Page 96 of Dust Storm

Her whisper was a ghost floating against my skin. “All I wanted was some good dick.”

“Pretty sure I delivered on that, princess. But if you need me to help jog your memory, it’d be my pleasure.”

The radio on my hip crackled with CJ’s voice. “Chris—you around?”

Cassandra broke away, using the interruption to disappear into her room.

“Go ahead,” I said into the radio.

“Grab the vet bag and get out here. I need an extra set of hands.”

I watched Cassandra sashay around, pulling clothes out of her suitcase to get dressed for the day.She hadn’t even unpacked…

What was I thinking?

I shook it off. “Yeah, I’ll be out. Hang tight.”

“Everything okay?” Cassandra asked from the guest room.

“Uh, I’m not sure. Sounds like one of the animals is in trouble or something. I’ll be back up after a while.”

Her breasts bounced in a black bra as she pulled on a blouse. “I’m going to need an hour of your workday today,” she said, shedding the vulnerable woman who had admitted she was heartbroken, and donning the armor of Cassandra the publicist.

“Do I finally get to see what I’ve been paying you to do all this time?” I asked as I filled up a thermos with coffee from the pot.

“More like you’ll get to see what you’re going to fork out an exorbitant amount of money for over the next few years.”

“I’m sorry—years?”

She popped her head back into the bedroom doorway. “You told me to go big.”

“Stop right there.”

I froze in the doorway of the office. Cassandra sat behind my desk, looking a little green around the gills.

She held out a hand to keep me at a distance. “Dear God, you smell atrocious.What is that?”

“It’s hot out today,” I said, taking a step inside. “Probably got a little sweaty.”

She pinched her nose. “No. Out. You smell like death.”

“I thought you needed an hour of my time.”

She flicked her manicured hand toward the door. “I can condense it. Spend thirty minutes of that with some soap and hot water. Do I even want to know why you smell like the bottom of a garbage truck in July?”

“There was a situation.”

Cassandra blinked. “A situation.”

I dropped the heavy vet bag on the threshold. “CJ had a momma casting her withers after she birthed a calf. Doc was out in Maren, a little town east, and couldn’t get out here to help.”

Her eyebrows lifted. “So you did?”

I shrugged. “Prolapsed uterus. Stitched her up and got her stable. Doc’ll be out here in a few hours to check her over.”

Cassandra’s eyes fell back on her computer screen. “I’ll pretend like you didn’t just tell me you had your whole arm up a cow’s?—”

“Two arms, actually,” I said, just to clarify.

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