Page 3 of Bailey

Exhaustion ran through her, and a growling noise cut through the pounding of the rain. “What am I going to do if my house floods?” she asked as she climbed the steps and entered through the sliding glass door.

She’d brought home two cats from the shelter last week, just to keep an eye on them and make sure they were domesticated enough to be put into her adoption program. None of the other veterinary clinics took in strays and rehabilitated them, but Bailey almost felt like that was her calling, and that God had given her such a sharp mind and the determination to finish veterinary school so that she could help all the animals who didn’t fit in and who’d been abandoned.

The sound of the rain overhead diminished inside the house, though it still thumped steadily. Bailey already knew she needed a new roof, and she could only hope and pray that it would last through this storm. She moved around her dining room table and into the kitchen, telling her momma, “I need to go. I’ve got a ton of paperwork to catch up on.”

“All right,” Momma said. “I’m sure everything will be fine. We’ll call you later.”

She hung up, and Bailey set her phone down on the counter with a mild vein of disgust pulling through her. Her momma’s default was Everything will be fine.

While Bailey intellectually knew that she was correct, and most things did turn out fine, sometimes she just wanted someone to say, “You’re right to be worried about that stream behind your property. It could flood.” It was almost like her mother believed that if she didn’t acknowledge the worries, they couldn’t come true.

A roar filled the house that had Bailey jerking away from the stove, her eyes immediately moving to the back door. She never kept it locked because she didn’t need to, and she stared as a man came roaring onto her covered patio, driving an ATV with two dogs on the back. Thoroughly alarmed, Bailey ran to the door and flipped the lock.

The man wore a dark brown cowboy hat and denim from head to toe, and he was utterly soaked. The roar of the ATV’s engine quieted, and the man looked at her through the glass. Bailey’s pulse rioted when she recognized Reeves Durham, the man next door, whose soft, sultry voice and broad, sexy shoulders had been haunting her for the past four months.

Just as quickly as she’d locked the door, she unlocked it. “What are you doing?” she asked. “It’s pouring out there.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Reeves said, as his blue heeler jumped off the ATV with the boxer right behind it. He followed, and by all evidence, it sure seemed like the three of them were going to come in her house.

Bailey stepped back. “Come in. How long have you been out there? You’re soaking wet.”

“I was working on my eastern fence,” he said. “The weather said it was only a thirty percent chance of rain.”

“Did you get caught in the hail?”

“Yes.” Reeves held out his fist, and both of his dogs sat. “They can stay out here.”

“Of course they can’t. Come on in, all of you.” Bailey turned. “I’ll go get some towels.” She walked through the dining room, her mind buzzing like a whole hive of upset bees.

“I might not have anything that will fit you,” she said over her shoulder. “But my daddy left a sweatshirt here a couple of weeks ago, and we can throw your clothes in my dryer.” By then, she had reached the bathroom, and she opened the cupboard and pulled out as many towels as sat there. She hurried back into the dining room, where Reeves had, once again, made both of his dogs sit down just inside the door.

“Look at you guys.” She handed Reeves a towel without looking at him, and then dropped to her knees, so she could cater to the canines. “You’re all wet. Did you get all wet?” She spoke to them like little children as she rubbed their jowls and ears and down their faces and sides.

Thankfully, a heeler and a boxer had coats of hair like a duck, and they weren’t too wet. Still, she loved on them, glad when the boxer gave her a lick. Then she sat back and said, “You’re all done. You can go.”

The boxer trotted away, but the blue heeler looked up at Reeves. “Yeah, go on,” he said, his voice tired.

Bailey balanced herself using the back of a dining room chair, and stood. “They’re great. What are their names?”

“The heeler is Pansy,” Reeves said as he wiped the towel through his hair and down his face. “The boxer is Sir.”

“Pansy and Sir.” Bailey folded the towels in her arms. “They’re really cute.”

“They’re good dogs,” Reeves said.

Bailey looked at him and nearly swooned on the spot at the sight of his damp swept hair and him settling his cowboy hat back over it. “Let me get you my daddy’s sweatshirt.”

“Thank you,” he said, and he shrugged out of his coat as she walked away again. She’d left the sweatshirt draped over the arm of the couch, and she hurried into the living room to grab it.

“I can—” she started to say as she turned around, but the words died in her throat at the sight of Reeves lifting his T-shirt up and over his head. He had muscles for days in his core, and that expanded into a broad chest and those glorious shoulders. Bailey could only stare, the sweatshirt gripped in tight fingers.

“I think that river back there flooded,” he said.

Bailey blinked, the sight of his upper half forever tattooed in her mind. “It was really full yesterday.” She moved toward him and swapped his wet clothes for the dry sweatshirt. As he pulled it on, she looked down at his jeans. “I don’t know what we’re going to do about those, unless you want to hang out in your underwear and put a blanket over your lap while your jeans dry.”

She looked at him and smiled. “I’ll go put these in the dryer, and you can decide.” She turned away from him, silently enjoying the grumpy frown that had painted itself between his eyes.

“I’m probably not even going to be here long enough for those to dry,” he called after her. “I’m certainly not sitting around in my underwear.”