Page 15 of Taking Denver

“No sex, no discussions of death, and no bullets, I hope.” I play with my necklace, twirling the chain in my fingers. Sweat dampens the nape of my neck, and I resist the urge to lift my heavy locks and fan my skin. “I’m just not tired.”

He stares at me, and heat floods my cheeks.

Of course he doesn’t want to come inside. The last time he’d been in a room with me, he’d almost died. He probably thinks I’m jinxed, or worse, might have guessed the truth.

“Sure.” Ethan withdraws the key and slips it back into his pocket.

Surprise jolts through me, and I pause the tug on my necklace. “Really?”

He smiles. “Yeah. Why not?”

Chapter 5

Ethan

Wesson dances happily into the room, golden tail wagging enthusiastically. Denver’s luggage is already in the living area after being moved by staff, along with several designer shopping bags, heels, and clothes spilling over the rim.

“I shop when I’m bored,” she says, gesturing at the bags before heading to the small kitchenette. “Do you want a drink?”

I tuck my hands into my pockets. “Sure. Just water for me.”

I’m not sure why I’m here. Common sense tells me to avoid the woman I almost died with hours ago, but curiosity got the better of me. The few minutes we’d shared at the ambulance felt close to a nice conversation, and I wanted more.

“How come you’re not in a nicer suite?” I ask as Denver hands me a bottle of water. She tilts her head in question, and I nod at the overflowing shopping bags. “You have at least two pairs of shoes that equate to thousands of dollars, but you’re in one of the cheapest rooms.”

She raises her brows, her smile intrigued. “A detective vet. How weirdly sexy. I prefer somewhere I can easily walk Wesson.As you already know, he likes the pool. And how would you know the price of my shoes?”

“My business partner, Marissa,” I say. “She has the same kind, and once, a chihuahua threw up on them. She told the owner it was fine, then hid in the break room and whispered to me just how much they cost.”

Denver points at the ceiling. “Send one up for the ruined Jimmy Choos. Yourbusiness partnersounds sweet.” She drags out the title with a glowing smirk. “She hot?”

“Very.”

Her brows raise. “Are you shagging her, Ethan?”

Damn, she even sounds cute when she tries and fails to be British.

“Not even close.” I wish I liked Marissa more than I do. Beautiful, blonde, a vet, she’s a dream and, on paper, perfect for me. But she’s closer to a little sister than a love interest.

Denver slumps onto the sofa and twists the cap off her drink. “I don’t believe you, but fine.”

I sit beside her, and then silence falls.

What are we supposed to talk about? Our first interaction had been a full-blown argument; our second had been similar, and other than the dog, I don’t know what we have in common.

Denver seems to realize the same thing because she focuses entirely too much on her fire engine red nails. Wesson wanders into the room and slides onto the ground, sighing into the tiled floor and watching us as if experiencing secondhand embarrassment.

“You have dogs!” Denver declares, clearly excited that she’d found a topic to fill the painful silence. “Tell me about your dogs.”

Okay, that’s something I can talk about. “Three German Shepherds. Someone found them in a box underneath a bridgeand brought them to the clinic, and I couldn’t stand the thought of giving them away.” I fish my phone out of my pocket.

“Are you about to be the guy who shows me endless photos of your dogs?”

“No,” I say, dragging out the word. “Videos, too.”

Denver grins and moves closer.

After I bombard her with snaps of the dogs, she does the same with videos of Wesson when he was a puppy. Wesson watches us, his tail banging lazily on the floor as if he knows he’s the topic of conversation.

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