For her, for him.
She knelt on the floor and opened Gracie’s kennel door. The dog’s tail went into wag mode immediately. She was beautiful, her coat shiny and healthy, her lines perfect for her breed. From a distance, she looked like a German shepherd, but she was sleeker, her body muscular and slim. Her dark chest, legs, muzzle, and ears contrasted with the warm brown of her body.
Piper knelt to pet her, but her eyes went to the door instead of Piper. Gracie’s ears went up and she cocked her head to one side. Jasmine’s voice came from down the hall. “Just this way.” When the sound of uneven steps reached Piper, she knew why the dog had perked up, and she had nothing to do with it. When Zach walked in, Gracie’s tail went wild.
Jeans and a blue pullover shirt with a collar never looked so good on most men. The knit fabric of the shirt stretched across his broad shoulders and the sleeves banded the muscles in his arms.
“Hey, Doc. How’s she doin’?” he greeted her.
Piper dragged air into her lungs. “Happier now you’re here. I’ve never seen anything like it. She’s really taken with you.”
He grinned and threw his arms wide. “What can I say?”
Piper shook her head at his cocky humor, but smiled.
“I probably smell like someone familiar,” he said as he moved closer. His walk, stiffer today than the day before, concerned her. He didn’t attempt to kneel, but bent to pat and stroke Gracie. The dog got to her feet, her actions as tentative as his. She held her leg up and hobbled to him to lean against his leg.
“Boy, we’re sure a pair, aren’t we, sweetheart?” he murmured as he ran his hand over her muzzle and ears, then down her body.
Piper couldn’t help but comment. “Your hip is worse today.”
He looked up, and hesitated just long enough to let her know he didn’t want to admit it. “Yeah. I’ll go over and use a friend’s hot tub later, which should ease it some.”
Was the friend female? The twinge of jealousy surprised her. She shoved it aside. She had no right to feel anything. “Actually you should probably wait another twenty-four hours before applying heat.”
“Thanks for letting me know. Where do you plan to walk her?” he asked.
Now she’d seen him move, she had serious reservations about him doing even this small task. “I can do this, Zach. Why don’t you take a seat in my office and wait for me?”
Understanding lit his eyes and he grimaced. “The hip will just get stiffer and sorer if I don’t work it, Doc.”
“I think you need to rest it.”
Zach cocked his head, and a grin spread slowly across his features that she felt all the way to the bottoms of her feet. “I’m okay, Piper.”
“No, you’re not.” She bit back the rest of what she wanted to say. What he did was none of her business. “We have a run out back. It’s important we keep her from getting too rambunctious for the first couple of weeks, until her hip starts to recover and the leg break starts to heal. The soft cast will slow her down some.”
He nodded. “Today, when we visit the master chief, I’ll ask him about commands. They usually choose words in another language that won’t be spoken by mistake. If we know how to get her to heel and lie down on command, it might be helpful.”
Piper placed a collar around Gracie’s neck and hooked a leash to it. The dog stood at attention, as though waiting for a command. “Has the master chief regained consciousness?”
“Yes. One of his team called to let me know. But his attackers did a job on him. It may be a month or more before he’s out of the hospital.”
“How did you find them?”
“Hawk, my CO, called around and got in touch with the master chief’s CO. The team is going to take turns visiting the hospital to make sure he’s covered. If he can identify the guys who attacked him, he may be in danger.”
She hadn’t thought of that.
“NCIS may get involved since it was a retired SEAL who was involved.”
“I thought that only happened on television.”
“No. They really do get involved in cases concerning active duty members. Master chief just retired, so I think they might want to look into his, too.”
It made sense to her.
She handed Zach the leash. “You lead on and I’ll follow. Just go two doors down to your right and out the back kennel door. I want to see how she does with her leg.” And she’d check him out, too. The way he moved troubled her.
Zach held the loop of the leash in one hand while he held the strap straight up and short, just as she would have instructed him to do. He guided Gracie down the hall. He was patient with the limping dog, allowing her to move at her own pace. Piper doubted he could move much faster himself.
Why were men so stubborn?
Once they were outside, Gracie lifted her head and sniffed the air, then seemed to heave a sigh of relief. She didn’t attempt to put any weight on the leg, though the cast kept her from bending her leg and displacing anything. She and Zach had almost done one full circuit of the small run when the dog finally managed the awkward business of squatting to pee with one stiff leg.
“I think one circle is enough, Zach. She’ll be slow for a few days until the trauma of the injury starts to heal.” She held the door for him to go through. “Do you have steps at your apartment?”
“No. It’s a ground-level four-plex on the beach. The three guys who rent the other units are military, too.” He walked Gracie back through the kennel room and down the hall while Piper followed.
“Does your landlord have any issue with you bringing a dog in?”
“No, I called to ask this morning. He was good with me taking her until the master chief goes home.”
“Good. I want to keep her here for three or four more days to be sure the hip and leg are doing okay. And I’ll take another round of X-rays before you take her just to be certain there are no issues.”
He walked Gracie slowly back to her kennel, his limp very pronounced.
“Which will also give you a few more days to recover before you take her home.”
“I have crutches in the car. I’ll use them for a couple of days until this eases off.”
“You might need to get another X-ray, just to rule out a break. Sometimes they don’t show up on the first X-ray.”
He unclipped the leash and bent to rub Gracie behind the ears. He looked up. “I’m okay, Piper. If I thought I wasn’t, I’d go in. We’re expecting a deployment, and my team will need me.”
Her heart seemed to drop into her stomach. “How soon?”
“We won’t know until it comes down. It could be a week, a month, six weeks, we never know.”
So this is how he lived. What if something happened to him? What if he left and she never saw him again? Her throat hurt when she swallowed. There was such a presence about him, an energy. She’d never experienced such an instant attraction to anyone before, not even David. A jittery, needy feeling swamped her.
She knelt to urge Gracie back into the kennel and closed the door. Rubbing her hands nervously on the seat of her jeans, she straightened. She turned to face him and lifted her hands to cup his face.
Zach’s eyes settled on her in surprise, then darkened with heat, offering her encouragement.
As she rose on tiptoe, he bent his head and met her halfway. Their lips came together. Instead of pushing, he kept the pressure a light caress, splaying a hand against the small of her back and urging her closer. He smelled like soap and something citrus, and when he strengthened the pressure of the kiss, she looped her arms around his neck.
Her stomach did a slow, sensual roll while her body came into contact with his solid, muscular one, yet his lips remained tender, taking hers, then releasing them, then taking them again. Though he didn’t use any tongue, the kiss still set off a series of combustible longings in intimate parts of her body, and turned her legs to jelly.
When he pulled back a little and looked down at her, embarrassed heat warmed her cheeks
. “I don’t normally kiss strangers,” she said.
His smile was quick, and his eyes lit with humor. “I’m not a stranger anymore.”
The tingle of arousal ramped to torment level. No, he wasn’t. She took a step back and ran her hands down his shoulders to his chest, then dropped her hands to her sides. She looked at anything and everything but him.
He took pity on her and asked, “Would you like to get some lunch before we go see the master chief?”
She jumped at the suggestion. “Maybe a taco or something quick.”
“Good enough. I know just the place. It’s on the way to the hospital.”
After that buildup, she wanted to grab his shirt and drag him to her apartment.
But it wasn’t going to happen. Not now, at least. She jumped into something once, and it had been a horrible, life-altering mistake. A mistake she and her family would never stop paying for.
Chapter 9
‡
Zach’s heart drummed against his ribs and his breathing was still a little rough. It had been the hardest thing he’d ever done, keeping the kiss at a low level when he wanted to consume her. The jasmine fragrance she wore was feminine and sexy. When her slender body had rested against his, it had set off a chain reaction he was still trying to deal with. At least the adrenaline from the sexual charge eased the pain in his hip.
He fought the urge to rest his hand possessively against the small of her back while they wandered down the hall to the waiting room.
Piper stopped by the desk and placed Gracie’s chart on the ledge there.
The receptionist, Sherry, laid a newspaper folded to an article in front of her. “There’s something in today’s paper I thought you might be interested in.”
Zach glanced at the headline. Rash of Robberies Hits Area Veterinary Offices.
Piper scanned the article. “Have you shown this to the others?”
“Not yet, but I will.” Sherry glanced up at Zach…then her attention shifted to Piper again, and something passed between them.
Piper brushed back a thick strand of hair from her cheek. Her hand trembled. “I’ll be back at five. I’m going to the med center to visit with Gracie’s owner.” She removed her lab coat and laid it across the rail. “Would you hang this up for me?”
“Sure.” Sherry flashed Zach a quick smile, took up the chart and the lab coat, and disappeared around the file shelves.
On the way to his car, Zach hit the key fob to unlock the SUV and opened the passenger door for Piper.
Once in the car, he buckled his seat belt and turned on the car. “When when was your office broken into?”
Piper stared at him, her lips parted in surprise. “How did you know?”
“The way you reacted to the article. Your hands were shaking.”
“We’re a new office, and just building our clientele. If word gets around, it may cost us customers. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything to anyone.”
“I won’t.”
When she continued to study him, he felt compelled to add, “Trust me, I can keep a secret, Piper.”
She shifted, obviously uncomfortable. “It was yesterday morning. I always come in early when I’m due in surgery. Someone was still inside the office. I hid in the surgery and called nine-one-one. They went out the back door.”
His muscles tightened at the thought of her trapped inside the building with someone who could have hurt her. “Jesus. Did you see them?”
“No. I was too busy being scared to death and praying they didn’t see me. I crawled inside a cabinet and clung to the phone until the police arrived.”
“I’m sorry.” He laid a hand over hers, which were gripped tight in her lap. After a moment’s hesitation she turned her hand to hold onto his.
Her throat worked as she swallowed. “They stole drugs, but they also stole bandages, sutures, needles, syringes and even some bottles of saline.”
“Sounds like more than just a break-in. They may be running a vet clinic of their own.”
“It’s what I think as well.” She paused and her voice dropped to nearly a whisper. “They got into our computers, too.”
That caused a ripple of unease. Gaining access to people’s home addresses and credit card numbers was a big deal.
“If you like, I can look around the business and give you some pointers about how to make it more secure. In fact, I have a friend who put in security systems for several months while he was undercover. He and I could put in some cameras and tell you how to update the security on your computers as well.” If Flash wasn’t gearing up for a deployment, he could help him do it. If he was, Zach could figure it out himself.
He withdrew his hand and put the car into reverse.
As he pulled out of the parking lot onto the street, she asked, “Why are you volunteering for all this, Zach?”
He glanced over at her and she continued. “I, mean taking care of Gracie and visiting Master Chief Flynn. Offering to help me.”
He drew a deep breath. If he was completely honest, she’d think he was pathetic. The truth was, if he didn’t have something to focus on, the walls would close in on him, and he’d have too much time to think about how empty his life was.
He stopped at a red light and ran his hands restlessly around the steering wheel. “Master Chief Flynn is a SEAL, and we look out for our own. And as for offering to help you…” He shrugged. “I have skills, I might as well use them.”
“What do you do on the weekends when you’re not working?”
“I bought a boat from a friend, a cabin cruiser. I take it out on the weekends and fish some.”
“Alone?”
“Sometimes. I have teammates who go with me most of the time, and my sister’s boyfriend, Callahan, comes out with me now and then.”
“No girlfriend?”
He realized there hadn’t even been any party girls in months. “No one steady for a long time.” He pulled through the intersection when the light changed to green.
“Why not?”
Was she going to try to talk herself out of going out with him? He could paint a rosier picture, but then it would end up biting them both on the ass later.
But, no. “I’ve done four deployments in the last five years, and we train a lot when we’re in the US. It doesn’t leave too much time to develop close relationships.” He glanced in her direction. “Women like boyfriends who are going to be around physically now and then to help keep the relationship going. When we’re working we can’t be here. There are times we don’t have access to a working phone or a computer. So, communication can be—difficult.” Non-existent. God, this was such a bad idea. She deserved so much better than he could give her.
The restaurant came up on the right. He hit his blinker, whipped the car into the parking lot, parked, and killed the engine. He’d had enough of this negative stuff.
They got out of the car and met along the back of it. “My oldest brother is forty and his wife, who is thirty-seven, is pregnant with their fourth child. I called my Dad to see how things are going. Mike’s been having sympathetic morning sickness for days.”
Piper chuckled. “You said your oldest brother. How many are there?”
“Seven brothers and one sister.”
“You have me beat. I only have four brothers and one sister.”
“With out-laws and in-laws and the kids, my mom and dad have to rent the recreation center at their church for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.”
“We have our own restaurant, so we just shut the place for the day and have everyone over there.”
His brows rose. “Bertinelli’s? That belongs to your family?”
“Yeah. I worked there summers and weekends through high school.”
“Great food.”
“They cater weddings and other things. I used to help with those, too.”
“Maybe I should suggest that one of my nephews or nieces should open an Irish pub to solve the family dinner issue.”
&n
bsp; “In Boston, right?” she asked while they walked around the building to the front entrance.
Zach tried not to limp so badly, but the hip was stiff as hell, and every step was starting to hurt again. “Yeah. I know I still have the accent. I’ve tried to shake it, but it always comes through.”
“Why would you want to? It’s part of your heritage.”
Jesus. He had to stop thinking in terms of his job. “I can speak Gaelic. Thanks to my maimeó.”
“That means grandmother, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah. She moved to America when she was eighteen, and married my grandfather at twenty.”
“And she taught you Gaelic.”
“Yeah. She felt the same way about heritage playing a part in our lives. I don’t have an ear for the languages, so I really struggled to learn it. Unlike one of my old teammates. Brett hung out with two girls in Ireland on leave and came back speaking it like he’d been born there. Maimeó was ready to adopt him.”
She chuckled, the sound light and feminine. “You sound a little jealous.”
Zach focused on her upturned face. “Naw, my maimeó and mom have enough love to go around for everyone. Plus, they’ve sort of embraced my team as part of the family. They have this habit of grabbing your face and looking you right in the eye, like they’re seeing everything you’ve been up to for the last year, and then they lay a kiss on you, like they’re either forgiving you for the stuff you’ve messed up on, or blessing you for the stuff you didn’t.”
Piper laughed, her cheeks flushed. “I thought only Italian mothers did that.”
They stood at the counter and ordered their tacos, and Zach paid the woman while Piper carried the tray over to the table and unloaded it, and Zach didn’t object because of his uneven gait. He didn’t want their food or drinks to end up on the floor.
“I assume you speak fluent Italian?” He held her chair.
Breaking Out (Military Romantic Suspense) (SEAL Team Heartbreakers Book 6) Page 8
