Rumor Has It (An Animal Magnetism Novel) (25 page)

“Fine.” He nodded. Christ, he was an idiot. “He’s going to be okay.”

“And you and your dad together?”

He blew out a breath. “We’re going to be okay, too.” He paused, hesitated really, which he rarely did, but he was feeling way out of his league. “I’m sorry for pushing you away, Kate. Everything I said about how I feel about you is true,” he said.

She nodded, and then . . . turned and walked off.

After a beat of hesitation, he followed her to her room. She was sitting on her bed looking down at her tightly clasped hands. “Even the pain-in-the-ass part?” she asked.

He let out a small smile. “Maybe especially that part.” He crouched in front of her and put his hands on her thighs. “Kate.”

She looked at him.

“I love you, Kate.”

Her eyes filled, but no tears fell.

“And I didn’t just get carried away in the moment,” he said. “I was with you because I wanted to be. I was wrong and—” He paused as she pushed him away and continued on with her packing as if he hadn’t spoken. Packing everything including her snow boots. Huh. He stared at her suitcase. “Does it snow in San Diego?”

She parlayed this with a question of her own. “You still taking that job in DC?”

“Yes.”

She fell quiet. He was so used to her chattering, the silence seemed wrong.

She zipped the huge suitcase and nodded. “You’ll be happier there.”

“Kate—”

“I don’t think there’s anything left to say. We were a thing, a hot one, but it burned out.”

He actually looked down at himself to see if he was bleeding.

“It’s over,” she said quietly.

“It’ll never be over,” he said. “A part of us will always care no matter where we are or what we’re doing.”

She turned away at that, neither denying nor confirming his words. “Good-bye, Griffin,” she said instead, politely moving back to her front door and holding it open for him.

Grif drove home. He wasn’t sure how long he sat in his truck like a shell-shocked idiot, thinking so hard his windows fogged.

He knew he’d let Kate down, but damn. It couldn’t be too late. He could still become the man she thought him, no matter whose blood flowed through his veins. Pulling out his phone, he punched in a number. When Joe answered, Grif didn’t hesitate. “About the job.”

* * *

One week later, Kate entered her tiny studio flat after her first day of school, dropped her books, kicked off her shoes, and then went perfectly still.

There was a man sitting on the small love seat.

Griffin.

He rose and immediately dwarfed the living room. He pulled her heavy bag from her shoulder and let it fall. Then he tugged off her sunglasses. He didn’t smile at her gaping shock. He just looked at her, very serious.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“Looking at you. You’re a sight for sore eyes, Kate.”

Her heart was pounding so loudly she barely heard herself say, “How long are you going to look at me?”

He smiled then, as if she were being funny. “Long as you’ll let me,” he said.

“And then?”

“And then I’m hoping you’ll let me put my hands on you.”

Oh God, it was too much, and she turned from him to take a badly needed moment. But now she was facing the small mirror over her desk, and she couldn’t handle looking at her reflection, seeing Griffin behind her. Gripping the desk for desperately needed balance, she bowed her head.

He came up behind her. Circling an arm around her waist, he kissed her just beneath her ear. The feel of him, the scent of him, everything about his nearness made her weak in the knees. Her eyes drifted shut, and she very nearly tilted her head to give him better access, but she controlled herself. Still, there was no holding in her moan. She’d missed him so much, too much. “Griffin.”

“Missed you, Kate,” he murmured.

For a moment she closed her eyes, allowing herself to savor the sensation of his embrace, but she couldn’t let him do this to her, refused to let him destroy her again. Lifting her head, she met his gaze in the mirror. “Why aren’t you in DC?”

“Decided against the bitch of a commute,” he said lightly.

She wasn’t amused. “I don’t understand.” And she wanted to understand. She needed to understand.

“I didn’t take the job,” he said. “I don’t care about it. You’re the only thing I care about, Kate.” He smiled a bit wryly. “I’d move to the moon to be with you. Or, as it turns out, San Diego.”

They were surrounded by the complications of her new life, and yet he still managed to make it all sound so simple. She closed her eyes again, but Griffin cupped her face, waiting her out.

“You caught me off guard,” he said when she opened them again. “Knocked my sorry ass for a loop the way you reeled me in.”

“I reeled you in?”

He laughed. “In the best way. You embraced me, compromised me . . . loved me.”

Kate couldn’t speak. She could scarcely breathe. “I also seduced you.”

“My favorite part,” he said. “When I got hurt, I went to Sunshine because it was ‘home,’ but I was wrong. Home is wherever you are, Kate.”

Her heart squeezed tight, so damn tight that she couldn’t talk, and Griffin studied her for a long beat. “If you’re not ready for this,” he said quietly, braced for something. “Just tell me.”

Rejection. He was putting on a good show, but he wasn’t sure about his reception here in her world. “There’s no ranch here to run,” she said. “What will you do?”

He shrugged. “I like the beach. Always did think I’d make a great lifeguard.”

She stared at him. He remained utterly still for her inspection, his eyes unwavering and intense, and . . . vulnerable.

No, he was nowhere near as laid-back as he wanted her to believe. In fact, she was pretty sure he wasn’t breathing, waiting on a response from her. “You’d move here for me,” she said cautiously, needing this spelled out.

He gestured to a pack on the floor near the love seat. “Already did.”

“Just for me,” she murmured, marveling at the truth of it. Turning to face him, she sighed in pleasure as his warm, strong arms closed tightly around her. “For my dream . . . Oh, Griffin.”

“Is that ‘oh, Griffin, how romantic’ or ‘oh, Griffin, you’re an idiot’?”

“Both, but mostly the first.”

He chuckled, the sound raw with relief as he rubbed his jaw against hers. Then he buried his face in her hair, letting out a long, ragged breath that seemed to come from the very bottom of his heart and soul. “About your dream,” he said. “I was hoping it might include me.”

She slid her fingers into his silky hair and lifted his head so she could see his face. “It always has.”

He stared into her eyes as the tension seemed to drain from him. “Always,” he breathed. “I like the sound of that word from you.” He stroked a hand down her back and then up again, fingers spread wide as if he needed to touch as much of her as possible.

“Griffin,” she said softly, having the exact same need. “Tell me you love me now.”

“I love you now,” he said, never taking his gaze from hers, giving her a promise, a vow. Giving her everything she’d ever wanted. “I love you always.”

One Yea
r Later

K
ate came back to Sunshine with a lot less fanfare than she’d left. She stood at the top of the dam, a light wind blowing her hair back from her face as she stared down at the lake far below.

A big, warm, callused palm slid into hers. With a smile she entwined her fingers with Griffin’s. They’d just spent the past few days driving back from San Diego. Wanting one last moment to themselves before they met up with both of their families waiting for them at the ranch, they’d stopped here at Kate’s place.

“You okay?” he asked.

She drew in a deep breath and smiled up into his tanned face. It had been the best year of her life. “I don’t remember ever being better.”

He gave her a smile. “It was a good year,” he said. “But I’m thinking it’s time to change things up a bit.”

“We’re moving back to Sunshine,” she said. “I’ve got my job at the school, and you were just hired on at the local ATF office. How much more can we change things up?”

He stroked the hair from her face. “Well, for starters, you could be my wife.”

She went utterly still. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

“Too soon?” he asked.

The lump got bigger, and her heart swelled up against her ribcage. “No,” she said, pulling his mouth to hers. “It’s perfect.”

Dear Reader,

Did you know
Rumor Has It
isn’t the only book in the
Animal Magnetism
series? It all started with
Animal Magnetism
. The idea for that book hit me one day when I was grocery shopping. I was trying to figure out what I wanted to write next when I ran into a guy in army gear in the cookie aisle. Be still my heart. He had on dark sunglasses, absolutely no smile, and testosterone was pouring off him.

He ultimately chose two packages of granola bars instead of cookies, which nearly killed the fantasy, but I recovered. By the time I’d gotten to my car, I’d concocted a whole backstory for him. And just like that,
Animal Magnetism
was born.

Brady Miller doesn’t smile much because he hasn’t had anything to smile about in a very long time. He’s an ex–army ranger, now a pilot for hire for organizations like Doctors Without Borders, back in the States at the request of his foster brothers. They run a large animal center in the middle of Nowhere, Idaho, and need his help.

He agrees to stick around for unusually complicated reasons, even though he’s lived his life as purposely uncomplicated as possible. Fact is, he’s not much of a family guy. He’s always been a wanderer, no roots, no home base.

Maybe even a guy who can’t be saved.

It takes a village to show him the truth, including one silly little puppy and one sharp-tongued, sharp-witted heroine willing to knock him flat on his ass to make sure he gets it—that he was never lost at all, and as the saying goes, home is where the heart is . . .

Turn the page to read the first chapter of
Animal Magnetism
. And after Brady’s story, read his foster brothers’ stories in
Animal Attraction
and
Rescue My Heart
. And the series isn’t over. More coming in 2014, so stay tuned. Meanwhile, I’m back in the grocery store looking for more inspiration.

Happy reading!

Jill Shalvis

B
rady Miller’s ideal Saturday was pretty simple—sleep in, be woken by a hot, naked woman for sex, followed by a breakfast that he didn’t have to cook.

On this particularly early June Saturday, he consoled himself with one out of the three, stopping at 7-Eleven for coffee, two egg-and-sausage breakfast wraps, and a Snickers bar.

Breakfast of champions.

Heading to the counter to check out, he nodded to the convenience store clerk.

She had her Bluetooth in her ear, presumably connected to the cell phone glowing in her pocket as she rang him up. “He can’t help it, Kim,” she was saying. “He’s a
guy
.” At this, she sent Brady a half-apologetic, half-commiserating smile. She was twentysomething, wearing spray-painted-on skinny jeans, a white wife-beater tank top revealing black lacy bra straps, and so much mascara that Brady had no idea how she kept her eyes open.

“You know what they say,” she went on as she scanned his items. “A guy thinks about sex once every eight seconds. No, it’s true, I read it in
Cosmo
. Uh-huh, hang on.” She glanced at Brady, pursing her glossy lips. “Hey, cutie, you’re a guy.”

“Last I checked.”

She popped her gum and grinned at him. “Would you say you think about sex every eight seconds?”

“Nah.” Every ten, tops. He fished through his pocket for cash.

“My customer says no,” she said into her phone, sounding disappointed. “But
Cosmo
said a man might deny it out of self-preservation. And in any case, how can you trust a guy who has sex on the brain 24/7?”

Brady nodded to the truth of that statement and accepted his change. Gathering his breakfast, he stepped outside where he was hit by the fresh morning air of the rugged, majestic Idaho Bitterroot mountain range. Quite a change from the stifling airlessness of the Middle East or the bitter desolation and frigid temps of Afghanistan. But being back on friendly soil was new enough that his eyes still automatically swept his immediate surroundings.

Always a soldier
, his last girlfriend had complained.

And that was probably true. It was who he was, the discipline and carefulness deeply engrained, and he didn’t see that changing anytime soon. Noting nothing that required his immediate attention, he went back to mainlining his caffeine. Sighing in sheer pleasure, he took a big bite of the first breakfast wrap, then hissed out a sharp breath because damn.
Hot
. This didn’t slow him down much. He was so hungry his legs felt hollow. In spite of the threat of scalding his tongue to the roof of his mouth, he sucked down nearly the entire thing before he began to relax.

Traffic was nonexistent, but Sunshine, Idaho, wasn’t exactly hopping. It had been a damn long time since he’d been here,
years
in fact. And longer still since he’d wanted to be here. He took another drag of fresh air. Hard to believe, but he’d actually missed the good old US of A. He’d missed the sports. He’d missed the women. He’d missed the price of gas. He’d missed free will.

But mostly he’d missed the food. He tossed the wrapper from the first breakfast wrap into a trash bin and started in on his second, feeling almost . . . content. Yeah, damn it was good to be back, even if he was only here temporarily, as a favor. Hell, anything without third-world starvation, terrorists, or snipers and bombs would be a five-star vacation.

“Look out, incoming!”

At the warning, Brady deftly stepped out of the path of the bike barreling down at him.

“Sorry!” the kid yelled back.

Up until yesterday, a shout like that would have meant dropping to the ground, covering his head, and hoping for the best. Since there were no enemy insurgents, Brady merely raised the hand still gripping his coffee in a friendly salute. “No problem.”

But the kid was already long gone, and Brady shook his head. The quiet was amazing, and he took in the oak tree–lined sidewalks, the clean and neat little shops, galleries and cafés—all designed to bring in some tourist money to subsidize the mining and ranching community. For someone who’d spent so much time in places where grime and suffering trumped hope and joy, it felt a little bit like landing in the Twilight Zone.

“Easy now, Duchess.”

At the soft, feminine voice, Brady turned and looked into the eyes of a woman walking a . . . hell, he had no idea. The thing pranced around like it had a stick up its ass.

Okay, a dog. He was pretty sure.

The woman smiled at Brady. “Hello, how are you?”

“Fine, thanks,” he responded automatically, but she hadn’t slowed her pace.

Just being polite
, he thought, and tried to remember the concept. Culture shock, he decided. He was suffering from a hell of a culture shock. Probably he should have given himself some time to adjust before doing this, before coming here of all places, but it was too late now.

Besides, he’d put it off long enough. He’d been asked to come, multiple times over the years. He’d employed every tactic at his disposal: avoiding, evading, ignoring, but nothing worked with the two people on the planet more stubborn than him.

His brothers.

Not blood brothers, but that didn’t appear to matter to Dell or Adam. The three of them had been in the same foster home for two years about a million years ago. Twenty-four months. A blink of an eye really. But to Dell and Adam, it had been enough to bond the three of them for life.

Brady stuffed in another bite of his second breakfast wrap, added coffee, and squinted in the bright June sunshine. Jerking his chin down, the sunglasses on top of his head obligingly slipped to his nose.

Better.

He headed to his truck parked at the corner but stopped short just in time to watch a woman in an old Jeep rear-end it.

* * *

“Crap. Crap.” Lilah Young stared at the truck she’d just rear-ended and gave herself exactly two seconds to have a pity party. This is what her life had come to. She had to work in increments of seconds.

A wet, warm tongue laved her hand and she looked over at the three wriggling little bodies in the box on the passenger’s seat of her Jeep.

Two puppies and a potbellied pig.

As the co-owner of the sole kennel in town, she was babysitting Mrs. Swanson’s “babies” again today, which included pickup and drop-off services. This was in part because Mrs. Swanson was married to the doctor who’d delivered Lilah twenty-eight years ago, but also because Mrs. Swanson was the mother of Lilah’s favorite ex-boyfriend.

Not that Lilah had a lot of exes. Only two.

Okay, three. But one of them didn’t count, the one who after four years she
still
hoped all of his good parts shriveled up and fell off. And he’d had good parts, too, damn him. She’d read somewhere that every woman got a freebie stupid mistake when it came to men. She liked that. She only wished it applied to everything in life.

Because driving with Mrs. Swanson’s babies and—

“Quack-quack!” said the mallard duck loose in the backseat.

A mallard duck loose in the backseat had been a doozy of a mistake.

Resisting the urge to thunk her head against the steering wheel, Lilah hopped out of the Jeep to check the damage she’d caused to the truck, eyes squinted because everyone knew that helped.

The truck’s bumper sported a sizable dent and crack, but thanks to the tow hitch, there was no real obvious frame damage. The realization brought a rush of relief so great her knees wobbled.

That is until she caught sight of the front of her Jeep. It
was so ancient that it was hard to tell if it had ever really been red once upon a time or if it was just one big friggin’ rust bucket, but that no longer seemed important given that her front end was mashed up.

“Quack-quack.” In the backseat, Abigail was flapping her wings, getting enough lift to stick her head out the window.

Lilah put her hand on the duck’s face and gently pressed her back inside. “Stay.”

“Quack—”

“Stay.”
Wanting to make sure the Jeep would start before she began the task of either looking for the truck’s owner or leaving a note, Lilah hopped behind the wheel. She never should have turned off the engine because her starter had been trying to die for several weeks now. She’d be lucky to get it running again. Beside her, the puppies and piglet were wriggling like crazy, whimpering and panting as they scrambled to stand on each other, trying to escape their box. She took a minute to pat them all, soothing them, and then with her sole thought being
Please start
, she turned the ignition key.

And got only an ominous click.

“Come on, baby,” she coaxed, trying again. “There’s no New Transportation budget, so
please
come on . . .”

Nothing
.

“Pretty sure you killed it.”

With a gasp, she turned her head. A man stood there. Tall, broad-shouldered, with dark brown hair that was cut short and slightly spiky, like maybe he hadn’t bothered to do much with it after his last shower except run his fingers through it. His clothes were simple: cargoes and a plain shirt, both emphasizing a leanly muscled body so completely devoid of body fat that it would have made any woman sigh—if she hadn’t just rear-ended a truck.

Probably
his truck
.

Having clearly just come out of the convenience store, he held a large coffee and what smelled deliriously, deliciously like an egg-and-sausage-and-cheese breakfast wrap.

Be still
,
her hungry heart . . .

“Quack-quack.”

“Hush, Abigail,” Lilah murmured, flicking the duck a glance in the rearview mirror before turning back to the man.

His eyes were hidden behind reflective sunglasses, but she had no doubt they were on her. She could feel them, sharp and assessing. Everything about his carriage said military or cop. She wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He was a stranger to her, and there weren’t that many of them in Sunshine. Or anywhere in Idaho for that matter. “Your truck?” she asked, fingers crossed that he’d say no.

“Yep.” He popped the last of the breakfast wrap in his mouth and calmly tossed the wrapper into the trash can a good ten feet away. Chewing thoughtfully, he swallowed and then sucked down some coffee.

Just the scent of it had her sighing in jealousy. Probably, she shouldn’t have skipped breakfast. And just as probably, she’d give a body part up for that coffee. Hell, she’d give up
two
for the candy bar sticking out of his shirt pocket. Just thinking about it had her stomach rumbling loud as thunder. She looked upward to see if she could blame the sound on an impending storm, but for the first time in two weeks there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. “I’m sorry,” she said. “About this.”

He pushed the sunglasses to the top of his head, further disheveling his hair—not that he appeared to care.

“Luckily the damage seems to be mostly to my Jeep,” she went on.

Sharp blue eyes held hers. “Karma?”

“Actually, I don’t believe in karma.” Nope, she believed in making one’s own fate—which she’d done by once again studying too late into the night, not getting enough sleep, and . . . crashing into his truck.

“Hmm.” He sipped some more coffee, and she told herself that leaping out of the Jeep to snatch it from his hands would be bad form.

“How about felony hit-and-run?” he asked conversationally. “You believe in that?”

“I wasn’t running off.”

“Because you can’t,” he ever so helpfully pointed out. “The Jeep’s dead.”

“Yes, but . . .” She broke off, realizing how it must look to him. He’d found her behind her own wheel, cursing her vehicle for not starting. He couldn’t know that she’d never just leave the scene of an accident. Most likely he’d taken one look at the panic surely all over her face and assumed the worst about her.

The panic doubled. And also, her pity party was back, and for a beat, she let the despair rise from her gut and block her throat, where it threatened to choke her. With a bone-deep weary sigh, she dropped her head to the steering wheel.

“Hey.
Hey
.” Suddenly he was at her side. “Did you hit your head?”

“No, I—”

But before she could finish that sentence, he opened the Jeep door and crouched at her side, looking her over.

“I’m fine. Really,” she promised when he cupped and lifted her face to his, staring into her eyes, making her squirm like the babies in the box next to her.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” A quiet demand. His hand was big, the two fingers he held up long. His eyes were calmly intense, his mouth grim. He hadn’t shaved that morning she noted inanely, maybe not the day before either, but the scruff only made him seem all the more . . . male.

“Two,” she whispered.

Nodding, he dropped his gaze to run over her body. She had dressed for work this morning, which included cleaning out the kennels, so she wore a denim jacket over a T-shirt, baggy Carhartts, boots, and a knit cap to cover her hair.

To say she wasn’t looking ready for her close-up was the understatement of the year. “Do you think you can close the door before—”

Too late.

Sensing a means of escape, Abigail started flapping her wings, attempting to fly out past Lilah’s face.

She nearly made it, too, but the man, still hunkered at Lilah’s side, caught the duck.

By the neck.

“
Gak
,” said a strangled Abigail.

“Don’t hurt her!” Lilah cried.

With what might have been a very small smile playing at the corners of his mouth, the man leaned past Lilah and settled the duck on the passenger floorboard.

“Stay,” he said in a low-pitched, authoritative voice that brooked no argument.

Lilah opened her mouth to tell him that ducks didn’t follow directions, but Abigail totally did. She not only stayed, she shut up. Probably afraid she’d be roasted duck if she didn’t. Staring at the brown-headed, orange-footed duck in shock, she said, “I really am sorry about your truck. I’ll give you my number so I can pay for damages.”

“You could just give me your insurance info.”

Her insurance.
Damn
. The rates would go up this time, for sure. Hell, they’d gone up last quarter when she’d had that little run-in with her own mailbox.