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‘Poppy was going on about boys keeping their trousers on, and older women, and unexpected babies, which didn’t make a lot of sense, and the guinea pig threw me for a total loop. I should have realised the guinea pig was my biggest clue. Who else has guinea pigs for clients other than vets?’

‘Former client.’

She grinned. ‘Yeah, Poppy mentioned everyone left the room in a hurry when you went … what was her word? … apeshit.’

Josh chuckled. ‘Yeah. There’s a bill that’ll never get paid.’

The light over the doorway of the Cody and Cody Vet Clinic shone a golden circle over the quiet street corner.

‘Come in,’ said Josh. ‘You can fill me in on Poppy’s job, and I can thank you for keeping her safe for me. I should probably also mention she doesn’t actually live here in Hanrahan full time. I’m not quite sure how a job is going to work.’

She shook her head. ‘She told me. School holidays only. About coming inside … I don’t know, it is kind of late.’

The vet shrugged. ‘I’ve got wine, frozen pizza, peanut butter and half a loaf of maybe stale bread?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Wow. That’s a dizzying list of food enticements.’

‘Please, Vera,’ said Poppy, who had bounded up to them after finishing her call. ‘If you come in, Dad won’t tell me off for running away this afternoon.’

Oh, what the hell. It wasn’t as though this was a date. She was just reassuring a worried father that she was going to be a nice employer for his daughter on the odd occasions she was in town.

She nodded. ‘You Codys have a unique way of persuasion. But just for a bit. I really do have to be up at dawn.’

‘Great.’ Josh shoved a key into the heavy wooden door, and let her and Poppy precede him into the foyer. ‘Popstar, can you take Jane Doe back to her pups? Make sure she has some water.’

‘Okay.’

The dim foyer was quiet after Poppy led the dog away, the clicking of claws on the tiled entry fading as they disappeared somewhere in the house. Quiet and oddly charged, like static had built up in the space between her and the man who stood watching her.

‘So,’ she said, clearing her throat. Ridiculous to feel this nervous, he was just a guy. Just a concerned father, with a whole life she knew nothing about. Hell, he could be gay, celibate, completely uninterested.

He moved a step closer.

Oh boy. The static charge jumped up by about a thousand volts. Her clothes prickled, her hair felt heavy, her breath juddered in her chest.

‘So,’ he said, the low echo of her word rumbling in the space between them. He leaned a shoulder up on the wall in a gesture that would have seemed casual if it hadn’t, for some crazy reason, also sent her heart rate into a spin. ‘This is a little unexpected.’

She pretended to have no clue what he was talking about. ‘Not at all. Graeme and I were just talking the other day about having some casual workers on our books. Hiring Poppy for a few hours this week will help us work out when we need staff the most.’

She wondered if she sounded as dizzy as she felt.Hot vet alert. Graeme’s words rang in her head; her feckless hormones had been on high alert ever since she’d felt the blaze of Josh Cody’s eyes on her.

‘You want to take off that jacket? It’s plenty warm upstairs.’

How had he managed to make an innocuous sentence sound like an indecent proposal? Not gay, then. Or celibate. Or uninterested, if the look in his eyes was anything to go by.

‘Ah …’ she said. ‘Um …’

‘You know, I was wondering if I should get to know you a little better.’

She swallowed. ‘You were?’

‘Yeah. But, you know, I’ve got a vet practice to build up, a daughter to wrangle, a derelict apartment to renovate in an historically sensitive way. I’d take some persuasion.’ His teeth gleamed in the shadowed light. Oh yeah, this guy had charm all right. And it was damn near irresistible. She hugged her jacket about her; perhaps the padded fleece of her old winter coat could deflect some of it.

‘Uh-huh,’ she said, putting some steel in her voice so it wouldn’t sound like she was flirting. ‘Well, that’s just as well. I’ve got a café business to build. My aunt to care for. Some, er … stuff left over in the city that can’t be ignored. I most definitely could not be persuaded.’

His voice was lower still. ‘And yet, I’ve got this big hungry urge to try.’

Oh, she was in trouble. Sexually charged banter was not the road to a calm and peaceful life alone in Hanrahan while she pulled herself together. Sexually charged banter was the road to ruin.