Skin Heat (14 page)

He waited until she was in her room before he got up and hit the shower. Though it might be weird, he didn’t plan to let it be. From this point on, he’d pay attention to the details. His view of her had been colored by his memory of her as an unattainable dream. If there was any chance she wanted to do more than watch, he’d do damn near anything to make that happen. But he had to tread softly. He didn’t want to scare her off.

 

Two days later
, Neva still couldn’t believe what she’d done. Not in an I-wish-I-hadn’t kind of way, but in an I-wish-I-was-naked-with-him-right-
now
way. It made it damn difficult to focus at the clinic—to the point Julie had noticed, and now she wouldn’t leave it alone.

“Something happened,” she said. “Spill.”

She put on her boss hat. “Get to work. You have a spay to prep for me.”

Surgeries took up such a long block of time that she cleared several appointment slots in order to get them done. Which meant she wouldn’t be seeing sick animals or doing any vaccinations this morning. The owner had dropped the dog off early, and with any luck, she would be going home that evening. Some vets kept animals overnight to charge a boarding fee, but in most cases, Neva found that wasn’t necessary. Only a complication or unexpected reaction to the anesthetic would prompt her to suggest that.

But by the time Zeke showed up, the dog was in recovery. No sign of the truck, which meant he’d run,
again
. Julie thought she was being sly when she sang out, “I’m taking my lunch break now.”

Like she needed to be alone with him.

Her friend suspected they’d hooked up. She’d done worse, in fact. Violated his privacy. That night, she’d gone to his room to apologize for pushing when he hadn’t wanted to talk. The massage had clearly been over the line. But she hadn’t been able to resist her urge to touch him; in a way, she could pretend it wasn’t sexual and that she didn’t flush with heat anytime he brushed past her.

That was how she ended up outside his room, listening, first to see if he was asleep, and then because she was sure he wasn’t.

Remembered excitement flashed through her. Arousal had been immediate and overwhelming. She’d squirmed and clenched her thighs together listening to the noises he made, little growls and impatient huffs of breath. Pretty soon imagination wasn’t enough and she had to peek. She’d never done anything like it before in her life, but the impulse had been irresistible.

Moonlight had silvered his skin and he was beautiful. Lean. Hard. Uninhibited. Everything she’d ever wanted in a lover, if someone would just look at her with the wildness she’d glimpsed in his face. His need had struck her as visceral, one he had to sate.
She
wanted to make him look that way.

And now she had to keep working with him while pretending nothing had changed. So when he popped into her office, a hot blush washed her cheeks. He’d die if he knew she’d spied on him.

Zeke seemed happier today somehow, a mischievous smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Need anything special done?”

“I—no, that is. Everything’s fine. Just the usual stuff.” God, she couldn’t sound any stupider if she tried.

Stop looking,
she ordered. But it didn’t help. Now she’d seen him in action as a raw, sexual animal and there was no going back from it. He had gorgeous hands, lean and long-fingered, but callused, too. She told herself he had the hands of an artist, even if he didn’t have a creative bone in his body.

“Sure?” There was no explanation for the look he gave her. None. But she’d almost call it flirtatious.

“Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.”

Once he went about his business, she dropped her head on the stack of patient files on her desk and groaned. She tried to make notes after each appointment but sometimes the day got away from her. Neva never went home without updating, however. If she didn’t, memory might fail her and a pet would suffer down the line. So she often worked through lunch, writing up the visits while they were all still fresh in her mind. Julie helped out by logging test results. Credit for any success Paws & Claws achieved had to be shared.

Julie teased her some more once she got back from lunch, but Neva held firm. No details. She stayed busy with her afternoon appointments and then counseled the pet owner who showed up at six to pick up her newly spayed darling. They always sent home a care checklist, along with signs of trouble in recovery.

As usual, her friend left first. Unfortunately, her day wasn’t done. As the only vet in the county, she also worked for farmers in the area, and Howard Bailey had a pregnant heifer he wanted her to check out. She was near calving, but he’d been in the business long enough to recognize budding complications.

“Set?” Zeke appeared in her office doorway, wearing that same inscrutable half smile.

It was like he’d woken up that morning and decided to drive her crazy. He was also holding her jacket. Such a small thing but it made her feel . . . protected, like it was a silent message:
I’ll take care of you when it’s cold outside.
Stupid. Even Freud would say a coat was sometimes just a coat, and she was his ride home.

“I have a call to make out at the Bailey place. You want to come with me?”

“Anywhere,” he said quietly.

Oh. Hard
not
to react to that.
Even if he didn’t mean it how it sounded. She could get used to these one-word answers fraught with a metric ton of nuance. Her hands shook a little as she let him help her into her coat.

“I’ll get the kittens wrapped up. It’s colder than usual tonight. Will you stay with them in the car?”

“Sure.”

After locking up and setting the alarm, she led the way to her Honda. She’d been out to the Bailey’s place more than once, so she knew the way. Zeke probably did, too. It wasn’t like the town was so big you could get lost in it. Not if you’d grown up here, and they both had.

Apart from those mysterious months when nobody had seen him, he had always lived in Harper’s Creek. After they’d eaten at the diner, people made a point of mentioning him to her, along with all the old gossip. Said he’d end up like his mother or his daddy, one way or another, and good riddance to bad blood. She knew the bare bones of his story, but the bones were no longer enough.

“What’s it like?” he asked, breaking the silence as she drove.

“What?”

“Being a Harper.”

Nobody had ever asked her that. Not even Julie, who knew her better than anyone. Everyone else assumed it was sunshine and roses, and she was just a stubborn pain in the ass for bucking parental expectations. They saw her work as a phase she was going through, not something she loved. So she gave the question serious consideration—and she offered him the honesty she’d never given anyone else.

“It’s not what people think,” she said. “All dress parties and satin and money in the bank. It’s pressure and . . . suffocating weight. If you’re not a Harper in the right way, then you might as well not be one at all.”

“That why your brother left?”

Her hands tightened on the wheel. People didn’t ask about Luke, much in the way they did not ask about Camilla Beau-regard’s son, Jackson, who wasn’t dead, but might as well be, since he lived happily in San Francisco with his life partner and ran an antiques store. Everyone pretended he had died heroically in some war and spoke of him in past tense in Camilla’s hearing.

“He didn’t. He just . . . disappeared.”

But he hadn’t abandoned them. Of that much, Neva was sure. The private detectives had found no trace of him and no use of his credit cards since that last day. Her dad still demanded a report from Sheriff Raleigh once a week, not that the man had anything new to add. It was a sad ritual, one that left them all heavier each time.

Luke had gone on a business trip, looking for cheaper supply alternatives. Everyone had been hit by the recession, as her parents made clear to her at every function. And if she had any sense of duty at all, she would marry well. If not Ben Reed, then someone like him. Ben didn’t have money, but he had connections. In their world, those could be just as important. They’d really like to transition away from a failing industry and she could facilitate that, if she’d only consider her heritage and do the right thing.

The Bailey farm was halfway to Zeke’s place, but she turned off on county road 1 N first, and followed the bend around until she saw the big red barn. Howard Bailey stood waiting for her in a fleece-lined jean jacket. He was a weathered man in his early sixties with a shock of white hair and a weary smile.

“Evening, Doc. Thanks for coming out.”

Despite being tired, she said, “I’m happy to help. She in there?”

He nodded. “She’s in distress.”

Neva shouldered her pack, which contained basic supplies. Inside the barn, she saw at once that Bailey was right; the cow showed all the signs of dystocia. He had two buckets of soapy water waiting; he knew the drill. She scrubbed up and then lubed up with mineral oil, so she could perform a pelvic exam while Bailey soothed his heifer.
Breech birth.

“We have to pull,” she told him. “It’s malpresentation, hind legs first.”

Bailey knew what that meant, so he went to get the chains. With the second bucket, Neva cleaned the area around the birth canal, rinsed with clean water, and then slid her arm inside, leaning in to find a hoof. Movement reassured her that they hadn’t lost it yet. Speed and timing mattered now; the umbilical was pinched between the fetus and the cow’s pelvis, so blood flow was diminished. She straightened the calf and then attached the chains, one to each leg. The cow bleated in protest, but she seemed to know they wanted to help her.

“Ready?” Bailey asked.

He’d helped her before, so he knew when and how to pull. They did it incrementally, walking it out, which allowed the calf a chance to catch its breath as they went. Eventually they got it clear, but her shoulders ached by then. Neva cleared mucus from its throat and mouth, then tickled its nostrils. The heifer took over.

“Make sure it nurses within the first hour,” she said.

“How much do I owe you?”

She smiled tiredly. “I’ll send you a bill.”

Zeke had been in the car for quite a while, and she was eager to get home. With a parting wave for the farmer, she headed out of the barn. It was cold enough that she could see her breath, and overcast, with a whisper of a crescent moon nipping at the night. The darkness filled her with foreboding, though she couldn’t have said why. Her skin crawled with the suggestion of someone’s eyes on her. A passing car reflected on something in the trees, just a momentary flicker, light on glass.

In the distance, toward the tree line, she saw a shadow, or the silhouette of a man moving away from the farm. No cars. No other signs of life. She was shaking when she let herself back into the Civic. Since the motor had been running, it was delightfully warm. Neva rubbed her hands over her face.

“What’s wrong?”

God, he read her so well. It wasn’t the first time she’d thought as much, but his insight was uncanny. Before Zeke, she’d never thought she broadcast her moods this way. “I don’t know. I’m probably just tired.”

“Tell me.” He didn’t give up easily, either.

“It’s going to sound dumb, but . . . I saw someone. Out there.” She gestured toward the far edge of the field. “And I think he was . . . watching me.”

“Your ex?”

She shivered, buckled up, and put the car in drive. “Surely not. That wouldn’t make sense. Ben is many things, but he’s not crazy.”

He eased out of the car and stood peering into the darkness for long moments, as if he thought he could see something out there. As Neva watched, he cocked his head, listening. She heard only the wind. When he got back in, he seemed tense and jumpy, as he had early on. And she didn’t feel safe until they reached the farm and Zeke locked the door behind them.

When Zeke woke,
he wasn’t where he should’ve been.

The dark forest surrounded him. He wore nothing but a pair of jeans. This wasn’t the first time it had happened; only the most recent. A bitter curse escaped him because he’d dared to hope he had these dreams under control. No time for weakness, though. He needed to figure out where he was. Pushing down the fear, he spun in a slow circle, looking for a landmark.

Something slicked his hands. He didn’t need to raise them to the moonlight to know it was blood. The sweet coppery stench nearly overwhelmed him as bile filled his throat. He wiped his palms on the bark of a tree and sought the source.
Please let it be an animal.
A few yards away, he found a dead deer. Its throat had been torn out. Judging by the evidence, he guessed he’d done it with his bare hands, and the sour taste in his mouth made him think he might’ve eaten some of its raw flesh. Normally he might wonder if that would make him sick, but he was so far past normal he couldn’t even imagine what it might look like from here.

He listened to the night noises. Other wild creatures shared the woods with him. By scent and by sound, he recognized them: raccoon, squirrel, owl, and coyote. Mice left the smallest signs of all but he heard them, too. Zeke fought his first instinct—to run. The darkness protected him. Another animal would eat the deer carcass. He just needed to clean up and get home before Neva missed him.

This was why he hadn’t wanted to spend the night with Aunt Sid. If this happened in town, and it was somebody’s dog he went wild on, he’d be lucky to wind up in a mental hospital. More likely, they’d shoot him as rabid and ask questions later.

Tremors shook him. Out here he had no way to shut down the unwelcome thoughts about that . . . place. Mostly he tried to pretend it had never happened, that nothing had changed. Impossible. He remembered the recurring nightmare: the screams and the needles and the weird, flickering light in his cell. Probably nothing worse than a faulty fluorescent bulb, but in his memories it became a torment of its own. He’d had no control over
anything
, and there would be no justice. It comforted him to know the bastards had died in the fire, but that offered no answers. Little wonder he was crazy. But he didn’t want to chase the rabbit of his past down a dark hole. He just wanted to move on. Build something brighter and better than he’d had before.