Page 18 of Deceit & Desire

“I’m leaving you with some prescriptions and a nutrition plan for him, and I trust you’ll get him back up to a healthy weight in no time at all. If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

“Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your dedication and your willingness to let us pay you on a payment plan until Zoe helps me untangle a few discrepancies in our books.”

Zoe stiffened at my side at that revelation, and I pressed my hand against the small of her back in an unspoken acknowledgment that I’d explain later, after we could get some time alone to catch up.

Miss Jackson nodded as she strode over to the gate and let herself out of the paddock. “Mr. Brandt and Twisted Creek Ranch have supported my family’s veterinary business for longer than I’ve been alive. He’s as much a pillar of this community as Jack Blackwell is, in his own way. I’m happy to help him out in any way I can.”

“Thank you.” Zoe’s voice came out hoarse and choked, but she stood straight as an arrow beside me and looked Miss Jackson straight in the eye. “And I promise you, we’ll settle up any outstanding bills as soon as we can. We Brandts always pay up when we owe somebody, and we always make good on our promises. You can take that to the bank.”

Miss Jackson reached out and gave Zoe’s shoulder a reassuring pat. “I trust y’all are good for it. Like I said, your daddy is a good man.”

“Yes, he is. I don’t know where I’d be without Mr. Brandt.” I couldn’t resist chiming in. That man literally saved my life in more ways than one.

“I’m sure you’d have done just fine, even if you hadn’t wound up here at Twisted Creek.” Miss Jackson gave me a dazzling smile that left me reeling and wishing she’d pump the fucking brakes on whatever the hell she thought she was doing.

Instead, she gave me a slow, calculated once-over that made my chest tighten because it reminded me so much of the way Missy looked at me the day she died, right before she went along with my dumbass idea to fake date each other to make Zoe jealous. It turned my palms clammy, sent a shiver of panic down my spine, and left me holding Zoe just a little tighter to my side.

Slowly, Miss Jackson raised her gaze to meet Zoe’s, a subtle glint of challenge sparking in her whiskey-brown irises. “Roman here is the hardest working and most dedicated cattleman I’ve ever met, and that’s saying something in a town like Blackwell. You’re lucky to have caught his eye. He’s a real catch.”

“Believe me, I know.” Zoe’s arm tightened around my waist, and her chin tipped up, something like pride blazing in her green eyes. “I might have been gone a long time, but I know Roman as well as I know myself… maybe even better. He’s always been a good man, and he’s always been mine.”

Miss Jackson’s eyes widened, and she rocked back on her heels, darting a dissecting glance back and forth between the two of us.

God, I hope she can’t tell Zoe’s bluffing her ass off right now.

“Is that so?” Miss Jackson crossed her arms, staring us down like she was looking for any possible chinks in our armor.

“Damn straight it is.” Zoe gave a firm nod.

Miss Jackson laughed and shook her head.

“Something funny?” Zoe challenged, arching a brow at her.

“Well... yeah. If we’re being honest, every time I asked Roman out, and he said his heart belonged to somebody else, I guess I just assumed he meant Missy, not—” Miss Jackson’s voice faltered and she bit her lip, cutting off whatever was about to spill out of her mouth.

“Not what? What were you about to say?” Narrowing her eyes like a predator moving in for the kill, Zoe slipped out of my grasp, stepping up toe-to-toe with the poor, unsuspecting veterinarian.

Sensing that the vet was playing with fire and about to get us all burned, I reached out and hooked a finger through the back belt loop on Zoe’s jeans, just in case.

Miss Jackson gave a reckless palms-up gesture. “Not Mr. Brandt’s absent daughter, who nobody has seen or heard from in the last ten years.”

“And just what the hell do you mean by that?” Zoe’s voice was soft and smooth as silk, but there was a razor-sharp edge under that smooth, controlled tone.

Miss Jackson reached up and fidgeted with a lock of her sandy-brown hair, wrapping it around her finger in a tight coil, then turning it loose and repeating the process over and over as she spoke. “Him pining over a dead first love made a hell of a lot more sense than holding out for a woman all the way on the other side of the country for the past ten years...”

God damn it. Looks like Miss Jackson has more guts than brains, and no idea of when to let well enough alone.

I squeezed my eyes shut and groaned, tightening my grip on Zoe’s belt loop and giving it an insistent tug, praying it’d be enough to remind her to keep a cool head and play along.

“Well, you assumed wrong,” I cut in, determined to intervene before Zoe could lose her temper and cost us a good working relationship with the only vet in town who was willing to take a payment plan when we were barely keeping our heads above water and running in the red more often than not. “Zoe’s always been the only girl for me, ma’am. I turned you down because Zoe and I have been in a long-distance relationship all this time.”

Miss Jackson’s cheeks blazed cherry red with mortification, and she glared down at the tips of her boots, blinking furiously. “Every time I showed up here looking for you and the other cowboys told me you’d taken a couple of personal days... all those times, you were visitingherin Miami, weren’t you?”

“Yes. I was in Miami for the weekend twice a year, every year since Zoe left Montana.” I gritted my teeth, knowing I’d have so much fucking explaining to do on so many levels, once the veterinarian finally packed up her things and left.

“And you just let me make an ass of myself, asking you out over and over when you could have just told me you had a long-distance girlfriend, instead of letting me think you were hung up on a dead girl?”

My heart pounded in triple time. I released Zoe’s belt loop and crossed my arms, glaring down at Miss Jackson, letting her feel the full gravity of what I was saying. “Would that have been enough to get you to stop asking me out, or would you have tried to shoot your shot anyway, considering my woman was in Miami all this time?”

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