Dr. Barton was
bent over rummaging through a bottom drawer of the built-ins on the far wall.
Even though Alex did his best not to stare, it was impossible not
to notice that she had an incredibly spectacular ass. He’d always been a
leg man, but one look at her derrière and he suddenly decided he’d been missing
out.
Then she stood up,
turned around, and flipped her long, wavy blond hair over her shoulder, and he
realized that the rest of her was equally stunning. While her baggy white
lab coat hid a lot, he could still tell that she had an athletic build and some
really nice curves. It was her face that made his heart beat
faster, though. She had the most captivating pair of blue eyes he’d ever
seen and full red lips just begging to be kissed. From this moment forward,
whenever he pictured an angel, he would think of the beautiful Dr. Barton.
Alex smiled, and
when she smiled back, he heard her heart thudding a little quicker. But then
she looked down at Tuffie, and her entire expression changed. Hurrying
over, she dropped down to one knee beside Tuffie, gently examining her ears and
face.
She gave Alex an
angry glare. “Please tell me you arrested the people who put this beautiful
girl in a dogfighting ring. Even better—tell me you shot them.”
If Alex had
thought her heart was beating fast before, it was nothing compared to the way
it was thumping now. Clearly, Dr. Barton was very passionate
about protecting dogs. In his book, that made her even more beautiful than
she already was.
“I wish I could,
but unfortunately, we never found the people who did it,” Alex said. “We
rescued Tuffie when her owner was killed. He died trying to protect
her from a psychopath armed with a rifle.”
Dr. Barton’s gaze
went back to Tuffie, her expression turning from anger to sadness as she ran
her fingers down the fresh scars along the dog’s chest and side. “Looks
like she got shot anyway.”
“Yeah. It’s a
miracle she lived long enough for my teammate and me to get her here in time
for Doc Jones to save her. Thank God for sirens. I think we ran every red
light in town.”
The veterinarian
straightened, gracing him with another dazzling grin, and Alex felt his knees
go a little loose. Damn, what a smile.
“I knew there was
something I liked about you the second you walked in.”
Alex felt his face
flush. “It wasn’t a big deal. I’m a cop. Saving people—and dogs—comes with the
job description.” He cringed the moment the words left his mouth. Had he
really just said something that lame?
Thankfully, the
beautiful Dr. Barton didn’t seem to notice the cheesy line. Or if she had, she
was too polite to laugh at him.
“And is bringing
Tuffie to her appointments also in your job description?” she asked, her eyes
twinkling.
Was her heart
beating even faster than before? Unless it was his own heart pounding in his
ears. That was a definite possibility. Because it seemed like he had a
real thing for Dr. Barton.
He smiled. “It is
if the rest of the SWAT team and I adopted her and gave her a new home.”
Alex knew it was a
shameless grab to get further into the doctor’s good graces, but he couldn’t
seem to stop himself.
“Not only did you
save her life, but you adopted her too? I think Tuffie hit the lottery with
you, Officer…?”
“Trevino,” he
said, filling in the blank and offering his hand. “But please, call me Alex.”
She took his hand
and gave it a shake. “Nice to meet you, Alex. I’m Lacey Barton.”
Her hand was small
in comparison to his, her skin soft and warm, and Alex found himself holding on
a bit longer than was customary. Lacey didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she
appeared just as reluctant to let go as he did.
She pushed her
hair behind her ear and cleared her throat. “I guess we ought to get on with
Tuffie’s checkup. So you can get back to saving the world and everything.”
“Yeah, of course.”
Reaching down,
Alex gently picked up Tuffie and set her on the stainless steel exam table.
“Nice muscle
tone,” Lacey murmured.
Alex felt the
compliment go right to his head. “Thanks.”
“Actually, I was
talking about Tuffie,” Lacey said as she tenderly ran her hands over the dog’s
shoulders.
“Oh.”
She looked up at
him from beneath her lashes. “But yours is pretty good too.”
Alex chuckled.
Damn, this woman was good. He had her by a foot in height and more than a
hundred pounds in weight, yet she was playing him like a fiddle, and he
didn’t mind one bit. He couldn’t remember ever having such an immediate and
intense reaction to any woman he’d ever met. Suddenly, he wanted to know
everything there was to know about her—and then some.
Lacey was more than
accommodating, telling him about how she’d recently gotten a job here after
working several years at a place on the west side of Dallas closer to
Arlington.
“I loved it there,
but this place is closer to my apartment,” she told him as she continued to
examine Tuffie. “I’ve cut my commute time by about an hour and a half each
way, so it’s like getting a whole extra day off to do stuff I want to do
instead of sitting in traffic.”
“And what do you
like to do with all this extra time?” he asked.
Lacey leaned over
to read something in Tuffie’s medical records. Alex tensed, worried she’d found
something wrong, but after a moment, she merely nodded to herself, then
went back to checking Tuffie. “I do a lot of volunteer work at one of the
nearby animal shelters,” she said. “I’m also on call to help out both
Animal Services and the DPD Animal Cruelty Squad when they run into
injured dogs.”
Whoa. A woman who
spent her days taking care of dogs for a living, then did it during her spare
time for free? That was definitely a woman Alex could appreciate.
“It’s pretty
amazing that you give so much of your time to animal causes,” he said. “Getting
called out at all hours of the day and night must be tough on
your boyfriend, though.”
Lacey urged Tuffie
over on her back, pressing carefully along one of the long scars that ran all
the way from the base of her rib cage to the middle of her cute pink
tummy.
“I don’t have a
boyfriend right now,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning up. “My life
is a little too busy for that at the moment.”
Bingo! Alex had
already noticed she wasn’t wearing a ring. Now he knew she wasn’t seeing
anyone. Could this get any better?
Catching Lana: An Alaska Blizzard Companion Novella by Kat Mizera
