Then Came You Read online

  “My dad. He’s not army,” she said. “But he’s just as pragmatic and stoic as my grandpa was. He’s a rescuer, always was. He spent most of his career working for the local shelters, doing whatever needed to be done without much thought or care to anything else.” Like his personal life.

  Including his family.

  “Makes sense,” Wyatt said. “He was raised by a military man.” He paused. “It’s not easy to make a living working just the shelters.”

  “No.” Though they’d always had the bare necessities, there’d definitely been a lack of comfort. “He doesn’t practice much anymore,” she said. “Hasn’t since my mom died.”

  Wyatt was quiet a moment, and she was extremely aware of his gaze on her face, and the fact that she’d given him a lot more than he’d given her.

  “Broken heart?” he asked.

  “More like a lack of interest,” she said. “She was his drive. He still rescues animals though.”

  “I meant what I told Dell, you know,” Wyatt said. “You’re good. And it’s nice that you’re following your father’s footsteps. Nicer still that you’re taking the less obvious route by coming to Idaho instead of the Beverly Hills gig.”

  She could have just not said anything, but unlike him, she didn’t have a tier for acceptable lies. “I wanted the Beverly Hills gig.”

  Something changed in his eyes, but he didn’t say a word about her choices or the reasons for them. He merely gave her another smile. “Maybe things work out for a reason. Maybe you’ll like it out here.”

  “Maybe,” she said.

  And look at that. Apparently she had a tier for lies, after all.

  Seven

  One week after Wyatt’s and Emily’s first real conversation in the staff room, he got up even earlier than usual and ran to the store for everything he needed. Then he dragged Darcy out of bed. Too tired to deal with her walker, he carried her down the hall to the kitchen.

  “What the—” she started grumpily, stopping when she saw the balloons, flowers, and blueberry muffins he’d just gotten.

  “Oh, good catch,” she said yawning. “It’s Zoe’s birthday.”

  “Yeah, and you’re going to help make a stupid big deal out of it.” Wyatt had long ago learned that the way to a woman’s heart was through gestures he didn’t always understand, so he knew enough not to question the power of celebrating a birthday in a huge way.

  This, through some trial and error over the years, had come to mean decorations no matter how “Hallmark,” and something delicious that wasn’t allowed on a normal day. Zoe had been claiming to be fighting five pounds all year, and had banned muffins from the house.

  But he knew she’d want one today, because according to her, calories didn’t exist on birthdays. Just like they didn’t exist for any dessert that had fruit in it.

  He shoved Darcy’s walker at her and gathered up all the decorations. Then he got them both down the hall and to Zoe’s room.

  There, they flipped on her light and sang “Happy Birthday” to her while she fought her tangled sheets to sit up, swearing at them the whole time.

  When that didn’t stop them from singing as loudly and off-key as they could—a sibling tradition—she threw her pillows at them.

  And then the book on her nightstand.

  Wyatt ducked in time, but the book knocked a lamp over. Of course it broke, and then Darcy cut her finger on the glass. They yelled at each other over the lamp, the glass, Darcy’s cut finger, and then Wyatt shoved Zoe’s present beneath her nose.

  A gift certificate to an entire day’s pampering at the spa.

  She went still, and then, oh Christ, her eyes filled. She chucked her last pillow at him. “How did you know I needed this more than my next breath?” she demanded.

  Wyatt smiled and tossed her a box of tissues.

  Darcy punched him on the arm. “Don’t you dare take credit for knowing,” she said, and then turned to Zoe. “He knew because you left us a very specific list, as you damn well know. You e-mailed, texted, and put it on Facebook.”

  Zoe laughed. “Oh, yeah.” She held out her arms.

  Wyatt and Darcy both took a mistrustful step back. Well, Wyatt did. Darcy, gripping her walker, ducked reflexively.

  “No, I mean it,” Zoe said, and waggled her fingers in a “come here” gesture. “I want a damn hug.”

  “You need a Midol to go with it?” Darcy asked warily.

  “No!”

  Hoping to avoid yet another physical altercation, losing any more furniture—or his head—Wyatt shoved Darcy ahead of him. Naturally, the “hug” included some noogies and lots of bone crunching, but hey, there was no more bloodshed.

  And then he heard the telltale sniff. Grimacing, he pulled back and gave Zoe a pained look. “Again?”

  She swiped a tear. “Dammit! I didn’t expect to get all sappy. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “It’s because you’re old now,” Darcy said.

  Wyatt wrapped an arm around her neck, covering her mouth with his hand.

  “Mmffl!” Darcy said.

  “Zip it, I’m saving your life,” he said. He looked at Zoe. “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” She sent them each a watery smile. “I know this is a birthday, but I gotta say, the crazy makes it feel a lot like how our first Thanksgiving together with just the three of us went, doesn’t it?”

  They’d never celebrated Thanksgiving growing up. They’d never been in the States in November. But they’d celebrated this year, and not surprisingly, had fought like cats and dogs. Being here together now, fighting like cats and dogs yet again, he agreed that this was exactly what Thanksgiving had been like—crazy as shit. And crazy wonderful.

  * * *

  The next few days at work with one adorably sexy Dr. Emily Stevens flew, and he was getting pretty good with the ignoring thing. Or at least he’d done a good job with the faking of the ignoring thing.

  Because she, with her tough, smart ways, was pretty damn difficult to ignore.

  Except she wasn’t going to stick. She had one foot out the door. He didn’t have to work at remembering that—he couldn’t forget it. “So,” he said conversationally as they scrubbed up for their first patient. “How many days left?”

  “Three hundred and forty-seven.”

  He’d been just teasing her, but her ready answer was a sober reminder. Like his parents, like his ex-fiancée, like at least one of his sisters, she was yet another person in his life with one foot out the door. He needed to remember that.

  The day was long and challenging as they saw twenty-two patients. They’d done their best for each of them, and each of them had appreciated it. It had been in every soft, warm lick, every tail wag, and in some cases, a rumbly purr.

  It was the people who owned his patients who were the pains in his ass.

  Mr. Thicket hadn’t appreciated being kept waiting and had bellowed at Jade behind the receptionist desk.

  Since Dell had flown north to a client’s ranch to inoculate horses that morning, Wyatt was in charge. When he heard Mr. Thicket go off, he excused himself from a patient’s room and strode out to the front, standing in front of Jade’s desk, hands on hips to face Mr. Thicket. “Problem?”

  “You have incompetent help.” He jabbed a finger at Jade.

  Wyatt couldn’t see Jade, but he could feel her narrow her eyes. Jade was a lot of things, and maybe impatient was one of them, but incompetent? Hell, no. In fact, she was just about the most competent woman he’d ever met.

  “You need to fire her,” Mr. Thicket said.

  Wyatt had a very long fuse, but that fuse didn’t extend to a guy taking his frustration out on a woman, no matter that the woman in question had a baseball bat behind her desk and knew self-defense moves that could take down a man twice her size. “You have two choices,” he told Mr. Thicket. “Wait outside while I treat your dog, or go somewhere else to be treated.”

  Mr. Thicket glared at him, weighing his options. There weren’