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when he was born? I was the first human to touch him. Whatever the reason, I’m grateful he’s mostly immune to my weirdness.”
    “Mostly?”
    “We have an understanding. I rescue him from vicious attacking ferrets,” she turned and spoke directly to Hercules, “and he
doesn’t
run away and cost me my job.”
    “Your job?”
    “Hercules belongs to my boss, Dr. Kessler.” She glanced around anxiously, as if suddenly realizing where they were. “I really shouldn’t be standing out here. I need to get him back inside the clinic before someone sees that his pet escaped. The number one commerce in this town is gossip.”
    At the other end of the street, the door to the diner opened again. Two women stepped out onto the street. They could have been twins, given their matching lace-collar tops, tan pants, and navy coats. Except the woman on the right was short, skinny, had blond hair and pale-white skin, and the one on the left was statuesque, had ebony skin and a short gray bob.
    “Oh dear, the Elizabeths,” Shelley muttered, stepping backward, as if to avoid being seen. “They see me out here shoeless, covered in mud, and talking to a stranger, and it’ll be all over town in fifteen minutes.”
    “Gossip, right. Understood. Why don’t you lead the way?” He gestured with his free hand, while he held firmly to the leash with the other. Shelley half-hopped, half-ran across the uneven stone street toward the clinic door.
    Clicking his tongue at the dog the way he’d seen Shelley do a few minutes earlier, Dev signaled for Hercules to move. The dog responded immediately, trotting happily behind Shelley, but not too close.
    The bells jangled as Dev, Shelley, and Hercules crossed the threshold. The door shut with a snap, and Shelley leaned against it. A wide, relieved smile on her face, she exhaled an exaggerated sigh. “Now that you’re here, I’ll show you around.”
    Shelley scrubbed her hand down her face, smudging the streak of dirt on her cheek. It made her look adorable.
    “Great,” Dev said, finding his voice.
    But they didn’t move. They stood there. Shelley shoeless, propped against the front door. Dev covered in muck and filth, and that spark he’d felt all those years ago turned into a brilliant shining flame of molten attraction.
    Hercules woofed, breaking the moment. Shelley laughed and shifted slightly to rub her left foot. “I’ve got so much to tell you, Dev.”
    “Yeah, me too. But maybe you can start by explaining what happened to your shoes.”
    *   *   *
    H ER SHOES. F IGURES that he’d notice she wasn’t wearing them. Not that it wasn’t a hundred-and-eighty-percent obvious since she was rubbing her aching arch. But yikes. Could she look any more like a dork? Not that Dev had ever treated her like one.
    “Just a sec,” Shelley said, putting the Out to Lunch sign in the window. “To make sure we’re not disturbed.”
    Dev bent down to stroke Hercules behind the ears. She used the opportunity to let herself really look at her old friend.
    He was still huge. At six foot four, he was all powerful muscle and still heart-stoppingly sexy. His expensively tailored—and thanks to Hercules, now ruined—suit draped over his form in the most delicious way.
    Most men as muscular as Dev would look beefy in a suit, but he didn’t. No, where most guys worked out in a gym to get that pumped, Dev said a lot of his build came from genetics. She wasn’t sure how true that was, because he also used to say he was the runt of the litter. The man definitely exercised regularly to stay fit. And if that hug he gave her earlier was any indication, he still kept himself in tip-top shape.
    His sand-colored hair was slightly long in the front but cut short on the sides and in the back. And those eyes. God, she’d always loved his eyes. So pale blue-gray they were more like the color of storm clouds over the ocean. But from her vantage point, with him bent over, it wasn’t his eyes she ogled. No,