Animal Attraction

Eight

The next morning, Jade arrived at Belle Haven before dawn’s first light for their biweekly vaccine clinic. She sat in her car, eyeing the walk to the front door.

Another vet clinic had been hit in Coeur d’Alene the night before, and it was all over the news. Dell had upgraded the security system, adding cameras at the front and back doors and several panic buttons throughout the clinic with a direct line to emergency dispatch.

His cool, calm, almost ruthless efficiency told her that he was very serious about this. And if Dell was serious, it meant he had a good reason. Dell had a lot of really great qualities, but allowing others to see his weaknesses wasn’t one of them. This place, and the people and animals in it, were his. No sharing. The protective, possessive side of his nature should have threatened her peace of mind but at the moment she was glad for it.

Still, she had to make the walk from her car to the door. “Going to need reinforcements for this,” she told Beans and put in her iPod earphones. She hit shuffle and Eminem came on.

Eminem was an ass kicker.

Still, she kept the volume down so she could hear what was going on around her. Normally she liked to get in a half hour before anyone else to set up, but nerves jittered through her stomach as she headed across the lot.

Inside, past the alarm and behind the locked door, she started breathing again. She let Beans loose, uncovered Peanut, and began to get ready for the mob scene that always occurred on free clinic days.

Because she couldn’t deny the slight nerves still jangling, she cranked the volume on Pink and was singing along, trying to enjoy the solitude and quiet. After a few minutes she felt herself begin to relax at the regular, familiar routine of turning on the equipment, checking the supplies, organizing the files for the day. She walked past the drug cabinet, as always automatically reaching out to make sure it was locked.

It was. It was always locked, but to make sure was a comfort. She went still when the hair at the nape of her neck rose, then tore out her earphones in time to catch a whisper of sound, the soft brush of a man’s footstep. And then another, telling her that there were two of them behind her.

“Do as I say, bitch, and I won’t hurt you. Yet.”

Dark fear as he emphasized the words with the cold muzzle of the gun thrust under her jaw.

Frozen with fear, she tried to turn her head to look at him, but he ran the tip of the gun from her jaw down her throat and over her collarbone to skim her breast. “Let’s go,” came the low, rough voice. “Unless you want to spend some time out here with me first…”

She felt the hand on her arm and heard her own whimper.

“Jade. Jade, it’s just me-”

“Man, she’s too far gone to hear you.”

“I know. Fuck-”

Jade felt herself being picked up. She struggled automatically, panic welling, blocking her throat so that all that escaped another pathetic whimper.

“You’re okay. Jade, can you hear me?” A hand rough with calluses stroked gently down her hair. “You’re safe.”

Just a flashback. That’s all. A flashback triggered by the Halloween mask from two nights before, not to mention hours of tossing and turning, culminating in having the bad timing of being nearly scared out of her own skin in front of the drug cabinet.

Which is where she’d faced her own nightmare once before.

“Here,” Adam said to Dell, dragging a chair over. “Sit with her here, I’ll get her some water.”

Her brain didn’t seem to want to connect with reality, and she couldn’t draw air into her lungs. Embarrassed, she buried her face into the crook of Dell’s neck and tried to breathe him in instead.

“Jade. Jade, listen to me.” Dell, speaking in that quiet calm voice of his, the one that made her struggle to settle just so she could hear more of it. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”

She nodded, hoping she looked like she was back in control of herself. But she figured she must have failed because he ran his hands slowly up and down her back, soothing her, whispering softly to her, words she couldn’t quite catch but it didn’t matter. His voice was heaven. If he kept talking, just like that, she thought maybe she could even start breathing again.

Adam came back with a glass of water. “She okay?”

“Yes.” Dell cupped her face in his big hands, his own face so close to hers. “She’s okay.”

Jade nodded, even though she had a grip on his shirt, tight enough to hurt her own fingers. But she didn’t let go as she drew in a desperate gulp of air and let it out.

“She’s hyperventilating,” Adam said quietly.

“No, she’s got this. You’ve got this, Jade,” Dell assured her and took the water from Adam to hand to her.

“Slow sips,” Adam said, hunkering down at her side, his eyes on her face.

“I’m fine,” Jade said, and gulped down the water, relieving her parched throat. Apparently freak-outs made one thirsty. Who knew?

Adam took the glass from her and that’s when she realized… she was in Dell’s lap.

“Careful,” Adam said when she stood up. “You don’t have your sea legs back yet.”

“I’m fine,” she said. A broken record. It didn’t escape her notice that Dell made sure to be very close to her, close enough to grab her if she started to lose it again.

But she wouldn’t. Hell no. She was overcoming.

Dammit.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Adam and Dell exchanged a long look and she grimaced. “Okay, so I’m working on it.”

Dell’s eyes never left hers. “What’s setting you off?”

She shook her head. Not going down that road. Luckily for her the phones were starting to ring, and that was her cue. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Got to get the phones.”

“Jade-”

But she was already scrambling out of there for the sanctuary of her front desk.

Dell’s last few appointments of the day were worming puppies-always fun-and examining a twelve-year-old German shepherd suffering from pneumonia. The owner was Gil Roberto, the local mechanic. He and Max had been together for all twelve years. Gil was sitting on the floor with Max’s head in his lap, looking like he was about to face the firing squad. But Dell drained Max’s lungs in a quick procedure, and Gil was able to take Max home.

It was a good end to a rough day. Dell had kept his eye on Jade, but she’d played things close to the vest. Still, there was no doubt she was working hard at keeping it together, but whatever the other night had dragged back up for her, it had shaken her to the core.

Tired and dirty, Dell showered in the bathroom attached to his office. When he came out, he found Adam in his office chair, feet up, leaning back, messing around on Dell’s laptop. “You’d better not be looking at porn,” Dell said. “You crashed the entire system last time.”

Adam didn’t bother to acknowledge his brother’s presence.

“Don’t you have your own office right down the hall?”

“It’s your turn to buy dinner,” Adam said, still staring at the laptop screen. “I’m thinking pizza.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

Adam looked up and eyeballed him. “You figure out what’s up with our fearless girl?”

“No.”

“She’s still not sharing?”

“Would you?”

“Something bad happened to her,” Adam said.

“I know.”

“You going to ask?”

“No,” Dell said.

“Why not?”

Dell slid his brother a long look. “Did pushing ever help you?”

A ghost of a smile crossed Adam’s mouth. “No.”

Dell shoved Adam’s feet off his desk, and that’s when he realized… the office was clutter-free. He had two filing cabinets-usually fully loaded with stacks of shit on top-and then a credenza, as well as a set of chairs used as crap collectors. But everything was completely cleaned off. “Holy shit.”

Ever alert, Adam looked around. “What?”

“The entire room is clean.”

“Yeah, I assumed you finally shoved the entire mess into the trash to start over.”

Dell hauled Adam out of the chair, then sank into it himself, whipped around, and opened the drawers of the credenza.

Organized and neat as a pin.

“You get some sort of extreme makeover TV crew in here when I wasn’t looking?” Adam asked.

“Jade,” Dell said.

“Jade what?”

“She did this.”

“Actually,” Jade said from the doorway. “I brought in a hazmat team to handle it.”

Adam flashed her a rare smile.

“Wow,” Jade said, smiling back. “You ought to do that more often. Oh, and line one. It’s Holly for you.”

Adam’s smile faded.

Holly was the daughter of Donald Reid, an extremely wealthy businessman who’d bought up a bunch of failing ranches and had somehow turned them around in a bad economy. His daughter Holly had recently joined him from New York. She was some big financial wizard and the bane of Adam’s existence. Donald was rich, but also a big old softie, and often fostered young search-and-rescue puppies for Adam until they were old enough to be trained and adopted. The problem was, Donald had been spending a lot of time up north helping upgrade his sister’s ranch.

This left Holly handling the entire Reid empire, puppies included. She and Adam were oil and water, which was hugely amusing because it was nice to see the infallible Adam messed with for a change.

“I’m busy,” Adam said to Jade calmly, also amusing. The calmer Adam appeared, the more rattled he was.

“Already told her you were in,” Jade said. “Sorry.”

Adam’s left eye twitched.

Jade nodded. “And yeah, you should be afraid. Very afraid. That woman is one pissed-off client.”

Dell snorted, taking care to step out of the way before Adam could smack him upside the head.

“Why is she mad?” Adam asked Jade.

“Because you’re breathing,” Dell said. “She’s always mad at you. Question is, why? What did you do to piss her off this time?”

Adam’s expression was one hundred percent impassive. A battle-ready soldier. One who was staring at the phone like it was a spitting cobra. “I dropped off her father’s new puppy yesterday,” he said.

“Donald out of town again?”

“Yep.”

“Well, pick up the phone,” Jade said. “You can’t just leave her on hold.”

Dell leaned in and hit speaker on the phone.

Adam flipped him off, but with a resigned expression, he said, “Connelly.”

“You,” came Holly’s voice, crystal clear, and so cold icicles nearly formed in the air. “You did this to me on purpose, didn’t you? What was it, some kind of sick revenge?”

Jade looked at Dell but Dell shrugged. Hell, he had no idea. If Jade played things close to the vest, Adam was the master.

“Revenge?” Adam repeated as if discussing the weather. “For what?”

“You know damn well for what.”

“I’m in the middle of a meeting, Holly,” Adam said. “You’ll have to get to the point.”

“Okay, the point. The point is you’re an ass-”

Adam scooped up the phone, taking her off the speaker. “Calling me names isn’t going to encourage me to come rescue you. Again.” Adam paused, the picture of polite listening. “Is that even anatomically possible?” He listened some more. “Only if you ask me real nice-” He winced and set the phone back into its cradle. “She had to go.”

Jade shook her head. “It’s really such a surprise that you’re not married.”

When she was gone, Adam looked at Dell. “Pizza.”

“If you tell me what Holly said.”

“She said that if she ever got ahold of me, she was going to do to me what the puppy did to her Prada pumps.”

“Ouch.”

“Yeah. And she was pretty specific about where she planned on shoving the shoe remains.”

Dell winced. “So maybe we should go get the puppy and rescue Holly before we eat?”

“Hell, no. I’m going to bring her two more puppies later on tonight.”

Dell stared at him. “You’re insane.”

Unconcerned, Adam shrugged.

“She’s going to kill you.”

“She can try.”

Adam wasn’t playful much these days; in fact, he hadn’t been since he’d left the National Guard after a rescue had gone bad a few years back where half his team had been killed. In the time since, he’d been dancing around a boatload of guilt and a dash of PTSD for good measure.

But he was definitely showing signs of playfulness now. Or so Dell hoped. “Or you could stop baiting her and try something else.”

“Like?”

“Like sleeping with her.”

Adam slid him a look.

Now it was Dell who shrugged. “Or hey, go on living like a monk, driving the rest of us out of our fucking minds. Your choice, man.”

“Not all of us feel the need to sleep with anything in a skirt.”

“You used to,” Dell pointed out.

“Things change.”

Dell shook his head and left his office. Jade was standing at her desk pulling on a long, fuzzy angora sweater that Dell happened to know would cling to her every curve.

“Adam and I are getting dinner,” he said. “Come with us.”

She slapped a couple of disks into his hand.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Your backups.”

“I like my clean office,” Dell said.

“You mean you like having furniture that’s furniture instead of crap collectors?”

“It wasn’t that bad.”

“No, it was worse.”

Adam was grinning as he joined them. “Aw. Your first fight as an engaged couple.”

Jade ignored this. “I’ve laid out the payables that need attention and brought up all the outstanding receivables that I could find, though it’d be more accurate if you finished entering your accounting for this month.”

They’d all been running like crazy for most of the day. How had she managed to do all this as well?

“And with another few hours I could probably get your checking account reconciled.” She gave him a look of reproach. “You’re three months behind.”

“I’m getting to it.”

“If you do it in the first week of the new month, you can close that month out and your accounting system takes you all the way to the financial statements. Assuming you finish entering your receivables.”

Dell blinked. “For eighteen months you’ve been answering my phones and setting up my schedule and bringing my patients back to me like you were born to be a receptionist. You never once mentioned all these other talents.”

She grabbed Beans’s carrier and her purse and headed for the door. “My talents are on a need-to-know basis.”

Adam raised a brow.

Yeah. She was definitely feeling better. But then he saw it, her slight hesitation at the door.

She didn’t want to go to the parking lot.

“Adam,” Dell said. “I’ll meet you at Risolli’s.”

Adam never took his eyes off Jade, frozen in clear agonizing indecision. Nodding, he shifted around her, gently squeezing her arm before slipping out the door.

Jade mentally put on her big-girl panties and strode out the door the same way Adam had. Of course it was much easier to face her demons with one hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle at her back, and Dell was at her back. He followed her to her car, waiting silently while she set Beans in the back and buckled her in. A breeze blew across the lot, and a branch cracked. She stiffened, but Dell’s hand slid to her lower back, warm and sure. Steadying. She closed her eyes. “I’m just thinking about where I want to go for dinner,” she whispered.

“Risolli’s. Risolli’s is where you want to go for dinner.”

“Risolli’s is a heart attack in the making,” she said automatically.

“They have salads. Just think about it. And while you’re thinking…” He wrapped his arms around her, all the way around her from behind. “Think about this,” he said.

The hold was almost an exact replication of how she’d been grabbed that night and she froze.

“Where are your keys to the meds lockup, bitch?”

“I don’t have keys,” she said.

“Wrong answer.”

She heard the pathetic little ragtag whimper drag up from her throat. “Dell.”

“I know,” Dell murmured very softly. “It’s an aggressive move, and your heart’s pounding and you’re probably hardly able to hear me over the roar of the blood in your ears but listen to me, Jade. It’s just me, and you have nothing to be afraid of with me. Break free.”

“I can’t.”

“Goddess Jade doesn’t know the meaning of the word. Fight, Jade. Do whatever you have to do to get loose. You don’t have to be a victim.”

A moment ago she’d been happy to have him at her back but now that he was using it on her it was a different story entirely. She could feel the strength in his arms, the heat of him behind her and could hardly breathe.

He didn’t rush her, just gave her that same, steady patience he gave his animals. But she wasn’t an animal, and she couldn’t turn off her brain. This wasn’t going to work. “Dell,” she said hoarsely, the panic choking her. “Please-”

“First rule of self-defense. Stay calm and think as the situation develops.”

Calm was out of the question. Not with flashbacks making her vision blurry. Or maybe that was the lack of air since she was holding her breath.

“Second rule, show no fear or hesitation.”

Right. She’d get right on that.

“Breathe, Jade.” He brushed his jaw to hers. “Come on, tough girl,” he murmured softly, in direct opposition to the tight, unforgiving hold he had on her. “You can do this. There are many ways, but we’ll take it one at a time. I’m a bad guy. How do you get away from me?”

“I don’t know!” she cried, her hands coming up to grip his arm around her waist. But all that did was remind her of just how strong he was.

“The human skull is a powerful weapon all on its own,” he said. “Don’t waste your time trying to step on my toes or elbowing me in the ribs. None of those moves will do anything but piss someone off. Bash my face with the back of your head.”

“What?”

“Connect once, maybe twice with your attacker’s face or collarbone and you’ll deliver some serious damage, trust me. Do it.”

“Do it, give me your keys. Now.”

She shook her head, and another guy in a mask moved into her line of sight, roughly pushing someone.

Karen, a floor nurse.

Jade gasped when the second masked guy casually set the muzzle of his gun to Karen’s temple. “Bet you can find the keys now,” he said.

He was right. Jade pulled the keys out and threw them at him. He snagged them out of midair and, with a smile that still haunted her dreams, dragged her along with him to the drug storage.

“Jade.” Dell was saying her name, quietly but firmly, in a voice that demanded she pay attention. “Jade, you can do this. As soon as the adrenaline kicks in, everything will seem to happen in slow motion. If you stay calm, your mind will process thoughts so rapidly that it will even seem like you’ve got hours to make a decision on how to react.”

She closed her eyes and tried to fall into her adrenaline instead of fighting it. She didn’t manage until he tightened his grip. Then she drew in a breath and snapped her head back.

Dell dodged to the side, but she still managed to hit him on the cheekbone, and he immediately dropped his hold on her.

Spinning around, she stared at him, horrified.

But when he straightened, he was smiling. “Nice.” He lifted his hand to touch his cheekbone, already reddened.

“Oh my God. I hurt you.”

“That’s the point,” he reassured her, looking proud. “It works, Jade. Every time. I was only able to dodge it because I knew you were going to do it. With the element of surprise, you’ll break anyone’s hold on you.”

“Anyone’s?”

“You have to be confident. You have to picture it. You have to believe it. But yeah. Anyone’s. Now can we get some pizza? Adam’s a fucking diva when he’s hungry.”

She let out a breath, marveling over what she’d just done, more than a little desperate to believe. It’d been a long time since she hadn’t worried about the shadows and the boogeyman. She thought she was good at hiding it but apparently not. She’d seen the look Adam and Dell had exchanged. It wasn’t a new look, she saw it every time they dealt with a hurt or abused animal. It was their protect-theinnocent-animal look.

She hated that she was the hurt animal. Hated.

At least they hadn’t pressed her to talk about it, hadn’t called her out on her undeniably odd and peculiar behavior-at least not really-and for that, she’d been eternally grateful.

But she was pretty sure her pass was over.

“There are more moves, Jade,” Dell said. “I can show you how to break the hold if you’re grabbed from the front, too, and lots of other self-defense tactics.”

The power of that surged through her and overcame her embarrassment and shame. “Really?”

“Sure. After a couple of months of practice, you’ll be in lean, mean fighting-machine shape.”

A couple of months… “Dell. I’ve told you, I’m leaving at the end of the month.”

His expression didn’t change. “You’ve said that before and not gone back.”

Oh God. Is that what he believed? That she wasn’t leaving? “This time I am. I have to.”

A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Fine. You still have a month.” His face was still calm. Controlled. “We’ll make it work.”