Page 62 of Second Act
Chapter 15
Jessica had turned that sentence over and over in her mind ever since. As they rode the short distance to her house in the town car, Hugh had shifted the conversation back to her veterinary work. He’d walked her to the door, kissed her on the forehead, and trudged wearily down her front steps while she watched through the stained glass window.
She’d thought her words might bring him some comfort. After all, she’d left him because she loved him, not because she didn’t. Instead her explanation seemed to have dropped a greater weight on his shoulders.
Self-reproach had made her sleep fitful, so it had been tough to drag herself into the clinic. Which was why she winced when Carla waltzed into her office and slapped a tabloid down on her desk, saying, “You’ve been holding out on me, girlfriend.”
Jessica looked at the page Carla pointed to. One of the bottom-feeding photographers had caught her and Hugh dashing out of the theater door hand in hand at the moment Jessica had looked up at him, laughing at how she felt like a spy movie heroine. In the picture, her expression translated to happy adoration. “Seriously?” Jessica said, picking up the offending paper to read the caption: “Hugh Baker’s mystery date head over heels in love. Who’s the new woman in the movie star’s famously footloose dating life?”
Carla sat down in the other chair. “Looks like you and Mr. Hugh Baker aren’t exactly history anymore.”
Jessica dropped the tabloid on her desk. “You know better than to believe the crap they print in these things. Hugh and I just went to a play together.” As long as she said nothing more, that was the truth.
“Then why are you looking at him like he hung the moon and the stars?” Carla grabbed the newspaper and scanned the photo. “Not to mention you’ve got that certain glow about you. Besides, even if you just went to a show together, that’s more than you shared with me.”
Now Jessica was going to have to lie. “He got some tickets at the last minute and invited me for old times’ sake.”
“He got tickets toA Question of Desireat the last minute? Honey, the scalpers can’t even get tickets to that show.”
Jessica shrugged. “Maybe he had another date who couldn’t come? I don’t really know.”
Carla gave her a long, hard look. “I’ll back off—for now. But other folks are going to see this—there are a couple on the internet, too, by the way—and start asking questions. What do you want me to tell them?”
“Most of the truth. That Hugh and I knew each other before he got famous. He’s in town shooting the Julian Best movie and we got together again—just as friends. You can leave out the engagement part,” Jessica added. “Too complicated.”
“Oh, honey, in this day and age, someone’s going to find that out anyway,” Carla said, shaking her head. She stood and put the paper back on Jessica’s desk. “You should keep that. It’s your fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Not exactly how I want to be remembered,” Jessica said as she shoved the paper in a desk drawer.
“Hey, you could do worse than to be caught holding hands with that sexy hunk of manhood.” Carla exited with a sly glance over her shoulder.
Jessica got up and closed the door before she pulled the paper out again. There she was, hair flying, necklace bouncing, face turned up to her companion in a galling expression of hero worship.
At least Hugh wasn’t staring back into her eyes. His gaze was focused forward, and his jaw was set with determination as he towed her along. The camera had caught him midstride, so his long legs and muscled thighs drew the eye—or at leasthereye.
She groaned and stuffed the paper back in the drawer.
She was coming out the door of her office when Diego walked by, carrying a large bag of dog food. As he passed her, the bottom of the bag broke and spilled kibble all over the floor, causing him to curse with words he never ordinarily used at the clinic.
“Hey, Diego, Tiana will take care of that,” Jessica said, deciding he must be upset about something more than the dog food. “Come in my office for a minute.”
“I spilled it. I gotta clean it up,” Diego said. “Sorry about the cursing.”
“Hey, Doc wants to talk to you, buddy,” Tiana said. “I’ve got this.”
Diego shrugged and trudged after Jessica into her office, flopping onto the green chair so hard that Jessica worried it might collapse under his weight.
“What’s on your mind?” she asked.
He stared down at his hands where they rested on his thighs, his shoulders rounded. “I really messed up.”
“What are you talking about? It’s just some dry dog food. It’ll take Tiana five minutes to sweep it up.”
“Not that.” He lifted a face of pure misery to meet her gaze. “You know when I put the sick dogs in the storage closet so they wouldn’t infect the healthy ones?”
“It was a great idea.”
He shook his head. “The health inspector came—a new one—and saw Pari in the closet. He say that go...goes against some code aboutthe treatment of animals ’cause there ain’t no ventilation, and he going to report it to Animal Control and Welfare. Ms. Emily say he just in a bad mood and it wasn’t my fault, but I should have took Pari out of there.” His whole body slumped in the chair. “They might shut down the K-9 Angelz ’cause of me.”
