Hunter (Stud Ranch 2)

“I should be done with Mr. Guzman’s steer in a few hours.” He searched along his jangling key ring. “Here’s a key. There’s filing to be done if you run out of things to do.”

Isobel nodded and took the key after he unclipped a small carabiner with an attached key ring from the larger set. Their fingers touched for the briefest moment as he passed the key and it was like a spark of static electricity lit between them.

Isobel’s breath hitched as she looked up at him. But if he felt it, he gave no indication.

“All right.” Isobel’s voice came out a little higher pitched than she would have liked. She swallowed and then finished. “I’ll see you there.”

Hunter nodded and then he opened the door to his truck. He paused before getting in, though, and turned back toward her. His eyes were focused past her and his jaw was still hard.

“And Isobel?”

“Yes?”

“In the future, don’t do me any favors.”

He flicked his eyes ever so briefly in her direction before he hauled himself into his seat and slammed his truck door behind him.

Chapter 7

HUNTER

The sun was low near the horizon by the time Hunter pulled open the clinic door. The stop at the Guzman ranch was supposed to just be a pregnancy check. But one of the heifers was calving early and there were complications.

Hunter ended up having to extract a dead calf. Never a nice scene, but at least he was able to save the mother. And before he left, he double checked two other pregnant heifers. Everything looked to be going great with them.

But now he was tired, he stank of cow, and the last thing he wanted to deal with was a certain black-haired beauty on the other side of that door. He should have just told her they’d start tomorrow but he thought he’d make one last attempt to discourage her from staying.

Surely anyone seeing the state of the clinic reception area would be put off the job. He knew it was a disgrace. He and Dr. Roberts—the aging veterinarian he shared the practice with—were strict about keeping the exam rooms clean and disinfected. But their regular cleaning lady had had to take time off to have a baby and they’d had difficulty finding a reliable replacement. Even a couple weeks without a good scrub-down and the waiting room full of animal patients started to stink to high heaven.

But when Hunter stepped into the lobby, instead of the normal sour smell of cat piss, he was hit with the strong scent of lemon and bleach. The lobby was also bright for once—the flickering fluorescent light that he kept meaning to get around to had been replaced.

And best of all, Hunter was greeted with the sight of Isobel’s wiggling backside as she leaned over and scrubbed at the baseboard with a big sponge, a bucket of soapy water beside her. Her ass swung back and forth like she was bobbing to music Hunter couldn’t hear. That was when he noticed she had earbuds in.

For a second, he could only stare in appreciation at her delectable ass in those tight little leggings.

All he wanted to do was drop his bag of instruments, walk over to her, grab her waist with one hand and yank down those leggings. He’d bite that sweet ass of hers and then—

Isobel pulled back to dip the sponge in the soapy water and shrieked, obviously just then noticing him. She almost knocked the bucket over in her surprise.

Hunter took a step back, quickly averting his eyes from her backside.

“Crap, you scared me.” She jerked her earbuds out and wiped her hands down her thighs, standing up.

Hunter grunted in response. Shit. What the hell was he doing? Staring at her ass? Last night was bad enough. He didn’t need to add idiocy on top of stupidity.

“I need to be getting home.” He strode toward the lobby desk. “Let me show you how the system works so you can get familiar with it and start on the records tomorrow.”

“I already figured it out,” Isobel said as Hunter was shaking the mouse to bring the computer to life.

“What?” Hunter turned around, looking at her in spite of himself. Her long black hair was pulled up in a ponytail but wisps escaped all around her face. Jesus, he swore every time he saw her she got prettier. Creamy skin, vibrant blue eyes, cherubic cheeks flushed so prettily—he wasn’t sure if it was because of the work she was doing or because he made her nervous. Why did he stupidly hope it was the latter?

He shook his head in disgust at himself as he looked down at the computer screen. It was already open to the advanced record keeping program that neither Dr. Roberts nor he could ever figure out.

“I saw you have the VAP system installed. I’m familiar with it—they used it at a clinic where I volunteered during my first year in vet school. But then I saw that you’ve just been keeping your records in Excel files.” Isobel leaned over and took the mouse from Hunter, clicking to a patient roster tab. “So I organized the columns to match the input parameters and then batch uploaded the records into the VAP database.”

“Oh,” was all Hunter could manage. Damn, she smelled good. Like flowers or some shit. Which only made him more acutely aware of how bad he must reek.

He stood up and took several steps away from the computer. He couldn’t believe she’d done all that in the what, four hours, since he’d last seen her?