Free The Vixen and the Vet by Katy Regnery

angle ,” she said.
    “Your angle?”
    “Maddox McNabb, the editor of the Phoenix Times . He didn’t like the story I pitched to him. I wanted to write a piece about the impact of an unwelcoming hometown on the psyche of a returning soldier.”
    “Cheerful stuff,” he said, secretly glad they’d shot down such a pitiful story line, despite its truth.
    “They don’t think it’s sexy enough.”
    He stopped in the gallery at the top of the stairs and faced her, two steps below, incredulous. “ Sexy ? Have you not mentioned … me ?”
    She rolled her eyes and grinned. “You don’t have to be pretty to be sexy. You’re plenty sexy, Asher.”
    For the second time in two minutes, his world was utterly rocked. He searched her face for mockery but didn’t find any. She said it so matter-of-factly, like she might mean it, like it could possibly be true. His heart pounded mercilessly against his ribs, and he felt his skin flushing with pleasure. He turned back around, pulling her into his office where he reluctantly dropped her hand to close the door.
    Sexy. “Yeah, right.”
    “Your legs go on forever,” she said softly, turning to face him from the center of his study.
    His gaze swept down her body, checking out her legs, tan and long in frayed shorts that reminded him of summer nights in high school, his once-perfect legs tangled together with some lovely, willing girl’s on a picnic blanket. “So do yours.”
    He watched, immensely pleased, as she blushed, shaking her head at him.
    “Have you read all these books?”
    Changing the subject. Okay.
    “Yes.”
    “ All of them?”
    “You’re my first social visitor in eight years , Savannah. Yes.”
    She clasped her hands behind her back and walked over to a shelf where the spines were especially colorful. Romance. It figures. It occurred to him to distract her by leading her over to his vast nonfiction collection and wow her with his knowledge of obscure world history, but it was too late. She had already figured out what she was looking at. He steeled himself for some teasing.
    “You said all , right?” she asked, giving him a saucy look.
    Oh man, she was something.
    “What can I say? I have a soft spot for romance.”
    “Well, that’s … sexy,” she said, turning back to the books. “Maybe I should write my article about an injured war vet who returns home and reads nothing but romance.”
    He shrugged. It wasn’t good, but it was better than the pity piece.
    She noticed the ladder by the wall that gave him access to the upper shelves and climbed up a few stairs, pulling out an especially gaudy cover. She read the back, then turned the cover to him. “ The Moor’s Maiden ?”
    He reached up to grab it away from her, but she raised her arm over her head, adopting the voice of a movie previewer as she read the jacket copy. “‘A dark loner from a faraway land … a buxom beauty from the green shores of England …’”
    “Give it,” he said, reaching again.
    She giggled. “‘… conquer their warring passions’—warring passions, Asher!—‘as they—’”
    He reached up again to take the book away from her, and when she leaned away, she lost her balance. His arm went around her waist like a vise as she fell, slamming into his chest, and he held her tightly against him until her feet touched the ground. Even then, he didn’t let go.
    She panted lightly, out of breath, her breasts pushing into his chest as her eyes searched his face. “S-sorry.”
    “I’m not,” he answered, trying to ignore the way his blood all flooded to one place, leaving him light-headed. His chest heaved lightly, not from the exertion, but from having her so close, in his arms, pressed up against him. If he died right now, he’d die happy.
    “Asher,” she breathed, licking her lips and pressing them together. “I’m okay now.”
    He realized what she was saying and loosened his arm, taking a step back, giving her the book. She took it, fanning the pages