Heart's Price (MxM)

Chapter 5

Rising, I pad softly across the light hardwood floor in my socks and peek out the tall window beside the door. Sure enough, the handsome vet from my midnight mishap is walking towards the house, a scrappy young golden retriever in tow.

Though I recognize them, both dog and man look different than at our last encounter.

Dr. Thorne wears a faded blue t-shirt and jeans, and his long, red-brown hair is tied back. A few of the shorter locks hang free, framing his smoothly handsome face in loose curls, and my eyes are drawn from his strong shoulders to his trim waist, making me wonder what he does to get that form—swimming, maybe.

The dog hops along happily at his side, one of its front legs in a cast and a large plastic cone around its neck. Neither is doing much to slow it down, though, and it wags its tail with such enthusiasm that its whole body wiggles and shakes with pure energy in motion.

As the pair mount the porch steps, I quickly step aside from the window to stand (or hide) behind the solid shield of the door, wondering what on earth the vet could be doing here, and how he found me. Perhaps, I conjecture nervously, he means to make me pay for the dog's treatment after all.

Three sharp raps on the door make me jump, and I contemplate how long I'll have to wait before he gives up and goes away. After about fifteen seconds, he knocks again, and then calls out.

"Come now—I know you're in there. I saw you at the window. Open up. I haven't got all day."

Face burning with a mix of indignation and shame, I count slowly to ten, just on the off chance he'll think I really was in some other part of the house and not lurking right behind the door.

Opening it slowly, I do my best to sound nonchalant and vaguely surprised. "Doctor Thorne? What can I do for you?"

Dark, level brows raise a little over bright brown eyes.

"Actually, it's what I can do for you, Mr. Hunter. You certainly do make a man work for a good deed."

His slight Scottish accent catches at my ears, making it difficult to focus on the meaning of his words. "I beg your p-pardon?" I stammer, already off balance.

"You left something at the clinic the other night," he says. "Haven't you missed it yet?"

I look at the dog, confused. Surely this can't be standard. "I'm sure it's a lovely animal," I say, "but I'm in no position to take on that kind of responsibility right now."

The dog is sitting obediently at Thorne's side, though it's shivering with suppressed excitement and whines softly with every breath. When it sees it has my attention, whatever thread of self-control is holding it back snaps, and it launches itself at me with frenzied friendliness. Despite being a wolf, I'm really more of a cat person and take a step back as it wriggles, squirms, and sniffs eagerly around my legs, bumping me with its plastic cone.

"Dougal, enough of that!" Thorne snaps, the sudden sharpness in his voice making me start. There's something in it that sounds like Dane when he uses his alpha-gift, and I feel a stirring of my inborn urge to obey. "Come, sit!" Thorne commands, and after a final wriggly round of my legs, the dog does as he says. Rather than sit, though, it flops onto its back, squirming and kicking its legs in the air in an attempt to beg a tummy rub.

Thorne ignores it and turns back to me.

"I'm not here about the dog," Thorne says, watching me with a curiously keen expression. "I mean this."

He holds out a thin rectangle of brown leather, which I stare at for a moment before recognizing as my wallet.

"You must have a lot on your mind, not to notice it gone. Not surprising, I suppose, being in the middle of a move."