Chapter 4 Lucy
Lucy
My back feels like someone used it for batting practice with a sledgehammer.
That's what I get for sleeping on clinic tile all night, but I couldn't abandon Dusty. Not after what he'd survived. Not when those impossible blue eyes found mine every time he stirred, like I was his anchor to the living world.
Dawn slides through the windows, painting everything honey-gold, and I stretch against the unforgiving floor. Every muscle screams bloody murder, but it's worth it when Dusty's tail gives the faintest flutter at seeing me move.
"Morning, gorgeous," I whisper, threading my fingers through the cage bars to stroke his silk-soft fur. "Feeling better?"
His nose nudges my hand, and something tight in my chest loosens. He's going to make it.
We both are.
I sit up slowly, trying not to disturb him, and reality crashes back down. Twenty-four hours ago, I was sleeping in my van, ready to run. Now I'm employed, planning to stay in one place for the first time in over a year.
What the hell am I thinking?
Every survival instinct I've developed is screaming that this is insane. Getting close to people, especially a sheriff who asks too many questions and a vet who makes my pulse stutter, goes against everything I've learned about staying safe.
But God, I'm tired of running.
Two more months. That's all I need to stay invisible until I turn twenty-one. Two months in small-town Montana with cash work, zero paper trail, and where nobody's ever heard the name Lucinda Kensington-Reid might actually work.
Besides, there's something about this place that feels... different. Like maybe I could breathe here.
Or maybe it's the men.
Heat climbs my neck just thinking about them, which is ridiculous because I have zero business getting hot and bothered over guys when my life's hanging together by sheer willpower and luck.
But Gabriel. Jesus. All that controlled authority wrapped around military discipline, those impossible blue eyes that see too much. When he looked at me yesterday, I felt like he could read every secret I'm carrying. Dangerous doesn't begin to cover it.
And Colt... Christ, Colt with his work-roughened hands and that devil's grin that screams trouble. He's everything reckless and wild that I should be running from. Pure Montana cowboy wet dream, all rangy muscle and barely leashed chaos.
They're both gorgeous in completely different ways. Both dangerous for reasons that have nothing to do with uncle Richard, and everything to do with the way they make me forget why I can't have nice things.
Gabriel's authority should terrify me. Men in uniforms with calm voices and clipboards took away two years of my life. But there's something different about Gabriel, something that makes me want to trust him even when my brain's screaming warnings.
And Colt's wild energy calls to every reckless impulse I've spent years learning to suppress. The part of me that got labeled "unstable" recognizes a kindred spirit in his barely controlled chaos.
"What do you think, Dusty?" I murmur, scratching behind his ears. "Am I losing what's left of my mind?"
His tail thumps weakly against his blanket.
"Yeah, that's what I figured." I lean my forehead against the cage bars. And speaking of complicated men, I had to call your dad yesterday. Beau Blackwell."
Dusty's ears prick forward at the name, and I wince.
"He sounds like a real piece of work. All controlled fury and barely restrained violence when I told him where you were." I stroke his head gently. "Whatever went down between him and Colt, it's brutal."
The phone call with Beau Blackwell had been like trying to negotiate with a barely leashed wolf. His voice came through the line like gravel and steel, every word clipped with fury when I explained his dog was being treated at Colt's clinic.
"I want him transferred. Now."
"Mr. Blackwell, I understand you're upset, but Dusty just had surgery—"
"I don't give a damn. I'm not leaving my dog with that—"
"Your dog almost died," I'd interrupted, surprising myself with the steel in my voice. Mom always said I had Dad's stubborn chin, and apparently it came with a backbone. "Dr. Mercer saved his life. Maybe focus on that instead of whatever grudge you're nursing."
The silence that followed had been so long I thought he'd hung up.
"Fine," he'd finally said, each word like breaking glass. "But I want updates. Daily. And the moment he's stable enough to move..."
"Of course. I'll call you every day."
He'd hung up without another word, leaving me staring at the phone and wondering what kind of bad blood could make a man reluctant to trust the vet who'd just saved his dog's life.
"He loves you, though," I tell Dusty now. "I could hear it underneath all that anger. He was scared."
I know that fear. Lived with it for two years while Mom fought cancer. The terror of losing someone precious never goes away.
Footsteps echo from the back hallway, and I scramble to my feet, pulling my hand away from Dusty's cage.
"Lucy?" Colt's voice carries rough with sleep and what sounds like a serious hangover.
"In here," I call back, trying to smooth down my hair and look like I wasn't just having a heart-to-heart with a dog.
Colt appears in the doorway looking like he went ten rounds with a bottle of whiskey and lost. His golden-brown hair is sticking up in six different directions, shadows ring his green eyes, and he's wearing yesterday's clothes like he slept in them.
Which, judging by the state of him, he probably did.
His gaze takes in my rumpled appearance, the makeshift bed I'd created with clinic blankets, my messy hair, the way I'm standing too close to Dusty's cage.
"Did you actually sleep here?"
Heat floods my cheeks. "I didn't want him to be alone. He was scared after surgery, and I thought..." I trail off, feeling stupid. "I know it's probably against some kind of policy."
Something tender flickers across his features, softening every hard line. "It's not against anything. It's just... most people wouldn't think to care that much."
"You look like hell," I blurt, then slap a hand over my mouth. "Sorry, I meant—"
"No, you're right. Feel like it too."
He drags a hand through his already destroyed hair. "Please tell me this place has coffee somewhere, or I might actually die."
"I'll make some strong enough to wake the dead. Just let me grab clean clothes from my van and rinse off the clinic floor first. I swear I'll be fast."
"Take all the time you need. We don't open for another hour, and I'm in no shape to see people yet."
Twenty minutes later, I emerge from the clinic’s cramped bathroom feeling almost human again. The shower was pure heaven after a night on unforgiving tile, and clean clothes make me feel like I might actually survive whatever today throws at me.
The clinic's kitchen is tiny but functional, with a coffee maker that's seen better decades and a mini-fridge stocked with basics. I brew coffee strong enough to raise the dead, which Colt desperately needs.
"How's our patient?" he asks, melting into a chair at the small table like his bones have given up.
"Much better. He ate some kibble and drank water earlier." I pour coffee into a mug that says 'World's Okayest Vet' and try not to notice how the morning light turns the stubble along his jaw into golden sandpaper I want to touch.
"This should resurrect you." I turn to hand him the coffee, and our fingers collide as he takes it.
The contact shoots through me like lightning, igniting something warm and dangerous low in my belly.
From the way his green eyes go molten, I'm pretty sure he feels it too. For one stolen heartbeat, we just stare at each other, the air between us crackling with electricity I'm nowhere near ready to acknowledge.
"Thank you," he says, his voice gone gravelly and low, like he's been thinking the same dangerous thoughts I have.
"You're welcome," I breathe, completely unable to look away from his mouth and wondering what it would taste like.
The front door detonates open with enough force to make the windows shudder, obliterating whatever spell we were weaving. Heavy footsteps echo through the reception area, followed by a voice that could cut steel.
"Where is he?"
Colt's face hardens instantly. "Beau."
The name comes out like a curse, and I watch every trace of warmth bleed from his expression. He sets down the coffee with deliberate control and stands, his whole body coiling for a fight.
"Stay here," he orders, but I'm already trailing him toward the reception area.
Like hell I'm missing this testosterone showdown.
The man commanding the middle of the clinic is exactly what I expected and absolutely nothing I could have prepared for.
Beau Blackwell is tall, easily six-three, with shoulders that scream manual labor and a presence that devours the room like an approaching storm.
Dark hair styled to perfection despite the ungodly hour, wearing the Montana cowboy uniform of faded denim, scuffed leather boots, and a flannel shirt that's survived actual work.
A cowboy hat dangles forgotten from his fingers like a prop he no longer needs.
But it's his eyes that steal my breath. Piercing gray that seem to catalog every detail, every weakness, every secret.
He's formidable in the way mountains are formidable. Beautiful and absolutely immovable.
"Mercer." The single word cuts like a blade.
Colt doesn't even blink. "Blackwell. You're early. We don't open for another hour."
"I want to see my dog. Now."
"He's recovering from surgery. You can't just storm in here—"
"Watch me." Beau advances a step, and I can practically taste the violence radiating off his polished surface like heat waves.
"I told your girl on the phone—"
"That would be me," I cut him off, wedging myself between them before someone draws blood. "And I told you Dusty needed time to heal before he could be moved."