Page 66 of The Cajun Doctor

“No.”

“I think Emily likes you.”

“Nice try.” If Aaron were here, he’d be making jokes about my sorry love life, that the only female I can get is a pig.

“Oh, all right. I’ll notify my office that I won’t be in today.”

If she expected his thanks, she had another think coming.

“I’m supposed to deliver three of the puppies to new homes today, though. That, I can’t cancel.”

“I’ll go with you,” he offered. Just to make sure she didn’t disappear on him and stick him with her menagerie. And it would be three less creatures in this zoo. Plus, maybe they could stop along the way and buy a bedroom set for one of the guest rooms (Aunt Mel’s, if she came) and a new fridge.

Stop along the way?

Yeah, right.

Maybe I should stop along the way and get a brain transplant.

“Another thing, no new rescues while you’re staying here,” he said.

“Meanie,” she grumbled.

“I think I’m being damn generous.”

“You’re right. Sorry.” Then, out of the blue, she said, “You better go now.”

Huh? “Why?”

There was a long pause before Samantha revealed, “I haven’t had sex in over a year.”

Oh, boy!

Oh, boy oh boy oh boy!

He blinked at her, not because he was trying to see in the dark, but his brain appeared to have shorted out. A definite possibility, he decided, when he told her, “Neither have I.”

The silence could be heard like a gong.

“Why did you tell me that? Was it an invitation?”

“No! Just a statement of fact. Maybe a reason why it would be better if I were not staying here.”

Another ploy to shuffle all her problems off on him.

Well, two could play that game. “Or a reason to stay,” he suggested. Now, that was a Rhett-type remark, he decided with a smile, which she luckily could not see.

Daniel left before he said or did something he would later regret, any more than he already did. He took another shower. Forget rain forests. This time he dialed a blistering Arctic blast.

It didn’t help a bit.

Tara was never like this . . .

Samantha thought she’d never be able to sleep, but then she zonked out so soundly that she didn’t wake until seven a.m. Usually, she was up and about at dawn.

One reason for her late awakening was lack of her animals calling for business, the animals all being downstairs and behind closed doors. Plus, she’d been exhausted, mentally and physically.

And she wasn’t going to think about the effect Daniel’s kiss had on her last night, or her revelation about her nonexistent sex life, not to mention his own words about his equally celibate lifestyle. It gave a girl way too much to think about it. Luckily, she’d had no more of the annoying sex dream fantasies about him. Maybe they were gone for good now that she was in such close proximity to the Alaskan bad boy.