Calling His Bluff Read Online Free PDF Page B

along the way. And he
     wasn’t the first man to grab the front of her jacket to pull her even closer. Or to
     pause for a moment, his mouth hovering over hers, to nip at her bottom lip.
    But that mouth.
Damn.
The moment his lips pressed to hers it was like someone had slid a hand up her thigh
     and whispered, “Lie down with me.” And the sudden wash of wanting him was a sharp
     cramp that left her breathless. His tongue in her mouth was a tease. The moment had
     passed too quickly, leading her to do some tugging of her own. She’d wrapped
her
hand behind his neck to pull his mouth back down to hers.
    A horn blasted behind her and she stepped on the gas without thinking. Slammed on
     the brakes and waved the car with the right-of-way through the intersection, making
     the “Sorry!” face at the other driver, who flipped her off. She stopped thinking about
     the kiss for ten seconds and managed to get across the four-way-stop intersection
     and into the itty-bitty parking lot that scraped alongside the veterinary clinic where
     she worked.
    She bumped the medical bag on her hip up against the metal plate at the back entrance
     so that the security scanner could read the card in the outside pocket. The door unlocked
     with a beep. She appreciated the high-tech setup at this clinic, but she would’ve
     put up with just about anything to get out of her previous clinic, from padlocks on
     the doors to gas lanterns for light.
    She didn’t know what it was, but something about her attracted older married men who
     were too self-aware to indulge in a midlife crisis by having an affair with a twenty-two-year-old
     blonde bombshell. It was as if they took one look at her and thought, “Hmm, the calm,
     quiet brunette in the corner there, what about her? Looks studious but pretty. No
     one could accuse me of going for flash there. And then maybe I can still get the Porsche.”
    She had only fallen for that with her first boss because he hadn’t gotten around to
     mentioning the fact that he was married until six months into their relationship.
     She’d needed a new job fast, particularly since things ended so badly. After she “accidentally”
     dropped a fifty-pound bag of dog kibble on his foot, he threatened to call the cops.
     She threatened to call his wife. She had avoided even speaking to her second boss
     whenever possible, only to find herself being chased around the examining table mere
     months later by another man having a midlife crisis, who promised he could help her
     “lighten up.”
    Blech.
Now she worked for a woman, which was the selling point that had brought her on board.
     That and the off-street parking.
    She really did have terrible luck with men. The first man she’d fallen for had broken
     her heart without even knowing it, and things had gone downhill from there.
    Sighing, Sarah headed into the bathroom that doubled as an employee locker room. She
     spun the dial on her locker with one hand while she started stripping off her winter
     gear with the other. She grabbed her last clean lab coat, crammed her coat, hat, scarf,
     gloves, boots and medical bag into the too-small locker and bodychecked the door shut.
     She wouldn’t need any of it until this afternoon’s house calls.
    She spent half of each week making house calls—a stroke of genius on her boss’s part.
     There were plenty of wealthy pet owners in Chicago’s Gold Coast who were willing to
     pay top dollar for the convenience of not having to cart a pet off to the vet’s office
     and spend the morning in a waiting room.
    Although the pet owners were asked to have little Fluffy or Killer confined to an
     easily searchable area like the bathroom, she did spend a fair bit of time on her
     hands and knees peering under king-size beds and trying to coax out spooked animals.
     Still, it was a growing part of their business. Soon she might not need to put in
     any hours at the clinic except to do paperwork or the follow-up on complicated