Sheltering His Desire Read Online Free PDF Page A

means you won’t
either.”
    The moment the door swung shut behind her, he
clenched his hands into fists and dug his knuckles into his closed
eyes. Stars danced against his eyelids. He took one deep breath and
then another, struggling to find his composure again. He didn’t
even know where to start unraveling his fury. Had that conversation
really just gone that way?
    He took one more breath and tried to turn his
attention back to work. It wasn’t like his mother—or Bryce Thompson
for that matter—was going to order a hit on Alyssia or anything so
ludicrous. They were verbal bullies. His best bet was to make sure
Lys got her site up and running as quickly as possible, funded her
shelter expansions, and put this unfortunate coincidence behind
her.
    He slammed his fist into the arm of his
chair. Why couldn’t he believe it was going to be that simple?

Chapter
Four
    Tate glanced at his watch every few seconds
as he crossed the short distance from the elevators to his car in
the parking garage. Work had tied him up far longer than he’d
planned, with ‘just one more’ phone call and email rolling in, one
after another, until he had less than fifteen minutes to be at the
shelter. Tate had given himself enough time to get there half an
hour before the video guy who was shooting animal footage, and now
he was worried it might not have been enough.
    He’d sent Alyssia a text saying he might be
late, but she hadn’t responded. It was earlier than her overnight
shift was scheduled to start, and for all he knew, she was still
getting ready. Unbidden, images flashed through his thoughts of her
in the shower. Tall, lean, with water cascading over her.
    What was wrong with him? He dropped into his
car, pulled onto the road, and turned on a local talk radio
station. This time of night, they ran updates every ten minutes
about the stock exchange, and he liked to hear the highlights.
    Some of his tension slipped away as he
navigated lighter than normal rush hour traffic. He might even make
it with a few minutes to spare.
    “Tonight on ABC News at seven…”
    The pre-recorded commercial filtered into his
thoughts, and blocked it out as standard chatter.
    “You think you’re taking your dog to the vet
for a routine checkup, and suddenly the police are knocking on your
door.” The announcer’s voice held a hint of threat, just enough to
draw in listeners. Tate’s brain froze, and then honed in on the
words. “We’ll tell you which local shelter may be up to no
good.”
    Thompson’s station. Please don’t let this be
about Lys’s shelter. His gut clenched at the reminder of the scene
he’d left behind the night before, and his mother’s threat echoed
in his head. The remaining time it took to reach his destination
passed like cold molasses. Should he tell Alyssia she might want to
check this story out? Keep what he’d heard to himself? She didn’t
need more stress, and there was no guarantee the news report was
about her.
    The moment he walked through the front door,
Sara nodded toward Lys’s office. “She said you could go right
in.”
    He might have been worried to hear otherwise.
He paused, hand on the doorknob, and spun back toward the waiting
room. The TV they kept behind the counter was on, turned to the
news, and a promo video for upcoming stories. Sure enough, the
image on the screen was the front of the shelter. Shit. So much for
figuring out whether or not he was going to tell her.
    He pushed into her office, and knew
immediately from the sound coming from her speakers that she was
streaming the news.
    She looked up from her monitor, forehead
pinched, and jaw clenched. “We’re so screwed.”
    His chest ached at the worry in her eyes. “It
can’t be that bad.”
    “No?” She raked shaky fingers through her
hair. “The camera crews showed up about two hours after I told
Thompson he couldn’t have his dog back. I was already home asleep.
The staff wouldn’t tell them anything, because that’s our