by Nicole Snow
Even so, I could hear him the entire time, snarling about his daughter never forgiving him if he doesn’t come back home with her leviathan beast. Bit by bit, Ember and I massaged the ball forward and back up the boa constrictor’s esophagus.
It’s nearly closing time before I can make out the wet, glistening, textured red that’s something other than the snake’s inner esophageal tract.
There. The ball.
I quickly snap my hand out for a scalpel, and Ember responds instantly, placing it in my hand.
We couldn’t risk using a needle to do this earlier. Not when the snake might’ve choked on the deflated rubber, but now with a quick incision I pop the ball and then press down gently on the snake’s back to make the dodgeball deflate in a rush of air coming out through the reptile’s clamped-open jaws.
When I hold my hand out next, Ember’s right there with one of the large pairs of forceps, and I gingerly catch the rubber of the deflated dodgeball and slowly ease it out.
Within minutes I’m dropping the dripping, mangled mess into a specimen pan, then finally letting out my pent-up breath, snapping off my gloves, pulling my mask down around my throat.
“Once the sedatives wear off,” I say, “he’ll have a bit of a sore throat, but within a week he’ll forget this ever happened.”
Blake manages to pop his head through the double doors, face drawn and worried. “He’s all right? Mr. Hissyfit’s gonna live?”
“Yes,” I say, flicking him an irritable look. “But we need to have a talk about pet-proofing your home if you’re going to keep something as exotic as an adult albino boa constrictor in the house with a minor.”
“We take good care of him!” Blake protested. “There was just...just an accident and–”
“Please remember that adult boa constrictors aren’t bunnies. They’re able to unhinge their jaws to an alarming degree.” I narrow my eyes. “Now get out. Go home. Reassure your daughter. I’ll call you when your snake is out of recovery and ready to go home.”
Blake deflates like the oversized human puppy he is, bowing his head. “Sure, Doc,” he mumbles. “Thank you.” Then he perks, lifting his head again. “Wait, while I have you, what do you know about beekeepi—”
“Out,” I snarl, and he skitters off with an awkward yip, leaving the double doors swinging shut behind him.
With a sigh, I turn back toward Ember and Mr. Hissyfit, already trying to work out how we’re going to transport a snake that size between us without aggravating his injuries.
Only, I find a pair of sharp, furious blue eyes glaring up at me.
I blink, tilting my head. “Something you want to say, Ms. Delwen?”
“Don’t—don’t you Miss Delwen me!” she bites off.
Apparently, that would be a yes.
Firefly or not, she’s a hornet today. All fury, simmering with her color high, her little pink mouth drawn up in an angry knot, she yanks her lab coat off and flings it down on the table, revealing a rather sheer tank top that clings to her willowy body above another of those indecently short tennis skirts that stop just barely below the flare of her hips.
That skirt sways now as she plants her hands on her hips and takes two stalking steps toward me, before jabbing an accusatory finger my way.
“Do you have any clue how freaked out I was? You should’ve been here! This is your practice. Your job. You don’t leave an inexperienced tech alone with an emergency like that! He could have died, and I wouldn’t have had any idea what to do!”
I can only stare at her. As meek as she can be, the quiet way she dances and skitters around me like a little mouse, I’d never expected to see her so livid.
Angry enough to stand up to me.
Angry enough to take me to task.
Angry enough to shove her hands against my chest as she stalks closer still.
“What was so important that you had to run off like that, anyway?” she demands. “Pam said you were probably with that...that woman again. Is she more important than your job? Are you running out to have a fling, or is she like, an ex-wife or something?”
The idea of me with Fuchsia is so preposterous it doesn’t instantly click who she means. Then, stomach turning, I raise both brows. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“If anyone’s being ridiculous, Doc, it’s you.” She shoves at my chest again, so hot with frustration her eyes are wet, her expression breathtakingly angry. “I get you have your secrets, your life, but I need you here when things like this happen! I can’t handle it on my own. I don’t have the experience.”
She starts to shove me again, but this time I catch her wrists, stopping her. “Are you quite finished?” I bite off.
Ember stills in the strangest way.
She’s not tense, no.
It’s as though she’s suddenly become aware of me and gone completely motionless, just looking up at me as if she’s never seen me before.
There are so many emotions raging across her face that I actually can’t quite understand them, fury mingled with something else to leave her flushed, her lips parted on words that don’t come.
For some reason, I can’t stop looking at those parted lips. Her hair has come loose from its cap in soft platinum wisps that tease down against her cheeks, kissing at the corners of pink, glistening lips that only gleam softer as she darts her tongue nervously over them.
Just the sight of that red tongue-tip makes my heart throb violently, makes me painfully aware of the fragility of her wrists against my grip, her pulse racing against my fingertips in rapid flutters.
She stares at me with her eyes wide. Their blue is so clear, so vivid, it’s like looking at the sun shining through the most sapphire of waters.
I don’t realize I’m leaning closer to her until her breaths catch and she looks away quickly. I catch myself, my blood pounding, and take a shaky breath of my own. One that feels like I can taste her nervousness, her shyness, on the air and rolling over my tongue.
“S-sorry,” she whispers, a gentle quiver in her voice. She stares somewhere to the side and down but makes no attempt to pull her wrists from my grasp. “Sorry. I guess you’re right. I shouldn’t be prying at your life.”
“No. No...you’re right.”
There’s a passing tightness in my chest, and then I force myself to let go of my light grasp on her wrists to catch her hands, gripping them in mine. Hers are so small and warm, like there’s this current under her skin.
“My personal affairs are my personal affairs,” I say, “and I shouldn’t be putting them ahead of my patients—or my staff. Thanks for the reminder.”
She says nothing. Those wide blue eyes return to me, looking up with something like warmth.
Something I haven’t seen in so long that I’ve almost forgotten what it looks like.
Something I don’t deserve.
And I can’t let this girl make me need that. Particularly not from her. And so, before she can say anything, before she can make me need or worse, want, I make my move.
I gently release her hands and step back. One brief nod, and then I’m gone, turning my back on this quiet wisp of a girl who challenges me in ways no other ever has.
The way she looks at me tells me she thinks I’m more than what I am.
A better man. A better human. That she expects so much more of me, when if she knew me, truly knew me, she’d forget the snake. She’d forget every animal I’ve ever saved.
For the things I’ve done, she’d never forgive me for my crimes.
9
Dogging My Steps (Ember)
If my mother ever goes missing, I might as well confess.
I did it. Guilty as charged.
Because if she asks me one more freaking question about Doc, I’m going to strangle her.
I don’t want to think about him right now. I’ve been trying not to think about him for days, but even a week later, I can still feel the imprint of his heated fingers against my wrists like he’s bound me up in shackles of burning iron.<
br />
While his hands were on me, my heart nearly jumped right out of my chest. My whole body burned with a heat I swore was going to burn me down, every last bit of me prickling and so very aware of him so close. Up in my business after I’d gotten up in his in this breathless, electric way.
Holy Hannah. Where do I even begin?
That handsome face, those sensuous, wicked lips that can be so cold and yet looked so hot, the breadth of his shoulders, how easily he could overpower me without even trying.
Okay. Deep breath.
I may be a virgin, but I’m not dead.
For just a brief second, I’d wanted him to push me down on the steel lab table right next to the sedated snake, and...you get the idea. A wicked, wild rush right out of a romance novel, my guilty pleasure in college.
The problem is, Mom’s got plenty of grand ideas of her own, and I really don’t want to talk about Doc.
Then again, I don’t need to. Not when a picture says a thousand words.
I think my mother’s got an entire novel’s worth of pictures on her phone by now. She’s been trying and totally failing at hiding the fact she’s snapping them every time she’s dropped into the office for the day to make sure I’m eating.
Sure. That was her excuse. Treating me like a five-year-old.
Talk about saving face. Shameless or not, she can’t admit that she was really, truly there to steal yet another clandestine photo of my boss in his natural environment.
Which she’s happy to show me now as she leans across our table at The Nest. Her eyes glitter in the low, intimate mood lighting that’s been staged for the charity fundraiser that’s drawn the entire town out tonight. It almost feels like city life again, with all the extravagant decorations, the glitzy stage lighting, and everyone in their best dresses and suits.
Honestly, I feel a little underdressed in a layered, gauzy sundress, but no one’s really paying attention to me except Mom.
“Look,” she crows in a mock whisper. “This one’s gotten over six hundred likes in just a few hours! Six hundred, Ember! Your ma’s a star.”
“Uh-huh,” I mumble, then stiffen, jerking my gaze away from the podium where Felicity’s standing next to this slick, polished guy she told me was her new investor, Everett Peters.
Wait a minute...likes?
What likes?
I suck in a breath, snatching at her phone. “Whoa. Mom. No. I...please tell me you haven’t been uploading Doc’s photos online?”
“Oh, stop.” She waves a hand at me. “It’s no big deal. It’s just Instagram. Everybody uses it these days.”
“Mom!”
I stare in horror at the photo of Doc caught in a dramatic turn with his lab coat flaring around him and the late afternoon sunlight catching on glints of tired stubble along his strong, determined jaw. The number 623 is highlighted in red next to the little heart icon, but that’s nothing.
As I swipe through, I see more and more pics of Doc, from broodingly gorgeous face shots to full-body cut-from-life poses to close-ups on his working hands or on his sinful mouth as he nibbles on the arm of his glasses. Some only have a few hundred likes, but that one with his lips has reached over four thousand, and even as I stare, it ticks up a few more, notifications popping up in the corner of the screen.
Crap, crap, crap, and also crap.
I cover my mouth with one hand, my stomach plummeting into my knees.
“Oh my God, Mom—you can’t post these without his permission! Millions of people can see this stuff online!”
“Oh, not millions,” she says, ever-so-humbly. “Not yet, anyway. I only have twenty-six thousand followers. Not that many.”
“Not...that...many...” I echo, my voice dull.
God, I feel faint. Pressing my palm to my forehead, groaning, I push the phone back at her with a hiss. “Delete it. All of it, Mom. And don’t ever let him find out you’ve been doing this. You’re practically a stalker.”
“I’m just giving the lovely people what they want.” She pouts at me, then huffs and folds her arms over her chest. “Fine. Fine. Buuut...” With a sly smile, she picks up her phone and aims it toward Everett Peters. “Maybe I can find a lovely replacement model right here.”
“Mom, stop.”
But I already know she’s not going to listen – and I’m not going to push her about it too hard.
My mom’s not as big a cougar as she sounds, honestly. The whole man-hungry diva thing is just an act, kind of a defensive shield. Something she drew around her to help her cope after Dad. I suppose I can excuse the creepy Peters thing, too, at least he’s closer to her own age than Doc.
She just doesn’t deal with negative emotions well, and likes to treat everything like it’s a stage act, and anything serious is just the greatest laugh.
That includes her sailing around, ogling every available young man in a ten-mile radius – not that Everett’s young. He’s got to be in his fifties, but he’s got that dashing rakish movie star thing going on that makes you not care – and surreptitiously adjusting her bra to plump up her breasts under her little sequined top.
Fine, whatever. If she wants to take pictures of Peters, it’s better than taking pictures of Doc.
At least Mom stalking Felicity’s investor won’t get me fired.
And he doesn’t seem like the type to get upset enough to withdraw his support over something so silly, especially considering he’s matching every donation dollar for dollar. The tally glows above us on a big digital screen, while he and Felicity play the crowd like it’s a game show. I have to hand it to my cousin; she knows how to get people excited. Not to mention wired with all the complementary coffee.
It’s a charity auction, with the main prize being the use of The Nest for a catered evening affair of the winner’s choice, free of charge. I can’t help but think that the cost of all the lights and decorations probably would’ve covered half of Felicity’s bills alone, and I never really understand the matching-for-charity thing when Peters could probably afford the full amount himself without all this fuss and fanfare.
But if it gets my cousin what she needs, I won’t complain.
Still, I’m dreading Peters’ next round by our table and my mother making big fluttery calf-eyes at him. Ugh.
I’m also so distracted watching him charm another table that I don’t even realize I have company until a sheepish “Hi, Ember” draws my attention.
I turn my head to see Blake Silverton watching me like a little boy who’s hoping he’s off punishment, a little shamefaced smile buried in his coppery-brown beard, broad shoulders hunched, hands stuffed in his pockets. He’s no Doc, but he’s handsome in his own rugged blue-collar way.
Behind him, there’s a teenage girl who looks like she’s a little annoyed that hipster brought the eighties back in fashion. But she reluctantly plays along, from her punky sheaf of blue-and-pink segmented hair that’s been shaved in the back to her ripped miniskirt over black tights to the rebel jut of a lower lip painted dead-rose-petal reddish-black.
I guess she’s the real owner of Mr. Hissyfit, and the reason why Blake was losing his shit on me at the office – and why he still looks so apologetic now, even though I really don’t hold it against him.
Our pets are our babies. We’re not rational about them. Feathers or fur or scales, they’re the center of entire worlds.
So I answer his smile with one of my own, stirring my straw in my drink. “Hey, Blake. Hey...?” I crane around him to offer the young girl a smile.
She flings me a sullen look, but after a moment relents enough to offer, “Andrea.”
“Hey, Andrea. How’s Mr. Hissyfit?”
Her eyes widen before that sullen glare turns into a worried look and she goes from hardcore rebel-punk to soft teenage girl immediately. “He’s still having trouble swallowing,” she almost whimpers.
“Well, that’s normal for a little while, but he’ll be okay as long as you keep feeding him small portions. You can do that, right?”
She nods quickly, wide-eyed, then wrinkles her nose. “Chopping up dead mice is really gross.”
“I know,” I say dryly. “Want to know a trick to it?”
She nods again, perking up. “Please.”
“Freeze them first,” I say. “Then you’re just handling mouse-sicles, and it’s not so messy and doesn’t make you feel so bad. It’s easier to cut them into cubes small enough for Mr. Hissyfit, too.”
“Oh!” Andrea brightens. “That’s...not a bad idea!”
“Good one,” Blake agrees, his smile warming. “Seriously, Ember, thanks so much for everything you did.”
“It was only partly me,” I demur, my face burning, and I duck my head. “The rest of it was Doc.”
Blake chuckles. “Where the hell is he, anyway? He should at least make an effort to turn out tonight.”
“I have no clue. He doesn’t really tell me when he...”
I’d just leaned down to take a sip from my drink, lips parted over the straw when I detect movement. I’m still frozen in the same pose, my voice drying up in my throat, as the door to The Nest swings open and Doc comes striding in.
Speak of the very handsome devil. I’ve seen him out of his lab coat before, usually in old jeans and a t-shirt, but this?
My heart hurts in the best way just to look at him. Everything about him makes me want to forget the looking part and go straight to touching.
He’s wearing designer jeans, casually cut and well-fitted, with a stylish button-down shirt over them. You’d think Doc would be so straight-laced he’d tuck his shirt in, but he’s left it untucked but smoothly buttoned so that its very stitching highlights the breadth of his shoulders and chest, the taper down to his narrow waist and hips, the strain of thick biceps against the thin linen, the hard-corded bulge of his forearms past the cuffed sleeves.
Oh. My. Wow.
No exaggeration. He’s practically indecent when the material is white and he’s tanned enough that I can tell he’s not wearing an undershirt underneath. Not the way it clings to him.
I can practically see his naked skin, too, even pick out the faint paler shadow of a few scars against cut muscle. My mouth goes hot with this sudden need to do something I can’t define when I’ve never even touched a man in my life.
