His gaze takes in my rumpled appearance, the makeshift bed I'd created with clinic blankets, my messy hair, the way I'm standing too close to Dusty's cage.
"Did you actually sleep here?"
Heat floods my cheeks. "I didn't want him to be alone. He was scared after surgery, and I thought..." I trail off, feeling stupid. "I know it's probably against some kind of policy."
Something tender flickers across his features, softening every hard line. "It's not against anything. It's just... most people wouldn't think to care that much."
"You look like hell," I blurt, then slap a hand over my mouth. "Sorry, I meant—"
"No, you're right. Feel like it too."
He drags a hand through his already destroyed hair. "Please tell me this place has coffee somewhere, or I might actually die."
"I'll make some strong enough to wake the dead. Just let me grab clean clothes from my van and rinse off the clinic floor first. I swear I'll be fast."
"Take all the time you need. We don't open for another hour, and I'm in no shape to see people yet."
Twenty minutes later, I emerge from the clinic’s cramped bathroom feeling almost human again. The shower was pure heaven after a night on unforgiving tile, and clean clothes make me feel like I might actually survive whatever today throws at me.
The clinic's kitchen is tiny but functional, with a coffee maker that's seen better decades and a mini-fridge stocked with basics. I brew coffee strong enough to raise the dead, which Colt desperately needs.
"How's our patient?" he asks, melting into a chair at the small table like his bones have given up.
"Much better. He ate some kibble and drank water earlier." I pour coffee into a mug that says 'World's Okayest Vet' and try not to notice how the morning light turns the stubble along his jaw into golden sandpaper I want to touch.
"This should resurrect you." I turn to hand him the coffee, and our fingers collide as he takes it.
The contact shoots through me like lightning, igniting something warm and dangerous low in my belly.
From the way his green eyes go molten, I'm pretty sure he feels it too. For one stolen heartbeat, we just stare at each other, the air between us crackling with electricity I'm nowhere near ready to acknowledge.
"Thank you," he says, his voice gone gravelly and low, like he's been thinking the same dangerous thoughts I have.
"You're welcome," I breathe, completely unable to look away from his mouth and wondering what it would taste like.
The front door detonates open with enough force to make the windows shudder, obliterating whatever spell we were weaving. Heavy footsteps echo through the reception area, followed by a voice that could cut steel.
"Where is he?"
Colt's face hardens instantly. "Beau."
The name comes out like a curse, and I watch every trace of warmth bleed from his expression. He sets down the coffee with deliberate control and stands, his whole body coiling for a fight.
"Stay here," he orders, but I'm already trailing him toward the reception area.
Like hell I'm missing this testosterone showdown.
The man commanding the middle of the clinic is exactly what I expected and absolutely nothing I could have prepared for.
Beau Blackwell is tall, easily six-three, with shoulders that scream manual labor and a presence that devours the room like an approaching storm. Dark hair styled to perfection despite the ungodly hour, wearing the Montana cowboy uniform of faded denim, scuffed leather boots, and a flannel shirt that's survived actual work.
A cowboy hat dangles forgotten from his fingers like a prop he no longer needs.
But it's his eyes that steal my breath. Piercing gray that seem to catalog every detail, every weakness, every secret.
He's formidable in the way mountains are formidable. Beautiful and absolutely immovable.
"Mercer." The single word cuts like a blade.
