The Virgin Beauty Page 3

  She noticed the kid first, riding back and forth on his bike. He was all of eleven, she thought, and he’d passed the office a dozen times before getting up the nerve to come in to gawk sideways at her while pretending a remarkably intense interest in bovine nose pliers. She let him gawk. Better to get it over with.

  Then a couple old men, bored with checkers and coffee or whatever occupied the long days of retired farmers, had sauntered over from the café across the street, made a complimentary comment or two about Doc Niebaur, wished her the best. They’d gawked at her, too. One of them taking to calling her “Stretch” in the middle of their short conversation.

  One by one, two by two, people had come by, most too shy to poke their heads inside to say hello to the new vet, but hardly a soul in Nobel willing to miss out on the chance to get a load of the lady veterinarian who looked “pert near tall enough to be in the circus or something.”

  She’d gone about her work vaguely accustomed to it all. She’d been the junior vet in three other offices since graduation and she’d always encountered these kinds of reactions. She supposed it would have been the same if she’d chosen secretarial work as her profession, or grocery clerking. Anything but women’s basketball or modeling. She’d never had the interest in one, the looks or the intellectual indifference required for the other.

  She’d unpacked her boxes, snooped through the cabinets in the examining/operating room, though from the inventory list Niebaur had sent her when she’d bought his practice, she’d known almost to the syringe what was in there. She’d checked the kennel cages and taken a quick run through the files, trying not to look for “Cash, Daniel” on the folder labels. She’d found it, anyway, and dug it out.

  A thousand head of cattle! No, she’d thought, that couldn’t be right. But there it was. Daniel and Frank Cash—a father, or a brother, maybe—owned Cash Cattle, Incorporated, and a thousand head of mother cows. A huge operation.

  He’d said he had a couple animals. What a smart aleck.

  She shook her head in memory of his smug grin.

  She’d riffled through the file again, found the brucellosis vaccination records for the past ten years, the trich tests results on fifty Angus bulls, lapsed for three years now. He’d gone to artificial insemination then, she’d noted, and felt a little thrill when she’d realized she’d get to do it this year. A lucrative thing. The A.I. business. If he continued to go to a vet for it rather than hire one of the freelance A.I. technicians. Which he might do, considering his inexplicable animosity toward her earlier in the day.

  She hoped he wouldn’t, though. She needed the income. Her parents had borrowed against everything they owned to help her pay for this practice, and she was determined to make it work. It was a huge risk, but she liked the idea of a small-town, large animal practice, and although this part of Idaho didn’t have an abundance of humans, it had enough dairy cows and beef cattle and hobby farms with spoiled horses to get her by. She hoped.

  She’d squeezed the folder back into the file cabinet, promising she’d get the Cash Cattle file on computer, along with everyone else’s just as soon as she found an assistant. Niebaur’s office manager had promised to come in a couple of days a week for a while, but she was retiring, too. Couldn’t see herself working for another woman, she’d said. No offense.

  Grace hadn’t taken offense, of course. She hadn’t wanted to work for anyone else, either.

  Picking up the phone book, she glanced at the wall clock. 9:10 p.m. She riffled through the book for the number to the county newspaper and recorded her ad onto the machine that picked up.

  She stretched out her long legs, hooking her heels on the edge of the reception desk. She looked out into dark main street of Nobel, Idaho, and congratulated herself. She had every single thing she wanted, now.

  Minutes later she dozed off with a satisfied smile on her face.

  He hadn’t meant to come by. He’d dropped his folks off at their house, intending to go home to his own small ranch house, just a half mile down the road from the house where he’d grown up. Instead his pickup truck—of its own accord, he’d swear—found its way the eleven miles back into town and past the building he owned, bought when his future looked exactly as he’d wanted it to look. The lights were on. He glanced at his watch. It was past ten, and he’d bet a hundred bucks she hadn’t been home all day.

  He wheeled the truck into a casually illegal U-turn and brought it to rest behind hers by the curb. He scooped up the nameless old barn cat he’d brought with him as an excuse for coming by and tucked it under his arm, trying not to moon over the vet box in Grace’s truck as he made for the office door. He almost managed it, walking past with just a quick yearning glance.

  Grace had her feet up on the desk in the reception area and her chin on her chest. Sound asleep. He watched her for a minute, the cat purring happily under his arm, then rapped on the glass of the door with the back of his hand.

  She jerked awake and he saw in her brown eyes the instant cognizance of a doctor awakened from a sound sleep. She could perform surgery right now, he knew; intubate a calf, cesarean a breech foal. She had that look as she stared out at him. That completely-awake-and-aware look.

  She stood and came toward him. He felt a sudden zip up his spine, a heated pooling of blood between his legs.

  Man, oh, man. He’d wasted half the day away wondering if she’d really been the goddess he’d seen that morning, or if he’d imagined that her legs went up to her neck and her hips were narrow and smooth-jointed when she walked and her mouth was wide and lush. He didn’t much like this woman who was stealing his dreams, but he sure as hell wanted her.

  For crying out loud, he reprimanded himself pitilessly. Grow up, Cash. He’d gone hard just watching her walk. Heaven only knew what would happen when she got the door open. He smoothed his free hand along the flank of his cat, hoping the thick fur would absorb the sudden dampness there. Didn’t want the goddess to know she’d made him sweat.

  She stopped on the other side of the door. She didn’t smile, couldn’t. If she thought he’d been intense this morning, he looked positively dangerous now. It was only common sense and the bone-deep knowledge that she could never, in a million years, with her utter lack of experience and confidence, handle a man with that kind of lust in his eyes, that kept her from throwing the lock on the door and letting him take her.

  “Mr. Cash,” she said through the glass.

  He cleared his throat. “Doctor McKenna.”

  She glanced at the contented bit of fur tucked into his elbow. “Nice cat.”

  “Thank you.”

  “He looks pretty healthy. Any reason you’re bringing him to my office at—” she checked her watch “—ten-eighteen p.m.?”

  “He’s been in a fight.”

  Grace frowned. “Really?”

  “Would I lie about something like that?” he asked solemnly. Of course he would, but she didn’t need to know that.

  “I don’t know. Would you?”

  “No. Open the door, McKenna.”

  She considered him for a full minute, but her active sense of self-preservation just couldn’t hold up against an injured animal she knew she could help. She reached up and turned the dead bolt.

  “Take him back to the examining room.” She relocked the door and followed behind him as he unerringly found the examining room. She did her best not to study his rear end as he walked.

  She washed her hands at the little sink and felt a familiar little zing of adrenaline. Her first client in her own practice. Could there be a more productive sensation than that? She turned to find the cat lounging on her stainless-steel examining table, the Neanderthal leaning against it with his hands widespread, watching her.

  “Your cat is purring,” she pointed out.

  “He’s in shock.”

  “Hmm.” She took the cat in her hands. It rolled onto its back to have its belly scratched. Grace obliged automatically while looking for evidence of the fight. “What’s
his name?”

  “Uh, Tiger,” Daniel said, though the cat had been called “Cat” since the day it was born.

  Grace looked up at him. “Tiger, huh?”

  Daniel shrugged. “My brother named it.”

  “Well, Tiger here has certainly been in a fight.”

  “Yeah,” Daniel said, his mouth pursed in studied concern. “I thought I’d better bring him in.”

  “And two weeks ago, I might have thought so, too. Mr. Cash.” She lifted the cat and dropped it into Daniel’s arms. He cradled it against his chest automatically, his fingers folding over its small head to scratch between its ears. Grace noted how unaware he was that he was doing it, how utterly at ease the cat was under his fingers. He’d probably spent hours sitting in some dusty old barn somewhere, that cat on his lap. She forced herself not to imagine it. “But probably not even then. The scratches were pretty minor even at the time they were inflicted. They are almost completely healed now.”

  Daniel nodded, pretending ignorance. “So, you think he just needs a little antibiotic cream or something?”

  “No, I don’t think he needs a little antibiotic cream or something.” She washed her hands. “I think he needs to go home. I think you need to go home. I think I need to go home.” She stalked out of the exam room, muttering something about wasted time.

  Daniel ignored her. “Well, that’s a relief,” he said, following her through the office. “I’m glad I dropped by.”

  “You didn’t drop by, Mr. Cash.” She unlocked the door and opened it wide. “Your home is eleven miles south of town.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I looked through your file. I figured since you knew where I lived, I should know where you lived. In case I ever had to call the police on you or something.”

  “Good thinking.” He paused in the doorway. “So, what are you doing here?”

  “I work here.”

  “So late.”

  “I was just getting ready to go home.”

  “Have you even been there yet?”

  “I drove by it earlier.”

  “Not good enough. I’ll see you home if you’re ready.”

  She cocked her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on.” He jerked his head in the direction of her truck and his, then held up his cat as proof of his honor. “I own a cat. How bad a person could I be?”

  “I believe the number-one choice of pets for crazy people is a cat.”

  Man, she was cute. And quick. “Come on. Trust me,” Daniel said.

  She did, for some idiotic reason. He didn’t look particularly trustworthy, despite the blissed-out cat in his arms. Something to do with that lingering gleam of reluctant lust in his green eyes, she thought. And he certainly didn’t feel trustworthy. She wasn’t experienced enough to know what it was she felt from him, but she knew she shouldn’t trust it.

  Yet somehow… Grace went back for her bag and coat, flicked off the lights, and followed him onto the sidewalk, locking the door behind her. A cold wind sneaked under her sweatshirt and she shivered, ducking her head as much in reflex to the cold as to keep from meeting his eyes. She fumbled with her coat. It was snatched out of her hands at the same instant a cat began winding itself around her legs. She couldn’t decide which was more startling.

  “Here,” Daniel said. He tucked her into her jacket, took the zipper between his fingers and pulled it up. If his knuckles brushed against the inside of her breast so slightly, if his hands lingered at the collar for one second too long, that didn’t make him a creep, right? He wasn’t harassing her. He was just being gentlemanly, and accidents happen. He bent and picked up Cat from where he’d dumped him unceremoniously on the sidewalk. Before touching her became less accidental.

  “Get in your truck before you freeze solid.”

  “Is it always so cold in March?” she asked pertly, to keep her mind off how gentle his hands had been, and how personal.

  “Yes. March is a bitch. But January and February are worse, so by March you hardly notice how miserable you are.”

  He’d walked her to her truck, stood while she dug in her purse for her keys. “I don’t need an escort home,” she said. “I know where I live.”

  “Barely.” He took the keys and unlocked her door, then stepped back before the urge to put his hands on her again got to be too much to resist. He kept reminding himself how much he resented her, how much he couldn’t get involved with another woman who would betray him the minute she heard about his past.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this morning you had a thousand head of beef cattle?” she asked, a little accusingly.

  He shrugged. “I figured Niebaur would have told you.”

  “He didn’t. I thought you were a real estate agent or something.”

  He laughed despite his uncertain mood. “A real estate agent. Is that what I look like?”

  She brought her shoulders to her ears, shy again. She didn’t want to say out loud what he looked like to her. It would have sounded silly, telling him he looked big and strong, man enough to make her feel small and feminine. For once. “I don’t know. You own this building, and you said you had others in town.”

  “Oh.” He scratched his nose, knitted his brows in annoyance and embarrassment. “That was kind of a stretch of the truth. I own this building and a little house on Temple. Well, I own part and the bank owns part. I bought them both three years ago when I thought I’d— When I thought about moving to town.”

  “Good thing you changed your mind about moving. I imagine it’d be hard on the neighbors to have a thousand head of cattle in town. It’s a big herd. Are you looking for a new vet?”

  “I thought you were the new vet.”

  “You know what I mean. Are you going to someone else now that Niebaur’s retired?”

  He looked at her for a minute. Glared at her, she might have said if she could think of a single reason he might do so.

  “We’ll try it out,” he finally said. “I’ve got some heifers need checking week after next.”

  “Okay.” While she didn’t appreciate his antagonistic attitude, her practical heart wanted to sigh in relief. “Okay. Good. I could use the business.”

  They stood on the sidewalk, staring at each other, unsure of what to say or do. They were having a moment, it occurred to both of them; what that meant, they hadn’t the slightest idea.

  “So,” Daniel began slowly, “Niebaur still have all his files on paper?”

  Grace smiled, relieved. She’d been scrambling for something to say, anything to break the peculiar, tingly tension between them. “Yes. I have to find an assistant right away so I can get started on getting them on computer. I don’t know how he ever managed to keep his billing straight.”

  “I don’t know, either, but he must have. Frank and I have paid out enough to him over the years to prove it.”

  “Is Frank your dad?”

  “My brother and business partner. Are you cold?”

  Grace wondered at the way his face closed at the mention of his brother. “A little. I’d better get home. I still have my suitcases in the back of the truck.”

  “Come on, then,” He slapped the side of her truck, shuffled off grim thoughts of his brother. “I’ll follow you.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “Do you argue this much with everyone?” he asked testily. He wanted to feel testy; he wanted the low-level anger and bitterness he’d lived with for three years to shoot back into his system. Because if it didn’t he was very much afraid he was going to grab the woman and kiss her. Damn the male sexual response, anyway. He needed to think with his brain right now, but his other, more aggressive organs were pushing for equal time, it seemed.

  He closed the door, jogged back to his own truck, tossed in Cat and hoisted himself inside.

  Grace didn’t get lost, that would have taken a 14-carat idiot in a town the size of Nobel, but she drove five miles an hour down her street until she spotted the little house. It w
as as dark as a tomb.

  They got out of their respective vehicles and stood looking at it.

  “You should have gone in when it was still light out,” he whispered in deference to the late hour, the quiet neighborhood, the breath he could barely catch, just standing next to her, with her shoulder against his.

  “I should have,” she conceded in the same quiet tone. His breath had moved her hair aside, brushed against her temple. She blinked. “It looks pretty dark in there.”

  He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. He gritted his teeth, rolled his eyes, sighed. It didn’t help. He still wanted to take that anxious look out of her eyes. But that would be it, he told himself. She was no little girl, no damsel in distress. She was the personification of every single thing that had pissed him off for three long years. He’d look around her dark little house and then he and Cat would head home for a long, comforting brood.

  “I’ll come in with you,” he offered reluctantly.

  Oh, she should say no. She should tell him she could handle herself just fine, thanks. But she wanted him to come in with her, chase out all the spooks and spiders. It was a rare thing, a man offering to do such a thing. Not since her father, not since her brothers, had a man looked beyond the size of her to the tender, sometimes fragile woman beneath.

  “What about Tiger?”

  “Who?”

  She looked at him. “Your cat?”

  “He’s okay in the truck. He’s sleeping in my rain slicker.”

  “Oh.” She chewed on her lower lip a moment. “Okay. Thanks. Sorry.”

  He walked in front of her. “For what?”

  “For asking you to do this.”

  “You didn’t ask me,” he rumbled crossly.

  “Oh. Well, just thanks, then.”

  He nodded shortly.

  He walked up the steps, unlocked the door with her key, and flicked on the lights. The place was furnished sufficiently, if a shade shabbily, and was well-lighted and thickly draped. She’d be safe enough in here. He walked through the rooms, leaving her in the living room, snapping on the lights as we went. It didn’t take long. The house was tiny.