﻿“If you give me grief about running home to Northbridge with my tail between my legs, I swear I’ll punch you.”

A grin stretched across Boone’s face. “Nah, home is where we’re supposed to go when life hits you hard. It’s good you’re here.”

Not wanting him to know how much impact something so simple could have on her when it came from him, Faith said, “I’d better go.”

“It’ll be OK, you know,” he said.

She nodded. “Sure.”

“Trust me,” he said. “Yeah, I know. Why should you trust anything I say when I started out making things harder on you, right? When I acted as if you didn’t have any business coming back here? Well, trust me, anyway. I’d never lead you astray.”

“Too bad,” she joked before she even knew she was going to say anything.

His grin let her know he’d liked it. “Well, maybe not never.”

For another moment his too-beautiful-to-belong- to-a-man blue eyes delved into hers and then, without warning, he tipped his head to one side and kissed her.

VICTORIA PADE

is a native of Colorado, where she continues to live and work. Her passion – besides writing – is chocolate, which she indulges in frequently and in every form. She loves romance novels and romantic movies – the more lighthearted, the better – but she likes a good, juicy mystery now and then, too.

The Doctor
Next Door

Victoria Pade

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

Before you start reading, why not sign up?

Thank you for downloading this Mills & Boon book. If you want to hear about exclusive discounts, special offers and competitions, sign up to our email newsletter today!

SIGN ME UP!

Or simply visit

signup.millsandboon.co.uk

Mills & Boon emails are completely free to receive and you can unsubscribe at any time via the link in any email we send you.

Chapter One

“What do you have all over your face, Charlie? Did you get into something out there?”

Faith Perry didn’t expect an answer from her schnauzer as she let her dog in from the backyard, but the silver-gray purebred responded with a whimper anyway.

“Come here, let me see,” Faith urged, bending over to take a look.

But what was soaking the animal’s beard and had dribbled onto Charlie’s chest and front legs wasn’t mud or muck from a yard damp from an early April rain. It was blood.

“Oh! Charlie! Did you kill something?”

Charlie whimpered again and looked at Faith with big, beseeching black eyes that finally caused her to register that the mischievous dog might be hurt.

Faith picked up the fifteen-pound pooch she’d owned for about a year, carried her through the kitchen into the living room and sat down with Charlie in her lap.

On closer inspection, Faith could see that the blood was coming from inside Charlie’s mouth.

With some worry that she was going to find a dead bird or part of a squirrel inside, Faith grimaced and pried her pet’s jaws apart.

There was more blood in Charlie’s mouth but there wasn’t anything else. Except for a very broken tooth.

“What did you do?” Faith lamented sympathetically.

It was four o’clock on a Sunday afternoon in her small hometown of Northbridge, Montana. Faith had been in town less than twenty-four hours and she had no idea if the local veterinarian—who had been ancient when she’d left Northbridge eleven years ago—was still in practice. Or if there was another vet or if Northbridge might have joined the twenty-first century and gained an animal hospital.

She did know that she had to get her dog to someone, though. Right away.

“You poor baby,” she muttered to Charlie, taking her back into the kitchen.

She set the animal gingerly on the tile floor, gave her a loving stroke and said, “Just sit and let me figure this out.”

To Faith’s surprise, Charlie minded her.

“Oh, you must be in bad shape,” Faith said of her pet’s unusual compliance.

Until the day before, the house had not been Faith’s primary residence. It had only been a place for her and her former husband to stay when they were in town. Because of that, it wasn’t well-equipped with things like a current telephone directory. Hoping that she had even an outdated one, she hurried to the laundry room off the kitchen.

“Keep your fingers crossed,” she said to the companion who had no fingers to cross.

Still, she counted herself lucky to find the mail-order-catalog-sized phone book in a cupboard and she quickly returned to the kitchen to search the two-year-old listings.

“No, no more old Doc Chapman,” she said when she couldn’t find the old veterinarian’s name listed. “Boone Pratt—he’s the vet now,” she told Charlie. “I knew that. My sister married his brother—and an emergency call about an animal was the reason he wasn’t at the wedding. I should have remembered.”

But in the time since Faith had left Northbridge she hadn’t put much effort into keeping up with anyone in the small town other than her family. And even when the information had been shared with her recently, she hadn’t retained a lot of it. Her life had been too much of a mess lately for her to have grasped much beyond her own problems and immediate family matters.

Her cell phone was on the counter and she used it to dial the number for the veterinarian’s office. Maybe someone was on duty this weekend.

No such luck. On the second ring the other end of the line was answered by a recorded female voice.

Office hours were given before an in-case-of-emergency number.

Cursing her own stupidity for not being prepared with pen and paper, Faith repeated the number out loud, over and over again as she ended the call and dialed it.

“Come on, come on, come on,” she said impatiently to each unanswered ring. “You’re the only vet in town, what am I going to do if you don’t pick up—”

“Yo.”

Yo?

“Is this Boone Pratt?” Faith asked.

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

Faith reminded herself that she was in Northbridge. Things were much more casual here.

“This is Faith Perry—”

“Faith,” he repeated, obviously needing no further explanation. Of course, it was Northbridge. They had grown up together, been in the same grade all through school. And her cousin Jared was marrying his sister, Mara, next Sunday. It wasn’t as if she were a complete stranger even though, to Faith’s knowledge, she hadn’t set eyes on the man since high school graduation.

“I’m sorry to bother you,” she continued, “but I just got to town, my dog seems to have broken a tooth and I guess you’re the vet.”

“No guessing about it. I am. The only one in town.”

He’d gone from the laid-back, friendly yo to a much more curt tone of voice. But then they’d never been friendly, so maybe this was his version of professionalism.

“How bad’s the tooth?” he demanded.

“Bad enough for me to see that it’s broken and for there to be blood all over.”

“I’ll have to meet you at my office. Do you know where that is?”

Because the directory was still open she was able to read out the address that put him just off of Main Street and only a few blocks from Faith’s house.

“That’s it,” the vet cut her off before she got the complete address out. “I’m in the middle of something at my place outside of town so it’ll take me about half an hour to get things under control here and drive in. I’ll see you there.”

Click.

That was it, he’d hung up.

“Well, okay…” Faith muttered to herself, taken aback by the man’s abruptness.

But at that moment manners—or the lack of them—was less a concern than getting Charlie taken care of.

Faith arrived at Boone Pratt’s office exactly half an hour after calling him. But when she carried Charlie from the car to the door she found it locked. Peering through a plate-glass window, she saw no sign that anyone was inside, so she sat on the wooden bench below the office window to wait with Charlie in her lap.

Fearing she might hurt the dog, Faith had only gingerly washed the blood off of her pet’s fur. Charlie wasn’t as much of a mess as she’d been when she’d come in from outside but she wasn’t altogether clean, either. Faith was embarrassed to bring the animal in with matted hair, but putting Charlie through a bath had seemed cruel.

Faith had changed her own clothes, though. In the circles she had become accustomed to in the last eleven years it would have been unthinkable to be seen in the sweatpants and T-shirt she’d been wearing to unpack her belongings. Even an emergency trip to the vet in Northbridge had compelled her to slip into an ankle-length skirt and a silk blouse.

Her bittersweet-chocolate-colored hair had been taken from its ponytail, too, and, rather than leaving it to fall to her shoulders, she’d swept it back into an impromptu French twist.

Not even on a day at home did she go without makeup, but she had double-checked to be sure there were no mascara smudges beneath her violet-blue eyes. That her thin, straight nose was powdered. That the high cheekbones that had made it seem as if she’d fit into the patrician class in Connecticut were dusted with blush. And she’d added an ever-so-light touch of gloss to lips that could have been cosmetically plumped-up but that she’d let remain naturally not-too-full in a quiet rebellion against the tides.

All in all, her former mother-in-law would still have barely considered her presentable for a visit to the facialist or the hairdresser, both of whom would make improvements, but it was the best Faith could do in a hurry.

On the other hand, when the grimy red truck pulled up to the curb to park next to her BMW, it didn’t seem as if anyone who might emerge from it could have any reason to judge.

Probably because she was worried about her dog, that emergence seemed to be in slow-motion and Faith was more aware of details than of the whole that was being unveiled before her as Boone Pratt got out of the truck.

The first thing she noticed were dusty cowboy boots that were obviously unfamiliar with polish or a boot-buffer. They brought with them long legs encased in jeans rubbed nearly white at all the stress points and caked with mud around hems that were partially there, partially ripped into fringe. There was also a denim shirt that was so threadbare it hung almost diaphanously around a lean torso and broad shoulders. The entire ensemble was grimy.

He didn’t look any cleaner from the neck up.

Shockingly handsome, but no cleaner.

And I was worried about Charlie being too dirty to be out in public, Faith thought.

“Boone?” she asked, not intending to sound as put-off as she did.

“Faith?” he countered facetiously.

Had he caught her shock at the way he looked? It wouldn’t help anything if he had.

“Thank you for coming. I’m sorry to drag you out on a Sunday afternoon,” she said, making sure nothing but gratitude echoed in her voice this time.

“Part of the job,” he said dismissively.

She stood and he gave her the once-over, making her wonder, again, if she had given herself away, prompting him to get even.

Or maybe he just found her clothes somehow inappropriate. As eyes the blue of a clear, cool mountain lake assessed her down a hawkish nose, the sneer on a mouth that was devastatingly sexy left her with no doubt of his thoughts. He didn’t approve of what he saw any more than she had.

Not attempting to conceal his distaste, he walked from the truck to the office with long, confident strides and unlocked the door.

Faith stood aside until she and Charlie were ushered in by a motion that managed to mock her. She was convinced that this man genuinely disliked her. And considering the change in his response on the phone when she’d identified herself, it seemed as if it wasn’t only based on her failure to hide that she’d noticed his lack of cleanliness. But if that was the case, she honestly didn’t understand why. They had only coexisted in this same small town while growing up; it wasn’t as if they’d ever spoken more than ten words to each other. Why did he seem to have so much animosity? But it was there anyway, unmistakably.

Unless it was just that Boone Pratt had a bad disposition, like her grandfather—who had been the town’s pastor and was infamously bad-tempered. But a lifetime of the reverend’s unlikable personality had given her a basis of comparison and Faith felt as if there was something more personal when it came to Boone Pratt’s bad attitude toward her.

“In there,” he ordered, pointing a long index finger in the direction of an examining room off the waiting area they’d just entered.

Faith took Charlie into the other room, setting her pet on the countertop that obviously served as an examining table.

Boone Pratt brought up the rear, going around to the inside of the L-shaped space formed by cupboards and counters. As he came into sight again, he ran his big hands through hair that—without the dust that frosted it—was so dark a brown it was almost black.

He needed a haircut—that was what Faith thought of the unruly mane that grazed his shirt collar and waved away from a ruggedly beautiful face with remarkable bone structure. It was a face the photographer who took her former family’s annual portraits would have adored. Sharply defined cheek-and jawbones would have put her ex-husband’s and her ex-father-in-law’s pie-shaped faces to shame.

After this cursory hair-combing, the vet made a show of washing his hands in the sink that occupied the other section of the counter. As Faith cast a glance down at Charlie, she somehow caught sight of Boone Pratt’s derriere. Disreputable jeans or not, it was one fine rear.

Fine enough to make Faith swallow hard to keep her composure.

After the vet had done a thorough job of washing his hands, he turned and came to stand directly opposite her and Charlie, dwarfing them both from a stature that must have been a full three inches over six feet.

“Who do we have here?” he asked in a more pleasant tone aimed at his patient as he held out one hand for the animal to sniff.

“This is Charlie,” Faith answered.

“Hi, Charlie,” Boone Pratt said soothingly and without so much as a glance at Faith. “Got yourself into trouble, did you, boy?”

“He’s a her. I mean, Charlie is a girl. I know it doesn’t seem like it from the name, but I got her when she was six months old and that was already what she’d been called and since it seemed to suit her because she’s not girlie at all, I just kept it.”

More information than was necessary, especially since the vet had looked for himself after Faith’s initial correction and he hadn’t paid any attention to what she’d said after that.

He stroked Charlie’s head with one of those large hands, a gesture so gentle and calming the dog actually began to nuzzle him for more.

Still, Faith felt obligated to warn him. “She’s been known to bite vets. They have to muzzle her to cut her nails or do anything with her tail end.”

“Guess it’s lucky that isn’t the end we need to work on, isn’t it, girl?” he asked Charlie as if Faith were incidental and he and the dog were sharing an inside joke.

Then, still focused on Charlie, he said, “Are you gonna let me take a look in your mouth?”

His voice was so deep and honeyed with persuasion that Faith almost complied herself. As it was, Charlie—who ordinarily barked and howled and snapped and made each visit to a veterinarian an ordeal—made a liar of Faith and repositioned herself to move nearer to Boone as if he were her owner.

“Let’s see what we have here,” he suggested, easing the animal’s jaws apart much as Faith had earlier and with Charlie’s willing cooperation.

It didn’t take more than one glance for him to add, “Yep, that’s a broken tooth, all right.”

Then he did a survey of the rest of the animal’s mouth before letting loose of Charlie’s jaws. Only then did he acknowledge that Faith was there. He returned to petting Charlie, who had now completely gone over to the vet’s side and was leaning against him as she curled contentedly into the bare—and very muscular—forearms of the man.

“She’s broken away most of her upper right molar—that’s the largest tooth in a dog’s mouth and there isn’t enough of it left for me to salvage it. It’ll have to be extracted.”

“How did she do that?”

“I don’t know. She isn’t talking,” he answered.

“I mean, aren’t dogs supposed to have really tough teeth?” she amended, wishing for some of that niceness he seemed to reserve for Charlie.

“They do have really tough teeth,” Boone Pratt confirmed. “But if they get hold of something tougher, their teeth can break just like a human’s.”

“And then the teeth have to be pulled?”

“Not always. Sometimes they can be saved—the same as with people. But not in this case.”

“Can she do without it?”

“She’ll adapt.”

“What does the extraction involve? I’m not sure I have the stomach for holding her down while you pull her tooth,” Faith confessed.

Boone Pratt frowned at her as if she were out of her mind. “I’ll have to call in my tech. We’ll do a full physical exam to make sure Charlie is otherwise healthy, but I don’t see any indications that she isn’t—”

“She is healthy. I had her in for her shots about a month ago. And she’s too active to be sick.”

Again he seemed to ignore her input and continued. “Then Charlie will be anesthetized and I’ll do the extraction. There’s no way it could be done with you just holding her down.”

“She has to be put out?” That seemed extreme.

“I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t have to. But if you’d prefer a second opinion, you can take her somewhere else. Billings has vets I can recommend.”

“I wasn’t doubting you. I just don’t have any experience with this sort of thing. I’ve never even thought about dog dentistry and people aren’t given general anesthetic to pull a tooth,” Faith defended herself.

Boone Pratt said nothing.

Too bad he wasn’t as adept with people as he was with animals.

“And you’ll do it now?” Faith asked.

She hadn’t meant for her gaze to drop to his soiled clothes again when she’d said that. It had been a reflex in response to thinking that while the office was spotless, Boone Pratt was not. And this time it was clear he’d caught the implication.

“Same old Faith,” he said under his breath.

Faith had no idea what that meant. But she didn’t have any doubt it was insulting.

“Excuse me?”

He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe her, and acted as if he’d never made the remark.

“I was in the middle of saddle-breaking a horse when you called,” he said, clearly begrudging her the explanation. “While my assistant preps Charlie I’ll run home for a shower. By the time I get back I guarantee I’ll be cleaned up. I may even wash my hands again before I get to work. And wear surgical gloves—we do that here in the land of hayseeds, too,” he added sarcastically.

“The land of hayseeds?” she repeated.

“Isn’t that what you called Northbridge? The reason you couldn’t wait to get the hell out? And now here you are, gracing us with your high-and-mighty, nose-in-the-air presence again. Lucky us.”

Faith knew her eyes were wide as she stared at him but she couldn’t help it. High-and-mighty? Nose-in-the-air? That was what he thought of her?

“Did I say that—the land of hayseeds?” she asked.

“You did.”

“When?”

“High school.”

“High school? You’re mad about something I said over a decade ago that I don’t even remember saying? About Northbridge?”

“Mad? I’m not mad,” he said, again as if she were out of her mind. “I couldn’t care less about you or anything you’ve ever said. I was just letting you know that even if this is only Northbridge, things are still done just the way they are in the big city. All conditions and instruments will be sterile, every precaution will be taken to avoid contamination and infection.”

No matter how much he denied it, he sounded mad and Faith wouldn’t let it go. “Did I do something to you that I don’t remember?”

“No, ma’am, you didn’t,” he said as if he were proud that she’d never had the opportunity. “Now, either you want me to do this procedure or you don’t. What’ll it be?”

Faith didn’t have any concerns that he would treat Charlie well—he was already cradling the dog in his arms and Charlie was lounging there trustingly. In the best interest of her pet, Faith decided she should just try to ignore Boone Pratt’s dislike of her.

“I’d appreciate it if you would do the procedure,” she conceded.

He stepped away from the counter. “I’ll take good care of Charlie and have my assistant call you when the extraction is over to let you know how it went.”

He was dismissing her. So apparently he didn’t intend for her to stay in the office during the procedure.

“And then I’ll be able to come get her and take her home?” Faith asked.

“She’ll need some looking after when she wakes up, so I’d better keep her with me. At least overnight,” Boone Pratt decreed.

“I can look after her,” Faith said. “I do take care of her the rest of the time.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet you get your hands dirty,” he said cuttingly. Then, with the arch of one eyebrow, he said, “It’s up to you if you want to deal with post-op.”

Faith honestly wasn’t afraid of whatever post-op entailed. But she also wanted Charlie to have the best care possible and since, afraid or not, she was completely inexperienced at caring for an animal after surgery, it was only logical to assume that the vet who performed the surgery would be better at it than she would.

So, despite the fact that it was likely confirming his already negative opinion of her, Faith said, “She’s probably better off with you.”

“Probably,” he said snidely.

Then he took her dog and walked out the door that led to whatever was behind the examining room, leaving Faith staring, slack-jawed, at the door he closed behind himself.

“The only thing worse than a hayseed is a rude, nasty hayseed,” she muttered to herself.

“I heard that,” came Boone Pratt’s deep voice from just beyond that door.

Faith wasn’t thrilled to know he’d heard her.

But still, loud enough for him to also hear, she said, “Good!”

Then she turned tail and walked out of the office of a man who might be drop-dead gorgeous but who—as far as she was concerned—could just drop dead.

Well, after he fixed Charlie’s tooth, anyway.

Chapter Two

“Uh, Miss Charlie, the rule in this house is that the animals stay off the bed—that’s why you have a pillow on the floor,” Boone Pratt informed the schnauzer early Monday morning when he awoke to his patient sitting beside him on his king-sized mattress, facing him with an unwavering—and pitiful—stare.

His own five dogs—all of them at least four times bigger than the schnauzer—were looking on from various spots around his bedroom, probably wondering at the smaller mutt’s audacity.

But reprimanded or not, Charlie curled up against Boone’s side with a small whine to let him know she still didn’t feel well.

“I know, nobody likes to be sick,” he commiserated, curving one arm around her to pet her with a minimum of effort.

His alarm hadn’t yet gone off so he closed his eyes in hopes of catching a little snooze-time. He’d been up most of the night with Charlie. As happened with a lot of animals, the anesthetic had caused vomiting. Plus the particular pain medication he’d administered sometimes had the side-effect of inspiring a vocal response which had left her whimpering on every exhale. He had known she wasn’t hurting and it was nothing to be concerned about, but it always upset pet owners. The possibility of those two things happening were why he’d thought it better to keep Charlie with him rather than send her home after extracting her tooth. Especially home with Faith Perry.

As if Charlie knew that Faith had just crossed Boone’s mind, the dog nudged against his side in what felt like a criticizing elbow-jab that made him think about Faith and their encounter the day before.

“Yeah, I know, I should have my ass kicked for the way I acted yesterday,” he admitted to her dog.

And he didn’t even have a good reason for how he’d treated Charlie’s mom.

“I’m really not a jerk, you know,” he told Charlie.

But what he didn’t confide—even to the animal—was what had been behind his behavior. It was something he’d never told anyone. Ever. Something that made him flinch just remembering it.

The first crush he’d had on a girl had been on Faith Perry.

And he could hardly stand thinking about it.

It hadn’t been some macho, I’m-the-man kind of crush. If it had, it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. But he hadn’t been an I’m-the-man kind of kid.

He’d had bad skin and braces on his teeth. He’d been barely five and a half feet tall, stocky, backward, awkward and immature at seventeen when—from out of nowhere—the late bloomer who had spent more time with animals than people had discovered he couldn’t think about anything but Faith Perry.

And the crush itself? That had been a doe-eyed, tongue-tied, trip-over-his-own-feet, blushing, can’t-control-his-body’s-reaction crush. The kind of crush that he would have been ridiculed for if anyone had known. The kind that was completely hopeless and had just made him feel all the more inadequate.

Especially because it had been on someone who was almost unaware that he was alive and had never made a secret of the fact that she couldn’t wait to get out of this one-horse town and away from everything and everyone in it to have a cultured life with classier people. Blue bloods, that’s what she’d aspired to, hobknobbing with blue bloods.

And every time he’d gotten anywhere near her, every time he’d picked up a book or a pencil she’d dropped, offered her notes from a class she’d missed or any of the other million things he’d done just to be near her, she’d looked at him the way she had when he’d first faced her in front of his office yesterday—as though he were the prime example of the backwater hicks she’d wanted to rise above.

So he’d slumped his way through those last two years of high school feeling rejected and resentful and inept.

As much as he’d worshipped her, he’d hated her.

And yesterday he’d punished her for it.

Okay, maybe I am a jerk.…

On the other hand, he also didn’t think much of people who believed they were better than others and, particularly, people who believed they were too good for his hometown and the lifestyle and the values that went with it.

But that still didn’t excuse his behavior.

It wasn’t how he’d planned to act in anticipation of making contact with her again.

He didn’t know why, but just the thought of Faith Perry had made him uncomfortable since his crush had died a natural death years and years ago. He supposed she reminded him of something he’d rather forget: a miserable, agony-filled adolescent phase he wished he’d never gone through. A phase that embarrassed him now even if he had managed to avoid embarrassing himself—on the whole—back then. So, since she’d left, whenever he’d heard through the grapevine that Faith was coming to town to visit family, he’d avoided places where he might run into her.

The problem recently, though, had become weddings.

Earlier this year there was the wedding of his brother, Cam, and her sister, Eden. Now it was her cousin Jared, marrying his sister, Mara.

For Cam’s and Eden’s wedding Faith only came to town for the day. He’d known that totally avoiding her was not going to be possible, but he’d planned to keep his distance. To stay across any room they were in together. To observe nothing but scant courtesies and go his own way.

Then he’d ended up being called to an emergency surgery that had kept him from attending the entire event. Problem solved.

For Mara’s wedding he’d figured he’d just activate that former plan—avoidance and distance.

But then he’d answered his cell phone yesterday and she’d been on the other end of the line and it had set something off in him from that long-ago silent humiliation.

He’d tried to pull in the reins on it and he’d thought he’d done a pretty good job until he’d stepped out of his truck and watched her majesty recoil at that first look at him.

That’s right, he’d wanted to say to her, I’m covered in dirt and I’m still a hayseed in the land of hayseeds you didn’t want any part of.

And she was still Miss Priss, sitting there on his bench all stiff and prim and proper, her hair and her clothes making her look like some stereotype of a spinster librarian.

Not that she hadn’t looked good. Faith the woman was even better-looking than Faith the girl had been, and he’d thought she was the prettiest girl in town then. Now she was full-out, hands-down beautiful.

Even trussed-up, her hair had glistened in the sunlight. It was the burnished sienna color of the mole sauce he ate on enchiladas.

Her face hadn’t aged, it had grown refined and delicate, with skin as smooth and pale and flawless as the cream that rose to the top of fresh milk.

Her mouth just had to taste sweet—that was what he’d thought before he’d left his truck, when he’d had his first glimpse of her. It curved up at the corners and dipped low in the center to form a sort of languid heart shape that was the shade of pale pink rosebuds.

And before she’d skewered him with that repulsed glare, he’d thought that even the color of her eyes was more intense—some combination of purple and blue—though still as sparkling as morning dew in the meadow.

He’d steeled himself before getting out of the truck, worrying that one look from those eyes might make him stumble or fall just the way it would have done when he was seventeen. But then she’d helped him avoid that with the instant revulsion he’d seen on her face and it had been like a bucket of cold water dumped over his head.

Yeah, sure, she’d covered it up in a hurry. She’d apologized for bringing him in on his day off, for bothering him. She’d thanked him for coming and hadn’t treated him like a lowlife. But by then it was too late. He’d known what she was thinking even before she’d made it to her feet. And he just hadn’t been able to be nice.

Of course he had been able to notice the rest of her when she’d stood. To register that there was nothing bad about the body, either. At least as far as he could tell through those shapeless clothes she’d had on. There was a little sway to hips that were just the right width as she’d gone into the office ahead of him, and enough behind the buttons of that boring blouse Charlie was snuggled up to on the countertop to let it be known she wasn’t flat-chested—to make him wonder if he should have untucked his shirt before he’d left home.

But despite how she looked, despite her cover-up courtesy, he’d still been on his worst behavior.

So I proved I can be as big a clod as she thinks I am….

Actually, what was it she’d said when she’d thought he was out of earshot? That the only thing worse than a hayseed was a rude, nasty hayseed.

Miss Priss could bark back after all.

That had to go against the dictates of her highfalutin ways now, didn’t it?

But even though she’d been insulting him, it made him smile to think that he’d gotten a rise out of her.

Still, the way things had gone the day before were not how he wanted things to be at his sister’s wedding. Mara didn’t deserve that. Hell, if push came to shove, he had to admit that Faith Perry didn’t deserve it, either. She’d never actually done anything to him. So what if he—and the rest of Northbridge—didn’t live up to her standards? That was her problem. Her loss.

But when it came to him and who he was, he didn’t want to be a jerk. Not even to someone who thought she was better than he was.

In fact, he might go so far as to prove he was the bigger person and apologize for the way he’d treated her.

“What would your mom think of that, Charlie?” he asked the pooch at his side. Then he answered his own question, “She’d probably just think she had it coming, huh?”

Charlie sighed and nuzzled his hand to make him pet her once more. Boone did, wondering if the dog spent every night sleeping with Faith. Right beside her in bed where her hair would be free and so would her body under some filmy little nightgown….

Jealousy? Was he actually feeling even a tiny pinch envious of a dog?

Oh, no, uh-uh, he told himself.

She might be beautiful, but she wasn’t getting to him. Not a chance in hell. He’d never set himself up for that now. No way.

Not when he’d been so vividly reminded yesterday that it was only blue blood that impressed her.

And his was as red as it came.

“Do we have a verdict yet?”

Faith had stopped by her sister Eden’s house late Monday afternoon on her way to the vet’s office. It was such a beautiful spring day that Eden was sitting outside on her front porch steps when Faith arrived. Faith had an ulterior motive for the visit but was in no hurry, so she’d accepted her sister’s invitation to join her.

“A verdict?” Faith asked in response to Eden’s question after she’d perched beside her sister on the top porch step. “About what?”

“Northbridge—if you’re staying forever or for a while, or if you’re already thinking about leaving as soon as cousin Jared’s wedding is over.”

“I just got here Saturday night,” Faith reminded.

“And did you bring your whole wardrobe or only enough for a quick trip?”

Faith knew what her sister was getting at. “I brought enough for a while but not everything I own. The rest is still at the apartment in New Haven that Shu bought as part of the divorce settlement—”

“So you’re keeping the apartment?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Then there’s the chance that you’ll actually live there?”

Faith heard her sister’s disappointment. Now that Eden had moved back to Northbridge and married a local cop—Boone Pratt’s brother, Cam—Eden and their other sister, Eve, who also lived in Northbridge, were hoping that Faith would make her home in the small town, too. They’d been trying to persuade Faith for months now and Faith knew Eden was fishing for a sign she had made her decision. But Faith hadn’t and so couldn’t give Eden the answer she was looking for. Or any answer at all, really.

“I still don’t know what I’m going to do,” Faith said. “There is the apartment in Connecticut and I have an offer to go back to work full-time there if I want to—”

“With the same party and event planners you were working for when you met Shu—isn’t that what Eve said?”

“Yes. The Fosters wouldn’t hear of me working when I was married. That wasn’t my role as Shu’s wife. But I just had some dealings with my old cohorts over the plans for the opening of Nedra’s gallery and they said there was a spot for me if I wanted a job.” Nedra was Nedra Carpenter, an old college friend of Faith’s whom Eden had met several times during her visits to Connecticut.

“But you don’t have to work,” Eden reminded.

Faith shrugged. “No, I don’t have to. The settlement was beefed up substantially to keep me quiet. But I also don’t know what I’ll do with myself it I don’t work. That’s the problem—I don’t know what I want any more than I know what I’m going to do. I’m hoping to sort through it all here, remember? It was your idea when I visited in January for me to come back, bask in the peace and quiet and see if I could get my bearings again.”

Faith had come to Northbridge at the start of the year for just a day to Eden’s wedding to briefly touch base with her family when they were in turmoil over the revelation that the grandmother they’d all believed to have run off with a bank robber more than forty years ago had secretly returned to work as a clerk at the dry cleaners. Because Faith had been packing up and leaving her in-laws’ house, one day was all she’d been able to spare. But Eden and Eve had persuaded her to spend some time in Northbridge to regroup once the last loose ends of her divorce were tied up. And the upcoming wedding was the perfect time to do just that.

“And you haven’t come any closer to getting those bearings between January and now?” Eden asked.

Faith shrugged again. “It isn’t easy when I find myself questioning everything I’ve been so sure of my whole life. You had the rug pulled out from under you when Alika was killed in the line of duty in Hawaii, you had trouble being able to accept that Cam was a cop, too, and in similar kinds of danger on the job—”

“That almost seems silly now that I’ve really settled into Northbridge. Sometimes I wonder why we even need cops around here.”

“Still, as bad as it was to lose Alika, and as hard as it was to get over your fear so you could be with Cam, you never had to doubt your choice of Alika as a husband or doubt the life you two had together. You didn’t have to look back and see that what you thought was real wasn’t and ask yourself if you were blind or stupid or if you’d gone after the wrong thing in the first place. Alika’s death left you afraid of being with another cop, not wondering if you were an idiot who couldn’t see what was right in front of your face for years. But me… I have to wonder if, somehow, I asked for what I got.”

“Oh, Faith, how could you have asked for what you got?”

Faith shrugged a third time. “I got what I asked for and the rest came with it.”

“But what came with it was not what anyone would have asked for or could have expected.”

“Maybe not—”

“No maybe about it.”

“The bottom line, Eden, is that on the surface I got exactly what I wanted. What I’d always wanted. And it turned out so badly that now… Now I just don’t know.”

“So you can stay here and figure it out,” Eden concluded.

“Or I can stay here until I figure it out,” Faith said, not wanting to commit to more than that when it came to Northbridge.

It seemed like a good time to change the subject so she opted to embark on her ulterior motive. “What are you up to for the next hour or so?” she asked her sister.

Eden held up a cell phone. “I’m waiting for a call to tell me whether the last fairy sketches are all right.”

Eden had ended her career as a forensic artist and was now illustrating a children’s book.

“You could take your phone with you and help me out,” Faith proposed hopefully.

“Help you out with what?”

“Your brother-in-law. According to his receptionist, he’s keeping Charlie another night. I guess Charlie still isn’t eating or drinking and he needs to watch her. But I wanted to at least visit her. The receptionist put me on hold to ask if that would be all right. He okayed it but the receptionist said his schedule today was full, so would I come after the last appointment. As if my being at the office would interfere with anything.”

Eden either didn’t notice the derisive note in Faith’s voice or she chose not to mention it. Instead she said, “What does that have to do with me?”

“I don’t particularly want to go alone. Your brother-in-law is a creep.”

“Boone?” Eden said with a laugh. “You have to be kidding. Boone’s a pussycat.”

“He is not. He’s rude and obnoxious and we sort of had a fight yesterday. I was hoping I could pick up Charlie this morning and not even see him, but now not only don’t I get to take Charlie home, I’m sure I’ll have to see bad-news Boone while I’m visiting my dog.”

“Are you sure we’re talking about the same person? The tall, hunky guy who resembles my husband except he has longer, darker hair and lighter eyes and when he smiles he gets those creases down his cheeks?”

“I wouldn’t know what happens when he smiles because I didn’t see anything that came close to a smile. But yes, longer, darker hair—at least I think it’s darker underneath the layer of dirt that was covering him from head to toe.”

“Dirt?”

“He said something about coming straight from saddlebreaking a horse.”

“That would probably get him pretty dirty.”

“But he’s in the medical profession. No medical professional should—”

“Didn’t you have to call him in on his day off? In an emergency? Seems to me you take what you get under those conditions.”

“Still. He didn’t even apologize for it or explain it until late in the game. And dirty or not, he was awful.”

“To Charlie?”

“No, he was fine to Charlie. He was awful to me.”

“Seriously?”

“Why would I make this up?” Faith asked. “He called me high-and-mighty and nose-in-the-air. He brought up something I guess I said in high school about Northbridge being the land of the hayseeds and then he said some weird stuff about how he couldn’t care less about me or about anything to do with me.”

“Boone?” Eden repeated with more disbelief.

“I asked him if I’d done something to make him mad. He said no—that was the part about how he couldn’t care less—but he acted mad. He acted as if he hated me.”

“Why would he hate you?”

“Good question. As far as I know, I haven’t seen him since high school. Not even when I’ve come to Northbridge to visit. Have I turned into some snooty bitch who goes around offending people without realizing it?”

“You, a snooty bitch?” Eden repeated with a laugh at how ridiculous that sounded. “You’re the one who was in trouble with your mother-in-law for not being snooty enough. Didn’t you get your wrists slapped for buying birthday and Christmas gifts for the house staff, and letting them call you by your first name? But Boone? Honestly, since coming back to Northbridge and hanging around with the Pratt family I’ve never seen him be anything but nice and even-tempered and calm. I’ve certainly never seen him be a creep. It just doesn’t sound like Boone.”

“Well, unless he has an evil twin, it was Boone.”

“Did you do something to him when we were kids?”

“I thought about it all night and most of today, but I can’t think of anything. I mean, I remember him being short and kind of pudgy. I remember that he almost never talked and I think sometimes he had wildlife in his pockets—”

Eden laughed. “Wildlife?”

“Like frogs or toads or turtles or lizardy things—the kind of things little boys might have in their pockets—but we were in high school. I remember him always turning red, too. As if he was embarrassed even when there wasn’t anything to be embarrassed about. But I never made fun of him or anything. I never really had much to do with him beyond sitting in front of him in classes where seating was alphabetical.”

“Maybe that’s what rubbed him wrong—that you didn’t have anything to do with him,” Eden suggested.

“That I didn’t say hi to him in homeroom over a decade ago?”

“That does seem far-fetched.”

“So what’s up with him?”

Eden shrugged this time. “I couldn’t tell you.”

“So will you go with me to visit Charlie and save me from more of his bad attitude?”

“I really can’t, Faith. This call is important and Cam should be home any minute and we need to—”

“You’re just going to throw me to the wolf?”

“Give him another chance. Maybe he had a bad day yesterday and he’ll be nice today.”

“That would be an even bigger change than the change in his looks,” Faith said as she stood to leave, wishing all the while she was saying goodbye to her sister that Boone Pratt’s looks hadn’t changed.

Because maybe if they hadn’t she might have been able to stop thinking about the way he looked.

Which was something she hadn’t quite managed. Over the past twenty-four hours the image of him had stayed in her mind’s eye no matter what she’d done to switch channels.

* * *

When Faith arrived at the veterinarian’s office, Boone Pratt’s truck and another car were parked in front of the building, which was shaded by a semicircle of tall pine trees. She had no idea if the other car belonged to a pet owner or to one of Boone Pratt’s employees. Not wanting to set him off by going inside if he was still involved in his last appointment, she waited until a woman came out and got into the other car. Only then did Faith leave her own vehicle, not appreciating how on-edge she felt at the prospect of having to go through an ogre to get to her pet.

Inside, the office was quiet. Boone Pratt must have heard the door open and close because from somewhere in back came his deep voice. “Is that you, Faith?”

That didn’t sound ogreish. Or as abrasive as the previous day. But not even a more amiable tone made her feel any better as she answered. “Yes, it’s me.”

“We’ll be right out.”

Was there going to be some courtesy today? That was a change.

Faith sat on the cushioned bench seat built into the wall across from the receptionist’s station. She flicked a piece of lint off the skirt that was very much like the ankle-length A-line she’d worn the day before except that it was brown. On top she had on another blouse—this one also white but with a tan fleck that distinguished it from what she’d worn on Sunday.

Her hair was tied at her nape with a scarf and while she’d felt overdressed when she’d been sitting on her sister’s step—with Eden in jeans and a T-shirt—she didn’t think she was overdressed now.

At least she didn’t until Boone Pratt brought Charlie out into the waiting area.

Boone was clean today. Perfectly. His dark wavy hair, his extravagantly handsome face, his hands and nails, even his cowboy boots showed not a speck of the dust of the day before. His clothes were spotless, too, but beneath the long white lab coat that gave him a professional air were jeans and a chambray shirt. And it occurred to Faith only then that maybe she should find some more casual attire for Northbridge.

But her dog was following behind him as he joined her and she turned her focus there.

“Oh, my poor baby! Are you sick?” she asked the dog without greeting Boone Pratt.

Charlie wagged her tail, obviously happy to see Faith.

“She’s feeling pretty sorry for herself,” Boone said as Faith scooped up her pet to hold in her lap.

A section of Charlie’s front paw was shaved but other than that she, too, was cleaner than she had been the previous day and she smelled like she’d been given a bath.

“We just got her to eat a little food and take a few laps of water,” Boone Pratt was saying despite the fact that Faith had yet to address him and was looking only at her schnauzer. “If she can finally hold that down and maybe take in a little more later tonight she can go home tomorrow.”

“What made her so sick?” Faith asked, still not taking her eyes off of Charlie.

“Some dogs just don’t tolerate the anesthetic or the pain medication as well as others. There’s nothing to worry about. She had enough pep this afternoon to hop onto my desk chair. Then she barked like crazy at the cat that was in here half an hour ago, so she’s really fine. She just needs to get up to speed again and I think she’ll be there tomorrow. The extraction went well and there’s no infection. When her appetite comes back and she’s rehydrated she’ll be good as new.”

Boone Pratt moved from where he’d been standing in front of Faith.

Feeling as if the coast was clear, Faith glanced up from Charlie to see what Boone was doing.

He was behind the reception counter removing his lab coat, rolling it up and tossing it somewhere Faith couldn’t see.

Then he returned to the waiting area.

Faith looked down at Charlie once more but out of the corner of her eye she saw Boone lean against the wall. He folded his arms across his chest, placed one ankle over the other and seemed to settle in to watch her.

It was unnerving and, under other circumstances, with someone else, Faith would have made conversation to ease the tension. But she wasn’t feeling friendly and was trying to avoid saying the wrong thing. So she pretended to be aware of only Charlie. When, in fact, she was much, much more aware of Boone Pratt than she wished to be. Aware and not unaffected by the sight of the man all cleaned up.

“I owe you an apology for yesterday,” he said suddenly. “That’s why I asked that you not come in until after office hours. You were right, I was rude and nasty to you.”

He’d overheard the parting shot.

But recalling that she had said that and that Eden thought better of him than she did, Faith decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and take a step of her own in the direction of peace.

Still without raising her eyes, she seized on the assumption that he’d been peeved because of something she’d done unknowingly and she said, “If I snubbed you one of the times I’ve been in town since high school it wasn’t intentional. You weren’t at Eden’s wedding and I only knew you were you yesterday because… Well, because it was you who was meeting me here. You don’t look like the same person you did all those years ago. I would never have recognized you if we did just run into each other on the street.”

“Yeah, I had quite a growth spurt first year of college. But yesterday was just some old stuff of my own, it wasn’t that you’d snubbed me sometime in the last eleven years.”

“I did something to you when we were kids?” she asked, believing that that was what his old stuff stemmed from.

“It’s not like that, no. I guess I just took offense at how much you hated Northbridge and those of us in it—”

“Hate is a little strong. I just wanted something different. There was nothing personal in it.”

“I’m sure there wasn’t. And hey, so we aren’t your cup of tea, that’s just the way it is. But yesterday, remembering it, set me off. Anyway, like I said, I apologize. It was uncalled for and out of line and Charlie here let me know it in no uncertain terms.”

That made Faith smile and look up from her dog to see that Boone Pratt was smiling slightly, too. And that yes, when he did, his remarkable face formed deep creases in his cheeks that only added to how great-looking he was.

“Charlie let you know in no uncertain terms?” she repeated. “Charlie talked to you?”

“You mean she doesn’t talk to you?” he joked.

“She is good at letting me know what she wants,” Faith conceded.

“Well, she let me know that she didn’t approve of how I treated her mom yesterday and I agreed she was right. So maybe we can start over?”

“Okay,” Faith said, a bit leery but again recalling that Eden liked him.

In the interest of starting over, Faith finally opted for friendliness. As Charlie curled up in her lap, she said, “Did you know that I’ve been enlisted to organize a fund-raiser for a horse rescue? And in a hurry—apparently the mayor wants it to happen next Saturday in conjunction with some sort of auction?”

She ended that with a question because she knew next to nothing about the project.

“A horse auction,” he said. “The horse rescue is my baby. I’m doing the auction. I knew the mayor was going to try to whip up something to go along with it, but this is the first I’ve heard of your being in on it. How’d that happen? Didn’t you just get to town?”

“I was enlisted by phone through my sisters. If I had to guess, I’d say Eve and Eden probably volunteered me. They’re saying that the mayor heard I would be back in Northbridge, somehow knew about my experience as an event planner and thought I was just the person for the job, but that seems fishy to me.”

“You think they offered you up for it?”

“My sisters want me to move back permanently—that’s part of what I’m supposed to be here thinking over. I’m sure they figured this would get me involved in the community again, that it would help convince me to stay. But however it happened, I said I’d do it. Even though it will be a huge crunch to pull it off on such short notice.”

Faith had the impression that Boone wasn’t particularly happy to hear that she was on board, but he was trying not to show it.

Then, with some leeriness of his own, he said, “Do you have any idea yet what you’ll do?”

“Actually it was a long drive here from Connecticut and I had a lot of time to think, so yes, I do. I was thinking that it’s spring and that’s a big time for people to clean out closets and basements and garages and cellars and attics. So I thought why not have them donate what they want to get rid of and arrange a flea market in the town square with all the proceeds to go to the horse rescue.”

She didn’t have a clue as to why he looked so surprised, but he did.

“Bad idea?” she assumed to explain it.

“No, that’s a good idea. A terrific one, in fact.”

“But you expected me to come up with a bad idea?” she asked, still confused by the shocked expression she’d prompted.

He smiled again, sheepishly this time, and she had to admit it was appealing. Very appealing.

“When you said you were enlisted to do the fund-raiser I had a flash of a black-tie affair that not many people would come out for. But a flea market? That’s perfect for Northbridge. The whole town will get into that.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

“It’ll also bring out more folks for the auction, maybe increase the odds of selling some of the horses so I can get them off my hands.”

“Do you keep some of the rescued horses yourself?”

“More than I should. The same goes for a couple of other ranches around here. That’s why we need to do the auction and why the mayor said he’d do what he could to raise some money for us—funds are down after caring for as many animals as we have in the last month or so.”

“I didn’t think there were that many horses rescued at any given time.”

“It varies.”

“Has there been a big influx lately?”

“We had a hard winter. Closer to the big cities they see more neglect, abuse, problems from overcrowding, abandonment, that sort of thing. We can run into that here, too, but in the open countryside we’re more likely to see wild horses that have been hurt or stranded. Or, like now, a lot that couldn’t find food through the winter and were dying of starvation. That’s why we’re overcrowded right now.”

“You’ve been feeding them?”

“Feeding them, nursing them back to health. But we can’t just keep them all. Eventually, when the horses are ready, something has to be done with them. So we hold periodic auctions.”

“To make way for more horses that need help.”

“Right.”

So he had dimples and he did good deeds even beyond the call of duty that had brought him to Charlie’s rescue yesterday. Faith was beginning to see why her sister had been shocked by her complaints about him.

And since that left Faith wondering again about what part she might have played—however unwittingly—in the previous day’s events, she wanted to make sure she was particularly conscientious today. Which seemed to mean not dragging out her visit to Charlie.

“I’m sure you’ve put in a full day and want to get home,” she said then. “Your receptionist said you’re keeping Charlie there with you?”

“I have five dogs so one more doesn’t make much difference.”

“And Charlie is doing all right with the other dogs?” It was Faith’s turn to be shocked.

“Sure,” he said as if he didn’t understand the question.

Faith decided against telling him that Charlie was usually horrible around anyone else’s pets.

Instead, she said, “And you think I’ll be able to take her home tomorrow?”

“I’d plan on it.”

“Good. My house is pretty empty without her,” Faith said, standing and handing her schnauzer back to Boone.

Charlie had no qualms about being returned to the vet—another surprise—and actually tipped her head back once she was in his arms, lovingly licking the underside of Boone’s chin.

“Yes, you’re a good girl,” Boone cooed to her, placing a light kiss to the top of Charlie’s head.

And Faith felt a pang.

She wasn’t sure of what, but it came in response to that kiss.

It must have been over seeing how much her dog liked Boone, she decided. Ordinarily Charlie’s loyalty to her was intense and Charlie didn’t warm up to anyone else, so Faith wasn’t accustomed to sharing her affections.

“I’ll call in the morning,” she said as she made her way to the door with Boone and Charlie bringing up the rear.

“Okay,” the vet said. “And don’t worry, I know Charlie isn’t being herself but she’ll be back to normal soon.”

Faith nodded, partially turning to give her dog one last pet and kiss the top of Charlie’s head herself before saying goodbye.

“Have a nice night,” Boone called as she went out.

“You, too,” she responded with one last glance at man and dog.

And one last pang.

And while it still seemed logical that the pang was from leaving Charlie with someone else, it almost felt as if that wasn’t exactly the cause.

It almost felt as if that pang was jealousy.

Jealousy of her pet.

Who was in Boone Pratt’s arms.

But that couldn’t possibly be the case, she told herself.

And yet, the pang was there and with it was some curiosity about what it might feel like to have Boone Pratt’s big hands stroking her….

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.