Calling His Bluff. Amy Jo Cousins

escaping from the blunt ponytail, there was no mistaking the graceful and supremely controlled kid she’d watched and wanted for years.

      “Yes, Dr. Evil?”

      “Better find something to call her instead of ‘stupid cat.’ She’s yours now.”

      She stepped outside into the frigid March air and headed toward where her Jeep was parked at the curb, leaving him to muscle the door shut behind her. Plastic bags and old newsprint pages blew past her ankles in the winter wind.

      “Hey Sarah.”

      He was standing in the doorway, one hand outstretched as if to hand her something she’d left behind. She opened the car door and slung her bag into the backseat before jogging back up to the building.

      “What, did I forget some—”

      He grabbed the collar of her coat and yanked her up against him, his other arm a tight band across her lower back, pressing her hips into his. She thought she’d go cross-eyed as he bent down toward her, his mouth a hairsbreadth from hers. She could smell the cabernet on his breath and felt the warmth of it feather over her.

      “I didn’t want you to go off thinking you’d had my best effort at kissing all those years ago.”

      Then he lowered his mouth to hers and she closed her eyes as J.D. kissed her for the second time since she was twelve years old.

      Chapter Two

      Two weeks later, she was still feeling that kiss. She’d nearly rear-ended a canary-yellow VW Bug at a stop sign because she was daydreaming about the taste of his mouth.

      It wasn’t fair.

      She’d been waiting her whole life for someone to match the slow roll and tumble in her stomach that she’d felt when she was twelve and her brother’s best friend kissed her on the lips.

      It was so unfair that the first and only person to make her feel that way again was that very same boy, now all grown up and far more dangerous than when he was fifteen.

      Not to mention the whole “still married” thing.

      It wasn’t like she hadn’t run into some good kissers in the years bookended by J.D. Damico. He wasn’t the first man to cup his hand against her cheek and slide his palm around to the nape of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair along the way. And he wasn’t the first man to grab the front of her jacket to pull her even closer. Or to pause for a moment, his mouth hovering over hers, to nip at her bottom lip.

      But that mouth. Damn. The moment his lips pressed to hers it was like someone had slid a hand up her thigh and whispered, “Lie down with me.” And the sudden wash of wanting him was a sharp cramp that left her breathless. His tongue in her mouth was a tease. The moment had passed too quickly, leading her to do some tugging of her own. She’d wrapped her hand behind his neck to pull his mouth back down to hers.

      A horn blasted behind her and she stepped on the gas without thinking. Slammed on the brakes and waved the car with the right-of-way through the intersection, making the “Sorry!” face at the other driver, who flipped her off. She stopped thinking about the kiss for ten seconds and managed to get across the four-way-stop intersection and into the itty-bitty parking lot that scraped alongside the veterinary clinic where she worked.

      She bumped the medical bag on her hip up against the metal plate at the back entrance so that the security scanner could read the card in the outside pocket. The door unlocked with a beep. She appreciated the high-tech setup at this clinic, but she would’ve put up with just about anything to get out of her previous clinic, from padlocks on the doors to gas lanterns for light.

      She didn’t know what it was, but something about her attracted older married men who were too self-aware to indulge in a midlife crisis by having an affair with a twenty-two-year-old blonde bombshell. It was as if they took one look at her and thought, “Hmm, the calm, quiet brunette in the corner there, what about her? Looks studious but pretty. No one could accuse me of going for flash there. And then maybe I can still get the Porsche.”

      She had only fallen for that with her first boss because he hadn’t gotten around to mentioning the fact that he was married until six months into their relationship. She’d needed a new job fast, particularly since things ended so badly. After she “accidentally” dropped a fifty-pound bag of dog kibble on his foot, he threatened to call the cops. She threatened to call his wife. She had avoided even speaking to her second boss whenever possible, only to find herself being chased around the examining table mere months later by another man having a midlife crisis, who promised he could help her “lighten up.”

      Blech. Now she worked for a woman, which was the selling point that had brought her on board. That and the off-street parking.

      She really did have terrible luck with men. The first man she’d fallen for had broken her heart without even knowing it, and things had gone downhill from there.

      Sighing, Sarah headed into the bathroom that doubled as an employee locker room. She spun the dial on her locker with one hand while she started stripping off her winter gear with the other. She grabbed her last clean lab coat, crammed her coat, hat, scarf, gloves, boots and medical bag into the too-small locker and bodychecked the door shut. She wouldn’t need any of it until this afternoon’s house calls.

      She spent half of each week making house calls—a stroke of genius on her boss’s part. There were plenty of wealthy pet owners in Chicago’s Gold Coast who were willing to pay top dollar for the convenience of not having to cart a pet off to the vet’s office and spend the morning in a waiting room.

      Although the pet owners were asked to have little Fluffy or Killer confined to an easily searchable area like the bathroom, she did spend a fair bit of time on her hands and knees peering under king-size beds and trying to coax out spooked animals. Still, it was a growing part of their business. Soon she might not need to put in any hours at the clinic except to do paperwork or the follow-up on complicated cases.

      This afternoon, she even had an appointment in the warehouse district. It would probably wrap up early, so maybe she would drop by J.D.’s to make sure he was following her instructions with the kitty. Give him some pointers on what to do when the kittens started coming. Bring him a bottle of wine to replace the one they’d split the other night.

      Maybe jump him where he stood when he opened the door.

      He was the one to push you away, she reminded herself. He’d backed off halfway through a kiss that had been seriously blowing her socks off, looking startled, like he hadn’t meant to take things that far.

      Yeah, she was ready to show him just how far they could take things.

       Down, girl. It was just a kiss. And he’s married, maybe.

      “Who am I seeing first?” she called out as she walked down the hall to the front desk. The day’s clients were already tangling and yowling in the small lobby.

      “I put them in exam room two. They were freaking out the rest of the clients.” Jackie, their nurse-receptionist, smacked a new patient file into her hand and grimaced.

      “Who?” There was little that shook the normally unflappable Jackie after two decades of animal handling. She’d seen, or stepped in, almost everything. “Is someone foaming at the mouth?”

      “No, thank god,” Jackie said. “Mr. Thompson and his seven-foot boa constrictor. Apparently the snake doesn’t like cages, so it’s just, you know, crawling all over him. People were practically scooting out the door to keep their distance. Yuck.”

      “No snakes for you, Jackie?” She flipped open the file.

      “Nothing that moves on dry land without feet. The snake ate Mr. Thompson’s son’s guinea pig, Squeak, this morning.” For the first time that morning, Jackie grinned. “He asked if we could get it back.”

      Sarah bit her lips together. Always avoid