Vet's Desire (27 page)

“He helped me
out one dark night when I was on the highway with a flat tyre.”

“You were ready
to knock him on the head with the tyre lever.”

“I didn’t know
who he was then.”

The waitress
came and set their plates of food before them, and they thanked her
before she left.

Picking up the
fork, Cindy speared some lettuce.

“Do you really
not trust Tim?” Maddy asked gently.

“No.” Cindy
grimaced. “Yes.”

“Maybe?”

Chewing on the
lettuce, Cindy pushed the beetroot around the plate. “I trust
him.”

“So what’s the
problem?”

“How long do
you think he’s going to be happy to be with someone like me?”

“What’s wrong
with you?”

“Nothing, but
compared to the girls he normally dates… Well, look at me, Mads. I
wear tight clothes, bright colours. I make some people wince at the
sight of me.”

“But you don’t
care about that, and that’s what’s so charming about you. You are
you.”

“I don’t want
to embarrass Tim.”

“Honey, Tim
chose you. He likes you just the way you are.” Alarm crossed
Maddy’s face. “You’re not going to try and change, are you?”

“Me? No.” Cindy
laughed. “I am who I am, and I decided a long time ago to just be
me. I’m happy the way I am, even though I may not dress the way
society thinks a plus-sized woman should dress.”

“And that makes
you unique.” Maddy placed her hand atop Cindy’s. “That is what
makes you Cindy Lawson. You do what you want, when you want, how
you want, and that’s the Cindy Lawson that Tim is drawn to.”

It certainly
eased some doubts that Cindy had, but there was still a niggling
little uncertainty that Tim could be happy with her forever.

That sudden
thought startled her. When had forever even come into the picture?
It was a relationship in progress, he hadn’t even promised her
forever and she’d known that from the start. She’d been happy with
that, or so she’d thought.

Crap.

The thought of
being with Tim and then everything not working out, that hurt. A
little.

Double
crap.

That hurt a
lot.

Triple
crap.

Heart feeling a
little lower in her chest than it should be, she picked up the
frappe and took a long drink.

Maddy arched a
brow. “Have a revelation?”

“Just a
thought.”

“Care to share
it?”

Cindy smiled.
“It’s nothing. So, tell me about Mike’s love making prowess.”

“You’re
changing the subject.’

“And you’re
going red.”

“I take it this
conversation is over?”

“The
troublesome Tim one, yes. The hot Mike one, no.”

“If we talk
about Mike, we talk about Tim.”

“Put like
that…what are your plans for the weekend?”

~*~

The clinic was
closed for the Saturday afternoon when Tim opened the back door and
looked out at Mike and Rick. “Hello, ladies.”

“You rang.”
Rick held up a bag. “Brought the nibblies for our little chat.”

“Seriously, you
two need to get a life.”

“We have a
life. Now we’re just trying to sort out yours.”

“I invited you
two for a bloke chat, not a ladies get together.” Standing aside,
Tim waited for his friends to pass him. “But it is you two, so why
should I expect anything different?”

Mike grunted
and elbowed him out of the way.

“Okay, now
that’s better.” Tim rubbed his abdomen. “That’s a
bloke
thing.”

“And being a
bloke, I’m not going to offer to kiss diddums better,” Rick
informed him, walking into the vets’ office.

“Thank God for
small mercies.” Tim made to round the desk to sit in the big, main
chair, but Mike beat him to it. “Oh, I beg your pardon. Do make
yourself at home.”

Mike just gave
another grunt.

Hooking a chair
with his foot, Rick pulled it in place while distributing the iced
coffees from the bag.

“Multi
tasking,” Tim observed. “I’m disturbed. Isn’t that a sheila’s
thing?”

“It’s also a
doctor’s thing,” Rick replied, unperturbed. “I can do a prostate
exam and talk all at once. Impressed?”

“My anal
sphincter just closed up.”

Mike grimaced.
“Are we here to talk about your arse or your problem?”

“Maybe his arse
is his problem,” Rick suggested. “Maybe his problem is that he
is
an arse.”

“My problem was
in being stupid enough to ask you two to come over for a manly
exchange of information.” Tim twisted the cap off the plastic
bottle. “Rick, I think I’m falling for you, man.”

In the act of
opening a big bag of chips, Rick raised his brows.

“My mother is
on an environmental kick. Just using a plastic bottle makes me feel
all warm inside.” Grinning, Tim saluted him and took a mouthful of
coffee.

Rick shook his
head. “Always a rebel.”

“Speaking of
rebels,” Mike growled, “What are you doing with Cindy?”

“Ah.” Lowering
the bottle, Tim eyed his friend warily. “You know about that?”

“Yeah.” Mike’s
eyes narrowed. “So what are you doing with my woman’s best
friend?”

“Your woman?
You sound so - so big and protective.” Tim gave a delighted
shudder. “Oh my.”

“I don’t think
it’s wise to push the big lug’s buttons.” Hauling out a handful of
chips and sitting down in the chair, Rick leaned back, stretched
out his legs and crossed his ankles with a sigh of pleasure.

“But it’s fun.”
Tim batted his eyelashes. “And educational.”

“Getting your
balls ripped off won’t be fun,” Mike said.

“Now you’re
just being a bully.” Sitting in another chair, Tim propped his
heels on the corner of the desk.

They sat and
ate and drank in silence for several minutes, Tim enjoying the
companionship of his two friends, but uncertain how to word his
worry. For sure, there were no other men he’d ever have opened up
to, but his problem
was
actually opening up.

So he put out
some feelers. “Maddy tell you anything?” He glanced at Mike.

“No.”

“Nothing at
all?”

“You came, you
talked, she tells me nothing of it.”

“And that
doesn’t worry you?”

“Should it?”
Mike flexed one big hand.

“I’m getting
all faint.” Tim placed a hand on his chest. “Really, Mike, you have
to stop flexing those muscles around me.”

Rick shook his
head. “If you want to get some shit off your chest before you prod
Mike enough to actually mangle you, I suggest you try to find a way
to start.”

“Hey, I reckon
I’ve taken a huge step just by getting you ladies here to bloody
talk.”

“So talk,” Mike
said bluntly. “Stop pussy-footing around.”

“Maddy’s right.
You are a Neanderthal. Where’s your sensitivity?”

“Out the window
when it comes to a certain cretin playing around with Cindy and
being a shrinking violet about discussing it.”

“Shrinking
violet? Are you taking florist classes in your off-time now?”

With a sigh,
Rick raised the bottle of coffee to his mouth. “This is going to be
a long conversation.”

“I hope you
brought more nibblies, then.”

Mike placed his
empty bottle of coffee on the table and looked at Tim out of stoic
cop eyes. Pale blue, direct, his gaze seemed to burn right into
Tim’s brain.

As if that was
anything unusual.

“All right,”
Mike rumbled. “You don’t call for nothing. What’s the problem?”

“Problem?” Tim
shrugged. “No real problem.”

Rick levelled a
steady look at him.

Yeah, Tim had a
problem. He sobered. A big one, and for the first time in his life
he didn’t know what to do about it.

“I can’t
believe I’m doing this,” he muttered.

“Just spill
it,” Mike ordered.

“I feel like
I’m being interrogated.”

“You’re the one
with the confession.”

Tim sighed.
“Okay. I have a problem with a certain lady.”

“Cindy
Lawson.”

“Yes. Yes,
Cindy, okay?”

“We’ll see how
okay it is in a minute.”

Damn, Mike was
such a protective arse. One of the likeable things about him,
actually. And now that it came to Cindy, Tim was feeling that same
protectiveness.

In fact, he
felt it so much he scowled at Mike. “Yeah, Cindy is my problem.
My
problem. Okay?”

Mike’s
expression didn’t change one iota, but Rick’s eyebrows nearly
disappeared into his hairline.

“Yeah.” Tim
continued to scowl. “I have a lady problem. Happy now?”

“I’m not sure,”
Rick replied. “I don’t have enough details yet.”

Frustrated, and
frustrated because he was frustrated for the first time in his
adult life when it came to a woman, Tim continued to scowl. “I’ve
fallen for Cindy Lawson. I had sex with her.” He caught Mike’s gaze
and almost snarled, “Yeah. I had sex with Cindy Lawson. I slept all
night at her house.”

Good
God
, a little voice inside his head said,
you’re prodding
the beast. Are you insane?

Yes, yes he
was, he decided, because women drove men insane.

“So you slept
at Cindy’s house,” Rick said in a reasonable, calm tone. “And?”

“And I bared my
soul to her.” Tim flung himself back in the chair and closed his
eyes. “I told her I wanted a relationship with her.”

“Sounds like
you got it.”

“No. I mean a
real relationship.” Tim grimaced. “I’m trying to have a
relationship
with her.”

When silence
was all he heard, he cracked open one eyelid to meet Mike’s steady
regard. It was impossible to know what the cop was thinking, so he
glanced at Rick. His other friend was thoughtfully contemplating
him.

“Any time you
want to add something,” Tim said.

He felt all
kinds of a fool. Tim Clarke had never had doubts about women, had
never had doubts about where he stood with them. Now he had a lot
and he didn’t know what to do about it.

So here he was,
the playboy vet sitting with his friends, the cop and the doctor,
seeking relationship advice. It was sad. But he was desperate,
desperate enough to make Cindy happy, to keep her happy, and to
that end he’d sit here like a fluttery fool chatting about feelings
yet again. Jesus.

Yeah, maybe he
better start praying for divine help.

Chapter
Nine

“You love
Cindy,” Mike stated.

“Love? I don’t
know about love,” Tim replied hastily. “I like her. A lot.”

“What are you?
Ten?”

“What’s that
supposed to mean?”

“Tim, you’ve
been around women a long time. You love ‘em and leave ‘em, you
don’t love ‘em and keep ‘em. You want something more permanent with
Cindy. Doesn’t that tell you that you might like her more than
just, well, like?”

“No.” He could
feel an edge of panic creeping in. More than like was permanent.
Did he want permanent?

“I know that
look,” Rick said. “He’s going to faint.”

“What?” Tim
glared at him. “I am not. What the hell?”

“Just saying,
man.” Rick shrugged. “You had that fright or flight look on your
face.”

“Face your
fear,” Mike advised. “Don’t flee it.”

“Seriously, are
we in some Victorian romance novel?”

“No, we’re in
your love life,” Rick replied. “You can tell by how messy it
is.”

“I don’t have a
love life.”

“You do.”

“You’re
insane.”

“No, you’re in
denial.” Before Tim could reply indignantly, Rick pointed a finger
at him. “When you have sex with a woman and walk away, that’s just
sex.”

“So?”

“When you make
love with a woman and then try and figure out how to make a
relationship last for a longer period, that’s a love life.”

Oh dear. Tim
almost froze in his chair. He had a love life. Freakin’ hell. A
love life.

“Maybe you
should have brought the crash cart, Rick.” Mike leaned back in the
chair and swung his big boots up on the desk.

“He’ll be
fine,” Rick replied. “But if anything happens, you’re doing the
mouth-to-mouth bit.”

Mike grunted
and reached for the bag of chips.

Tim didn’t know
what to think. He knew he wanted a relationship with Cindy. He’d
told her, too, and that hadn’t changed. But calling a relationship
a love life? That opened up a whole new ball game.

The panic
started again. He didn’t know what love was, not really. Sure, he
loved his Aunt Hannah in a non attraction way, and he liked Nancy,
and he loved Mike and Rick in a blokey-kind of way, nothing sissy
or anything, just really strong friendship, but that was it.

“I don’t know
anything about love,” he finally said. “I don’t know if I love
Cindy.”

Mike and Rick
looked at each other.

“Shit.” Tim
scowled. I don’t know, okay? And it’s not up for discussion
anyway.”

“I think I can
guess your problem,” Mike said dryly.

“It’s not what
you’re thinking. I know
I
wasn’t thinking about love when I
called you.”

“So what is
your problem?” Rick asked curiously.

Glad to be back
on familiar ground - sort of - Tim exhaled. “How do I win a girl
like Cindy?”

“Win? Or do you
mean court? Because you have to court in order to win.”

“You and your
old fashioned romantic notions.”

“Much nicer
sounding than dating, I always think.”

Mike just
continued to look stoic.

“Okay.” Tim
looked at him. “How did you win Maddy?”

A slow grin of
supreme male satisfaction crossed Mike’s normally impassive face.
“I told her.”

“Oh great. Like
that’s going to help me with a girl like Cindy.”

“It takes
work.”

“That’s what
I’m trying to do!” Tim flung up his hands. “How do I date a girl
like Cindy?”