Joe leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankle over his opposite knee. “Nah. That guy’s a people doctor. He might do animal medicine, but he knows what he’s doing with her. Leads you to wonder why a ranch would have a full-time doctor on staff posing as a vet. What kind of regular injuries go on around here that they’d need that?”I looked up, surprised at the implication. Then, as always when it came to anything to do with Reeve, defensive. “There could be any number of reasons.”“Guess that’s just part of the Sallis mystery, isn’t it?”He was prodding me, trying to get me worked up, but I didn’t have the strength. I pulled my feet up underneath me and studied his profile, his strong jawline, the tattoos that snaked out under the sleeve of his T-shirt, the same one he wore yesterday. He was scruffier than usual, his buzz haircut grown out and his face hidden behind a week-old beard. He was sexy, I noted, in a bad boy kind of way. Which should have done it for me.Except Joe was o

I’d asked Reeve once if he was still close to his former lovers. He’d dodged the question. Now I saw the answer firsthand, and whether he was like this with all of them or just Amber didn’t matter. That he was like this with her was bad enough. In fact, it was the worst.“Before you get ahead on your revenge scheming, Sallis, let’s get the girl well.” Jeb’s arrival was like a token sent from heaven. It broke the trance that Reeve and Amber had me in.I stepped backward, into the shadows, barely aware of the conversation that continued.“Please tell me it’s time for more painkillers,” Amber said, almost begging.“We’ll talk about that.” Jeb scanned his audience. “Can we maybe have the room cleared so the patient and I can have some privacy?”Thank God. Because I couldn’t be there a moment longer.Unfortunately, Reeve was escorted out with us, and in the hallway he stopped me before I could escape into my own room. “Jeb got ahold of some methadone. He’s going to start a treatment plan t

Even the reminder of the cruel way he’d treated me after I’d been with Chris didn’t cause him to flinch. “You’d like that too much. Answer the question.”“No.” I raised my chin defiantly. “I won’t give you anything else until you give me something.”He let out a patronizing chuckle. “That’s not how this works, Emily.”“Maybe it’s not how it worked before, but it’s how it’s working now.” Somewhat stunned by my own bravado, I barreled on before I had a chance to second-guess myself. “How long did you know that I knew Amber?”He ticked his head dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. Did you fuck Joe Cook?”Exasperated, I dropped my hands to my side. “It doesn’t matter to you, but it matters a whole hell of a lot to me. And, frankly, my question is much more relevant than whether or not I’ve gotten naked with Joe.”“It’s relevant if I say it’s relevant.”I rolled my eyes and started to stand, but Reeve sprang forward and stopped me. His hands gripped on both arms of the chair, he caged me in.

“But you still didn’t trust me.”But I loved you.I still loved him.And I still couldn’t say it. So I said the next best thing instead. “I trust you more than I’ve trusted almost anyone.”“I guess that’s something.”It was so much more than just something. It was everything to me. The only other person I’d ever trusted had been Amber, and, in the end, even she’d betrayed my trust.Maybe my statement had been wrong. Maybe I trusted Reeve more than everyone.But I didn’t correct myself because it didn’t matter. What he really wanted to hear were the other words, the words I couldn’t give. He’d danced around it, too, though. He’d suggested he loved me, but he’d never told me outright. Those words stood so prominently that they’d become a barrier between us. Either they’d been a lie, a cruel response to my scheming, or they’d been truthful – a possible doorway leading to something else. Something more.Damn, how I wanted the more. Wanted it enough to brave broaching the subject. “You sai

I scanned through the rather uninformative article that claimed Chris and I had been seeing each other on the sly. Rumors about Hollywood figures were common enough, and I was just about ready to dismiss the whole thing when my eyes landed on the final image of the post – a blurry photo that showed the two of us in an embrace outside his apartment. That picture had been taken only a couple of weeks prior. It was from the day that I’d seen him for information about Reeve and Missy. The day that Reeve had shown up at my house upset about the perception I was giving the public by being alone with Chris when I was in a relationship with him.Suddenly I had a headache.“Where did they even get this picture?” It wasn’t something that I thought Joe could answer. “And why is it only showing up now?”He shrugged. “But if Vilanakis is connected to Missy’s death in any way,” Joe said, “and if he knows you’re connected to Reeve, well, he might finger you as the leak to Chris because of this.”Ree