“Wow! Well, good for them. What did you and Reece do while the foursome got themselves entangled?”
She paused for a beat, then flung herself into the deep end. “Apparently, we thought it was such a great idea that we got on board too.”
Silence crackled through the line. “Not sure I heard you right. Are you saying …?”
“Yes. Reece and I got married. We were so drunk we don’t remember doing it, but we have a marriage license that says so. Under the circumstances, I don’t know how valid it is, but we plan to find out and undo what we did. Reece isn’t any happier about it than I am. I’m so sorry, Leo.” The rest of the air she’d been holding in squeezed from her lungs. “Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” he answered quietly, “but I’ve got to admit I don’t know what to say, Neve.”
“I’m at a loss too, Leo. I’m so sorry. This isn’t like me. I’m not someone who gets drunk, gets a wild hair, and acts on it. I’m not that girl.”
His voice tightened. “Obviously, some part of youisthat girl, Neve. Getting so wasted you don’t remember … The alcohol merely removed a barrier. The desire had to be there for you to go through with something so … so reckless. Unless someone held a gun to your head.”
God, she wanted to scream that yes, someone had. Barring that lie, her next urge was to crawl into a shell and stay there the rest of her life. “To my knowledge, no one did.”
Extended moments of squirm-worthy silence passed.
“Leo, I—”
“Look, Neve, I have some obligations to take care of. Let’s leave it at this: You go work out whatever you need to with Reece. Assuming that involves gettingunmarried, we’ll talk after that. In the meantime, I wish you the best.”
She’d been on the verge of apologizing again because she’d needed to fill the void withsomething, but he’d taken care of it with a polite good-bye they both knew masked the real message: never again in this lifetime, sister.Take your marbles and go home. She had been so far out of his moving-and-shaking league anyway, and this pushed her farther into orbit.
They hung up, and she cycled fresh air through her lungs. By the time Reece emerged from the tavern with a bag of kibble, she’d cleared some debris from her head.
“I just told Leo,” she announced.
Reece’s green eyes widened. “How did that go?”
She shrugged. “About as well as you’d expect, but at least he heard it straight from me and not through the Fall River wireless. In case you’re wondering, he broke it off.”
One Reece eyebrow lowered with concern. “You could have let it ride, you know. You didn’t have to tell him.”
“Yes, I did.Nottelling him would have been morally reprehensible, and I can’t believe you, Mr. Upstanding Citizen, would even suggest such a thing.”
While he mumbled something about not always being honorable, his eyes blazed with contrition. “Are you all right?”
“Surprisingly, yes.” Funny, she should have been devastated over the humiliating breakup with the first man who’d shown interest in a very long time, but the overriding emotion taking up space in her chest was … relief. She’d been so busy worrying about her low-life roots and comparing herself to the high-class beauties at his disposal that she’d always felt a little on edge around him. Not quite good enough to simply be Neve Embry, small-town vet.
Leo Cantrell’s exit left her with one less troubling detail in her life.
Reece seemed to appraise her for a long moment—probably satisfying himself she wasn’t going to go to pieces right before his eyes—then gave her a curt head bob.
They clambered into their vehicles and headed down Bowen Street. Reece’s truck trailed her the four blocks to the clinic. The shops were normally closed this time of year, but on Thanksgiving Day, the streets were even more deserted than usual. An urgency to get Reece settled, get her dog, and curl up on her couch with a cup of hot tea and a Hallmark Christmas movie rose up inside her and moved to the front of her priority line. If she wasreallylucky, she’d discover a sleeve of Pillsbury cinnamon rolls in her fridge she could heat up—the big ones.
Reece was low-maintenance. Getting him settled wouldn’t take long. They could work out the other “stuff” tomorrow. She, at least, needed adecent night’s sleep before tackling the disquieting possibility they needed to legally undo their epically impulsive mistake.
As they rolled closer to their destination, something looked off, and her brain struggled to process what her eyes reported. Her clinic came fully into view, and her hopes and plans for a quiet, numbing afternoon filled with artery-clogging pastry evaporated. Parked out front was Shane’s deputy sheriff’s SUV beside Sheriff Chesterton’s vehicle. The sheriff’s presence at her place of business raised the fine hairs on her nape and arms. If the sheriff washereinstead of solving crimes somewhere else in their vast county, something was very, very wrong.
Then came the confirming, crushing blow: Jagged glass in her front door marked where the pane had been when she’d locked up yesterday. The frame holding the glass hung drunkenly on its hinges, and she swallowed down her rising alarm.
Not bothering to park in a proper slot, she came to a screeching halt and sprang from her vehicle. Shane and the sheriff emerged from inside, ducking through the gaping hole.
“O’Brien, I’ll look for your report.” Turning toward her, Sheriff Chesterton tipped his hat. “Doc, Deputy O’Brien will fill you in.” Then he gave Reece a nod. “Hunnicutt, glad you’re here to help the little lady.”
Neve was too stunned to react to the “little lady” comment. Instead, she lasered in on Shane, who held up in his hands in a placating gesture.
“Doc, I’m glad you’re back. Now don’t panic, but I’ve got some bad news.”
