven.

Dell was in the main surgery area cleaning up sometime later when Adam came through after a training session. "I've got the Moorelands in room two," Dell told him. "Want to come in with me?"

The Moorelands were clients of Adam's. They'd brought in their seven-week-old Labrador puppies.

"First exam?"

"And vaccinations. Eight puppies. You can help."

"Maybe you'd rather have someone else. Say, your fiancee."

"How many times do I have to tell you, crack kills brain cells."

Adam flashed a rare grin. "Didn't you wonder why Leanne didn't play grab-ass with you this morning? It was because your receptionist turned herself into your fiancee." Adam slapped him on the back. "Congrats, by the way. I didn't think you had it in you."

"Shut up. You're making this shit up."

"Are you kidding?" Adam asked. "No one could make this up. It's too good. The question is, though . . . why would Jade come up with such a story? Unless something's happened between you . . ."

Dell didn't respond to that. Didn't know how to respond to that.

Adam gave a shocked Dell a push down the hall and into exam room one.

Eight puppies were crawling over everything, making soft, snuffling puppy noises. Their owners, Joey and Donna Mooreland, a couple in their midfifties were sitting, supervising the best that they could with four hands against thirty-two little paws.

Adam had sold the couple their first Labrador several years ago now and had helped them through their first breeding cycle. He scooped up a black pup attempting to eat his shoelace.

"I'm nervous," Donna admitted, hand to her chest. "This is our first batch of babies."

"No worries." Adam slid Dell a look. "There's a lot of firsts going around here today."

Dell ignored him and bent over the puppies. There were four brown, two black, and two white Labs, all in various stages of mewling and climbing over each other, tails wagging, tongues out.

"It's just that we've been so frazzled with our daughter's engagement," Donna said, stopping the biggest pup from climbing on top of his siblings like a circus performer.

"A lot of that going around," Adam said.

Dell gave Adam a look that said quite clearly Shut up or die. But Donna smiled at Adam. "Someone you know just get engaged?"

"As a matter of fact," Adam said. "Dr. Connelly here-"

Dell stepped on Adam's foot and ground into it a little bit.

Adam drew a careful breath and stopped talking.

But it was too late. Donna had caught the scent of a possible engagement. "Doctor?" she asked Dell. "Are you engaged?"

"He is," Joe said.

Everyone looked at him in shock. Joe shrugged. "One of your clients in the waiting room was talking about it as she left."

Adam started to laugh, but Dell put more weight on his foot, and Adam turned it into a cough.

"Oh, this is so lovely!" Donna said, clapping her hands, then leaning in conspiratorially. "You probably don't know this, Dr. Connelly, but just about all the single women in the country have their hearts set on you. You're going to break them all with this news."

Adam coughed again, and Dell took his weight off Adam's foot because he felt a little woozy. And he was sweating. Christ, this was ridiculous. "The puppies," he said. "Let's concentrate on the puppies."

Adam smirked. Dell ignored him and picked up the runt, a girl. The tiny brown Lab had eyes bigger than her nose and mouth and her head bobbed as she stared at him solemnly. He smiled at her and she licked his chin.

"So when's the big day?" Donna asked.

Try never, as it would be difficult to be married to a woman who lived seventeen hundred miles away. "The reports of my"-Christ-"engagement are overexaggerated."

Adam snorted.

Dell checked the puppy's teeth to make sure they were properly aligned, then inspected her eyes, examined her skin, and palpated her hips.

"Is she okay?"

Dell set her on the scale, having to keep a hand on her because her legs were scrambling for purchase. She had places to go, things to explore. "She's slightly underweight, but she's looking strong."

Both Donna and Joe looked relieved. "That's the one my daughter wants to keep," Joe said.

"We're going to wrap her up in a white silky bow on the day of the wedding," Donna said. Her voice went sly. "Maybe you'd like us to save you one for your wedding?"

Adam grinned and looked at him. "How sweet."

Dell resisted the urge to punch him and busied himself checking for defects the Mooreland's might not have recognized, like heart murmurs. He found nothing ominous, and after the longest ten minutes of his life he managed to escape. He strode toward his office, taking a quick glance out front.

Jade sat at the front desk, talking on the phone while simultaneously working on the computer, checking someone in, and checking two people out. She sat there, an oasis in the middle of a circus. As if she sensed him, she glanced up. And if he wasn't mistaken, she grimaced slightly.

He raised a brow.

She bit her lower lip but didn't look away.

Adam, hot on his heels, leaned in and whispered, "Think we should tell your fiancee that you're allergic to commitment? That you have abandonment issues? And, oh yeah, that you're never going to let your guard down enough to actually marry anyone?"

"You're an asshole."

"So are you."

Dell sighed. "Yeah," he said as Adam walked away. "But knowing it is half the battle."