Page 14 of Spiced!

“I know. I’m sorry. He just—I just got him today, and I think something’s wrong, and I didn’t know where else to go.” The voice was warm, and slightly breathless, the voice of someone who had been moving fast and thinking faster. It carried a delicious accent I guessed was from somewhere in South America, possibly an island, but I couldn’t be sure.

Something about that voice was familiar in the way things were familiar when you’d heard them in a different context and your brain was doing the cross-referencing work before you’d consciously asked it to.

I put down my pen and sat back, waiting for Marcus to ask the inevitable.

“Let me check with the doctor.” Marcus appeared in my doorway a moment later with a defeated look. “Got a walk-in with a new puppy.” He knew I wouldn’t say, “No,” to a new patient, especially a puppy, and that would extend both of our workdays. “I’m pretty sure he’s a first-time owner. He seems—” Marcus considered his word choice. “Anxious—the owner, I mean. The puppy seems fine.”

“You okay hanging out a bit longer?”

“I could use the overtime.” Marcus nodded. “Make this last all night if you need to, Doc.”

I chuckled. “No chance of that unless the owner’s super hot.”

Marcus grinned. “I’ll settle in, maybe order a pizza, ’cause this one’s on fire.”

I sighed and nodded. “All right, put Mr. Hottie and his pup in exam two. I’ll be there in a minute.”

I heard Marcus chatting with the owner, quiet “thank yous” that followed, footsteps in the hallway, and then the click of the exam room door.

I picked up a fresh chart and walked to room two.

A man stood in the middle of the room holding a small beagle mix puppy against his chest with both hands. It was the careful grip of someone who had been holding this creature for approximately six hours and had already developed potent feelings about keeping it safe. The guy was maybe mid-twenties, with dark, almost black hair that hung nearly to his rounded shoulders, which I could see clearly thanks to the flimsy tank top he wore.

The puppy was eight weeks at most and was conducting a thorough examination of the man’s chin with its tongue. The man was submitting to said tongue bath with the resigned warmth of someone who had already accepted that this was simply his life now.

He looked up when I came in.

I blinked at him.

It was the guy from the bar.

The dancer.

We now stood in different light, in a different room. He had flour smeared across his tank top, but it was the same face, same beautiful skin, same sexy jawline and eyes and . . . damn.

It was actually him.

He recognized me at approximately the same moment I recognized him. I could see the check running, the placement clicking, and then something shifted in his expression.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said.

The puppy licked his chin again.

The guy adjusted his grip without looking down.

“You’re the vet?” he said.

“I am,” I said.

“From Barbacks.”

“Well, I’m not from Barbacks, per se, but I did go there, you know, last night, I mean yesterday, to have a drink. It’s a bar. Drinks are the thing, right? I mean—”

The guy grinned, and his whole face transformed into a brand of sunlight I wasn’t sure I’d ever witnessed. I felt my knees revolt and had to wiggle them back into compliance.

“Right. Drinks at a bar. That’s good.” He looked at the puppy, earning a dozen more sloppy licks right across the face. “I got a puppy.”