Puppy Love. Kelly Moran

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СКАЧАТЬ wow. So young. I'm sorry. That must've been hard.”

      No sugarcoating that. “Took us all by surprise. He started the clinic thirty years ago. My brothers and I never thought of doing anything else but following in his shoes.”

      She nodded. “Has Flynn always been deaf?” Her cheeks flamed. “Is that too personal?”

      “Nothing's too personal around here. And yes, he was born deaf. Fluke of nature.”

      “And Drake? I didn't get to see much of him, what with my eyes closed and me on the floor.”

      He barked out a surprised laugh. “Drake. What to say about him?” Nothing she wouldn't find out via town gossip. “He's…mourning. He married Heather, his high school sweetheart, right out of vet school. She died from an aggressive form of ovarian cancer three and a half years ago.”

      Avery was silent as she stared out the window, rubbing circles over her collarbone. As he was about to ask if she was all right, she cleared her throat. “I would be devastated.”

      Drake had been beyond devastated. He'd been wrecked. He was getting better, but it had taken Cade and Flynn a year to even get him to go anywhere besides the clinic, and another year to pack up Heather's things to send for charity. Seeing his brother like that made Cade never want to fall that hard for someone, never sink that deep.

      “He took it rough. You haven't met her yet, but Zoe was Heather's best friend. Zoe's our groomer. She has a little workshop attached to the back of our building.”

      She seemed lost in thought as he made the turnoff for the store. “Who did the murals in the clinic? They're wonderful.”

      He grinned, happy for the topic change. “That would be Zoe. She paints when she's not wrestling dogs into bathtime submission.” He parked and cut the engine before turning to look at her head on, his arm on the back of her seat, hand inches from her soft brown waves.

      “Are you really okay with hiring me?”

      Something told him not to brush off her question too casually. And hmm. She had a light dusting of freckles on her nose he hadn't noticed before. Her berry scent rose to claim him. He never thought fruit could be such a turn on.

      “I'm very okay with hiring you.” Suddenly, he had the strongest urge to prove to her not all men were dicks. But he'd been an ass the night they'd met, so her opinion of him couldn't be that high. It didn't sit right in his gut. “I'm sorry for the way I behaved when you brought in Seraph. Truly, I am.”

      Her lips parted and her breathing grew deeper. “You said that.”

      Forcing his gaze to hers, and not dropping it to her mouth like he wanted, he swallowed. “Bears repeating. I'm sorry.” He studied her another moment. “Can you do the job?”

      She blinked. “Yes.”

      One corner of his mouth quirked in a grin, the one he knew drove women crazy. Charming her had just become his mission. Damned if he knew why. “Then stop worrying about it.”

      * * * *

      Two hours into her new job on Monday, Avery knew she'd been handpicked for the position by the divinity himself. To use the term clusterfuck would be putting too much of a positive spin on the lack of organization.

      They were going by a paper chart system, and there was no rhyme or reason to where they were stored. Some were in the back room, some on the front desk, others in the doctors' offices. It made her brain hurt. There was a small storage closet off the patient room hallway that wasn't in use.

      After she'd finished her new employee paperwork, she turned to Rosa. “Can I do some organizing?” She didn't want to overstep her boundaries, especially on the first day, but to continue this Dr. Seuss system would waste patient time. Rosa would only be training her for two weeks before she retired, so now would be the best time to get anything done while someone was around to man the desk.

      A slow grin spread over Rosa's face. “Organize, you say?”

      “Um, yes.” Why was she grinning like that?

      Squawk. “Crazy.”

      Avery eyed the cockatoo on the perch by the window. She didn't know if the bird was calling Rosa crazy, Avery's attempt to organize crazy, or if it meant in a general sense. Either way, the feathered beauty was growing on her. It said the most random things and only spoke in song lyrics. She'd laugh if she could breathe among the clutter.

      “You go right ahead, my dear. Organize to your heart's content.” Rosa's grin was calculating, and after what Cade had told her a few days ago, Avery figured she'd best not ask.

      Without a word, she made her way down the hall and propped open the storage closet, deciding to start in Cade's office. She eyed the two tall filing cabinets before chancing a peek inside the drawers. Empty. Shaking her head, she moved them into the storage closet along the wall, and proceeded to do the same thing with the empty filing cabinets from Drake and Flynn's offices.

      She went back up front. “Which charts are for deceased patients?”

      Rosa waved her hand behind her to the stack teetering by the printer.

      Avery found a tote in the back room and dropped those charts inside before dragging it to the storage room in a corner. With one wall lined with filing cabinets, the other was bare, so she moved a few filing cabinets from the front desk area into the storage room and got to work putting charts away and labeling the drawers. By the time lunch rolled around, she was to the M's.

      Cade walked past the room, stopped, and turned. He eyed her handiwork and put his hands on the top of the doorframe, stretching his light blue scrub top over his muscles. “Whatcha doing?”

      Caught between filing cabinets and, well…a hard place, she pressed her lips together, trying not to stare at his yummy body. “Charting.” She paused. She had asked Rosa first, but Animal Instincts belonged to Cade, Flynn, and Drake. “Are you mad I moved things?”

      Humor infused his eyes, igniting all that blue. “Nope. Why don't you go to lunch? Or better yet, head over to the deli with me.”

      She bit her lip. “I was going to pop over to Hailey's school. You know, stalk her to see how she's doing.”

      His grin was slow and knowing. “Nervous, Mom? I'm sure she's doing fine.”

      She rubbed her forehead. “I know. It's just, she's…”

      “Never been away from you this long?” He dropped his hands from the doorframe, still smiling. “Go on then, mama bear. We'll get lunch another time.”

      Mama bear? His tone was amused, low, raking over her skin. She shivered. Shivered, damn it! And why was he asking her to lunch? Before she could say more, he stepped away, leaving her to fan herself with a chart.

      Brent walked past, chuckled as if the tech knew she was having a hot flash, and sashayed away.

      Like it was her fault Cade was so lick-able.

      Donning her coat, she walked the few blocks to Avery's school to get some air and chewed on a granola bar. It tasted like cardboard with chocolate chips, but she swallowed it to get something in her stomach.

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