Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
When Bailey didn’t immediately say, “Yeah, of course,” in a bright, flirty voice, Reeves couldn’t hold her gaze any longer.
He shifted his weight onto his left leg, which moved him a couple of inches from her and caused her to drop her hand.
He had no idea how long Trevor would be gone, and the clock on the wall seemed to tick loudly into the silence between them.
Sir had definitely quieted, and Reeves was grateful for that.
He cleared his throat, about to tell Bailey to forget what he’d said, when she said, “Yeah, dinner sounds great.” She turned toward the countertop and cabinet against the far wall of the exam room.
“Are we going to go out or eat at your place?”
Nervous energy zipped through Reeves’s whole system. “I was thinking we’d go out,” he said, though such a thing raised red flags and caused alarms to sound inside his body.
Bailey glanced over to him without truly making eye contact. “All right,” she said. “I’ll let you plan it however you want.” She faced him fully then and nodded. “When were you thinking?”
Her friend’s wedding was next Saturday, nine days from now, with tomorrow night being Friday, and Reeves couldn’t help but wonder if God had orchestrated that yellow jacket nest at the trailhead and had somehow led Sir to it, simply so Reeves would have to see Bailey again.
He hadn’t been able to muster up the courage to text her or go next door and ask her out on a date in the two days since the rainstorm. Of course, they’d both been incredibly busy cleaning up their properties, and she had a full-time job at her clinic on top of that.
Her family and friends had cleared his path to his chicken pen and goat shed in only a couple of hours yesterday, and they’d left long before dinner. He hadn’t been alone with Bailey once while they’d been there.
“What about tomorrow?” he asked.
Bailey’s eyebrows went up, and she folded her arms even as she nodded. “I don’t have any other plans for Friday night,” she said.
“Do you work until six every night?” He swallowed hard, as his salivary glands had dried up somehow and his mouth felt sticky.
“I’m off-site tomorrow,” Bailey said. “I’m working at Wolf Creek in the morning, and I usually come back here to do paperwork, but I can bring it home with me.”
“I don’t want you to do anything different than you normally would,” Reeves said.
“Should we say seven, then?” Bailey glanced over as the door that led into staff-only parts of the veterinary clinic opened and Trevor re-entered.
“We’ve got a kennel for him,” he said.
Bailey nodded at him. “Thank you, Trevor. Will you go start the checkout process for Mister Durham, and bring me a cart for Sir?”
“You got it,” Trevor said.
He left the room again. Feeling wild and braver than he probably should, Reeves moved around the elevated table where his boxer lay and crowded into Bailey’s personal space. Shock coursed through her expression as he reached for her, but she put her arms around him, returning his embrace.
“Thank you,” he whispered. “For helping Sir and keeping him with you today.”
“Of course,” Bailey said.
Reeves stepped back, a vein of humiliation pulling through him, because how many clients hugged their veterinarian and thanked her for helping their animals?
Not many, he thought. And certainly no one after asking her on a date.
“Seven would be great,” he said.
She gave him a small smile and nodded. “If I need to wear anything particular, text me.”
Reeves nodded again and moved back to the other side of the table. “All right, buddy,” he said. “I’m gonna leave you here with Bailey, okay? And she’s gonna make sure you feel real good before you come home.”
Trevor opened the door again and pushed in a cart with a plush dog bed on it. He and Bailey lifted Sir onto it, and the cold compress slipped off of his dog’s head. Reeves bent down and looked right into his dog’s eyes.
“You’re a good boy,” he whispered. “You be good here.”
“Okay, we’ll have you go wait out front,” Trevor said.
“You can call and ask about him anytime,” Bailey said. “I’ll check his vitals every hour or two, but I don’t anticipate any problems.”
Reeves nodded and headed for the door that led into the public hallways, while Trevor wheeled Sir out the other door and Bailey followed them.
A sense of pure accomplishment filled him, because he’d just asked out the most beautiful woman in the world, and she’d said yes. The feeling didn’t last long, though, because now Reeves needed to find somewhere to take Bailey that would impress her and where he could maintain his low profile.
Unrest and frustration moved through him that he’d done something so stupid as to put himself out in public.
As he waited for his name to be called so he could pay and check out, he told himself over and over, Bailey is worth it.
You’ll find somewhere off the grid and perfect, and it’ll be fine.
She’s worth it. She’s worth it. She’s worth it.
Seven o’clock came and went with Reeves in front of his computer.
His video for Saturday had just finished rendering, and all he had to do now was upload it to his channel and schedule it.
He should’ve been done with it hours ago, as he’d been on the computer since he’d gotten home with only Pansy, but he’d spent hours researching diners, restaurants, and good first date ideas in the Coral Canyon area.
He felt like he’d been on an emotional roller coaster all day—first with Sir’s yellow jacket incident, and then asking Bailey out, and then dealing with where to take her.
Those were all highs, but with every high came a low, and he felt himself plummeting toward panic yet again as he made the final clicks to schedule the video.
She should be here any minute, and part of Reeves wanted to blurt out that he’d lost his mind and made a terrible mistake by asking her out.
At the same time, he absolutely couldn’t do that.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, conjuring up the image of Bailey’s face when he’d suggested dinner.
She’d seemed surprised, yes, but also hopeful and happy, and with that reminder, he knew he hadn’t been imagining the spark between them.
“You just need to tell her.” He opened his eyes and looked at the computer screens in front of him. All he’d have to do when she brought Sir home was march her into this office and show her the setup: the professional microphone, the three huge monitors, the YouTube channel.
His heartbeat cymballed through his whole chest, crashing and screaming and making his head hurt.
He never used his last name in his videos, but that didn’t mean no one could find him.
He’d had to register with his legal name for his channel to be monetized, and in fact, he had a whole company built around his outdoor survival videos and his persona as Teton Mountain Man, the outdoor enthusiast who ate steak off the tip of a knife.
His doorbell rang, and he jerked to attention, knowing exactly who it would be. Pansy got to her feet and trotted to the doorway of the office before looking over her shoulder.
“Yeah, let’s get the door,” he told her.
He crossed the room and turned the corner, the heavy wood door coming into view only a few feet from him.
He reached forward and opened it, expecting to find Sir on a leash at Bailey’s side.
Instead, she cradled the boxer in her arms, and the canine looked over to Reeves lazily before flopping his head back against her shoulder like he didn’t have the energy to hold it up himself.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Reeves said. But hey, Sir’s face had de-puffed, and he looked normal again.
Bailey grinned at him, everything about her erasing Reeves’s thoughts of telling her about his outdoor survival channel or canceling their date. “You don’t have to carry him.” He stepped forward and started to take Sir from her. “Can he not walk?”
“He can; he just didn’t want to,” Bailey said.
Reeves rolled his eyes and bent to set the boxer on the floor. “You’ve got four legs, bud, you can use ‘em.”
Sir stumbled a little before he gained his legs, and then he simply trotted into the house as if nothing bad had happened that day. Reeves twisted and watched him go around the corner and into the kitchen.
“He’s probably hungry,” he said.
“We didn’t feed him,” Bailey said. “So I’m sure he is.”
Reeves swung his attention back to her. “Do you want to come in?”
A hint of that surprise crossed her face, and she seemed to be considering it.
Then she shook her head. “I don’t think I can,” she said.
“We had another emergency come in after you, and this one required surgery, so I need to read over my files for tomorrow, and I’ve still got Rabbit and Milky Way to take care of tonight.
” She yawned and reached up to run her hands through her hair, which he realized she’d loosed from the ponytail she’d had it in earlier that day.
“I’m tired, and I just want to go home.”
“I could’ve come and gotten Sir,” he said, a frown pulling down his eyebrows.
She smiled at him and stepped up onto the threshold of his house. He didn’t back up, and in fact, slid one arm around her waist to hold her close to him.
“I know,” she whispered. She looked up at his cowboy hat and then slid her hand along the side of his face in a cradling action.
Reeves had not been touched by a woman this intimately in a very long time, and every cell in his body sang with warmth and anticipation.
“I can’t wait until tomorrow night,” Bailey said. Just as quickly and easily as she’d stepped up into his house, she stepped down, pulling her hand away and easing out of Reeves’s hold. “See you tomorrow at seven.”
“Yeah,” he said dumbly.
She turned, crossed his front porch, and went down the steps while he stood there and watched, not having enough brain cells to do more than that.
When the door of her SUV slammed, Reeves blinked and jolted back to reality.
He quickly closed the door, lest she find him still standing there like a fool.
He went into the kitchen where, sure enough, Sir was still crunching his way through dinner. Reeves needed to eat too, but instead of starting to cook something for himself, he pulled out a barstool and sank onto it, then lifted his hand to his face and held it there the same way Bailey had.
He hadn’t canceled on her and didn’t even want to, so now all he could do was hope that a small town café and a short hike to a field of wildflowers would impress her enough to agree to a second date.