Free Animal Attraction by Jill Shalvis

out of her lungs. “What now?”
    “Mew,” Beans said.
    “Right.” Baby steps. She headed straight to the kitchen, specifically the freezer, grabbing a big wooden spoon on the way. She had a date, after all. A threesome with Ben & Jerry. Then she’d take a long shower, go to bed, and figure the rest out in the morning.
    Baby steps.

Five
     

     
    D ell rose before dawn. Not that he was a morning person by choice. Nope, if left to his own devices, he would stay up all night, but these days he had early morning responsibilities.
    Of his own making, at least. He’d made this life for himself. He’d bled and sweated for it.
    And he loved it.
    But as he rolled out of bed at the asscrack of dawn and into a shower, he’d have given his left nut for a few more hours since he hadn’t fallen asleep until an hour ago.
    Couldn’t, not when he kept reliving the look on Jade’s face from the night before.
    Mindless terror. That’s what he’d seen when she’d torn out of his parking lot.
    It’d been so different from anything he’d ever seen from the coolly poised woman who sat running his world every day that it’d taken a moment to compute.
    It’d been all he’d thought about all night, the image of her beautiful face, pale and stricken. She’d collected herself somewhat by the time he’d gotten to her loft, but when she’d opened the door he could practically feel the vibrations from the trembling she was trying so desperately to control.
    Her fake bravado had broken his heart. What the fuck had happened to her? He’d stepped inside, intending to get answers, but one look at her face had told him no answers were going to be forthcoming.
    And then she’d looked at his mouth. He’d read her thoughts and body language as clearly as if she’d spoken out loud. She hadn’t wanted to discuss what was wrong, but for that single beat at least, she’d been amiable to losing herself in his arms.
    Not much shocked him these days, but that had. All this time and she’d never expressed an interest in him that way. In fact, she’d gone out of her way to make sure he understood that she wasn’t attracted to him.
    Until two nights ago after Crystal’s. In the cab of his truck, giving each other mouth to mouth, everything had changed.
    And then changed again when she’d vowed to ignore their connection.
    Neither of them seemed to be capable of that, but not for lack of trying. “Come on, Gert,” he told the still sleeping St. Bernard. “Let’s hit it.”
    Gertie closed her eyes. Her version of possum. She wasn’t a morning creature, either.
    “If you don’t get up, you won’t get a cookie.”
    Gertie scrambled to her feet. Dell drove to Belle Haven and parked next to a freshly washed, shiny truck, its interior so squeaky clean he could have eaten off the dash.
    Adam’s.
    It’d been the military to drum home that neatness in his brother, but Dell didn’t have the same compulsion. His truck was covered in a fine layer of dust on the outside and Gertie hair on the inside.
    The front door of the center was locked, lights off. Alarm on. The security system was being upgraded this week, a direct response to the vet clinic robberies.
    It wasn’t going to be his place they hit next. Or if it was, he’d be prepared. Once upon a time he might have been an easy mark but those days were long over.
    It was an hour before any of his staff would show up, and as he knew Adam had, he walked around back.
    He kept their horses, Reno and Kiwi, here. Dell handled most of the day to day care of them, but on this foggy morning as he made his way to the pens, only one equine head appeared to pop through the fog as she neighed a soft greeting.
    Kiwi.
    Reno and Adam were gone. “Aw, you got left behind,” he said, laughing when she butted her face to his chest, knocking him back a step, letting him know what she thought of being deserted.
    Kiwi always played hard-ass. “Much like another woman in my life,” he said.
    Kiwi snorted