Serendipity (Southern Comfort) (12 page)

“Honey, this big fella’s a pushover.”  She let the dog’s silky black ear, which she’d been stroking, slide out of her fingers.  “I’ve almost reconsidered my position on the species.  The trouble I expect is from an entirely different source…  Oh.  Hello.”  She stopped her explanation as her gaze drifted over Ava’s shoulder.

Ava didn’t have to turn around to know that Jordan hadn’t stayed where she’d put him.  He ambled forward, plastered himself against her back and peered over her shoulder. 

“Wow.  That dog’s big, but the shotgun looks like it could take down an elephant. Is that how you subdue all your patients?”

Ava sighed.  As if this night weren’t bad enough.  “Lou Ellen, this is Jordan Wellington.”  Her eyes met Lou Ellen’s in a silent plea for her to behave herself.  “Jordan, this is my landlord, Lou Ellen Calhoun.”

Jordan skirted around Ava.  “Landlord, huh?  My last landlord was an eighty year old man with a bad toupee and a penchant for polka.  Where did I go wrong?”  He lifted Lou Ellen’s fingers to his lips.  “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Well aren’t you a smooth one?”  Lou Ellen slid an approving glance from head to well-shod toe.  “And good-looking, too.  Women must stick to you like flies in ointment.”

“They land.”  Jordan grinned.  “But they don’t stick.”

“Slippery, are you?”

“Only when I’m wet.”

Ava rolled her eyes amidst Lou Ellen’s delighted laughter.  This was so not what she needed.  “Did you still want some water?” she asked Jordan, hoping to hurry him along before Lou Ellen decided to keep him.  “The fridge is that way.”  She pointed out the door.

“Actually, I need a bucket.” 

“A bucket.  You need a bucket of water.”

“Umm-hmm.”  He walked toward her again, stood closer than was strictly necessary.  “Do you have one?”

“A bucket.”

“Small, roughly cylindrical.  Holds fluids.” 

“In the hall closet, wise guy.   The question is why do you need it?” 

“It’s for your flowers.”

“My flowers.” 

“Sweetheart, you might save dogs,” he tapped her nose “but you’re murder on pansies.” 

Bemused, Ava watched him saunter away, then turned to meet Lou Ellen’s knowing look. 

“Hubba hubba.”

“Oh, stop it,” she hissed, quietly closing the door behind her.  “There is no hubba hubba allowed.  I’ve implemented a moratorium.  Lou, that’s the man from the trunk.” 

“Well that’s interesting.”  Lou Ellen took another sip from her flask.  “I thought you turned him down.”

“I did turn him down,” she whispered.  “But then Katie’s friend is married to his brother, and tried to set them up, but it all got turned around when he saw me and … don’t you dare say anything about fate.”  Ava pointed an accusatory finger when Lou Ellen turned smug.  “Aside from the fact that I keep waiting for him to have a sudden epiphany and recall where he first made my acquaintance, I found out tonight that the man’s an assistant district attorney.  A prosecutor, for God’s sake.”  She sent an anxious glance over her shoulder. 

Lou Ellen burst out laughing.  The dog opened glazed eyes, and Ava hushed her before soothing her charge. 

“Sorry.”  The older woman gently extricated herself from the groggy canine, hopping from the table with the grace of a dancer.  Then she unobtrusively slipped the flask into the pocket of her virulent purple dress. “I guess you’re too close to the situation to appreciate fate’s fine sense of humor.”

“Okay, enough already. We don’t have a lot of time, and right now I’m more interested in hearing why you felt the need to barricade yourself in here with a gun.”

Lou Ellen’s finely stenciled brows knit together as she picked up the Winchester.  “Let’s just say I’m not a fan of uninvited guests.”

Ava had a sinking feeling that she knew what Lou Ellen was talking about.  “The goon in the T-Bird?”

“That’s the one.”

“Shit,” Ava said, abandoning all hope that seeing him tonight had been a coincidence.  “What happened?”

“About ten minutes after you and Katie left, the little yapper you have out back in the kennel started to put up a real din.  Naturally, being cognizant of my responsibilities, I went out to investigate the cause of the distress.” 

Ava interpreted that to mean that Lou Ellen went out to tell the cocker spaniel to shut up.

“At first I didn’t notice any detectable problems, but after I’d… consoled the animal and decided to go back inside, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye.  When I turned, he was there, leaning against that oak at the back corner of your property.  He had the blade out again, trimming his nails, casual as you please.”

“Oh, Lou Ellen.”  Ava’s hand flew to her mouth as any number of horrible scenarios played in her head.  Just because the goon – most likely – would hesitate before slitting her throat, it didn’t mean that he would think twice about doing a little carving on Lou Ellen.  And the guilt that came with that knowledge gripped Ava’s heart like a vise. 

If anything happened to the older woman, she wouldn’t be able to bear it.  

“Why didn’t you call me?” 

“Because it was nothing I couldn’t handle.  I took the yapper inside with me and put her in one of the cages, then got my shotgun and my liquid fortitude out of my car.  By the time I came around back again he was gone.”

“I’m so sorry, Lou Ellen.”  Ava cursed the goon, her uncle, and herself for dragging her friend into this.

“No sugarplum, sorry is a grown man who gets his kicks out of threatening women with his big, scary knife.”  She sniffed her disdain.  “Compensating, if you ask me.”

Ava’s laugh was weak, but admiration had taken the sharpest edge off her anger.  “You’re one hell of a woman, Lou Ellen Calhoun.”

“Honey, tell me something I didn’t know.”  She swung her free arm around Ava’s shoulder. “You gonna be okay here tonight?”

“I’ll be –” Ava broke off as the door handle began to rattle.

“Okay, your pansies should live to see another day,” Jordan said as he came back into the room.  He took in the women’s positions and Ava’s strained expression.  “Is there a problem?”

“Nothing that a big strong man such as yourself shouldn’t be able to handle,” Lou Ellen proclaimed, to Jordan’s amusement and Ava’s dismay. “And since it seems to me that my continued presence here is superfluous, I’ll bid you both good night.”  She hefted the shotgun over her shoulder.  “Take care of yourself tonight, Ava.  Jordan, I assure you, the pleasure’s been mine.”

“Well,” Ava said when she and Jordan were uncomfortably alone.  “Thanks again for the ride.”  She moved to show him toward the door but he grabbed her by the arm.

“Are you planning on staying here all night?”

Ava gave his restraining hand a pointed look before raising her eyes toward his.  “Not that I see where it’s any of your business, but yes.  As a matter of fact, I am.  I have two patients recovering from surgery, and I don’t feel comfortable leaving them alone.”

“I’ll keep you company.”

Her brow winged up.  “Like hell you will.”  She started to move past him but he tightened his grip on her arm. 

“Look, Ava, I’m aware of the fact that, for seemingly inscrutable reasons, you’re uncomfortable having me around.  But the fact of the matter is that something obviously has you spooked enough to try to wreck my car, and for your landlord to guard your clinic with a shotgun.  For equally inscrutable reasons, that worries me. I don’t like the idea of you being here all by yourself.”  

And the fact that he had sensed there was a problem worried Ava.  It was in her best interest to keep that sort of thing as far off his radar as possible.  With that goal in mind, she covered her irritation, and her nerves, with a smile.  “As flattering as it is for you to go all white knight for my benefit, I can assure you there’s no need to worry.  Lou Ellen’s merely… eccentric. And I can take care of myself.”

JORDAN
looked at the woman in front of him, all five feet three inches of her, and thought she might very well be capable, indeed.  There was a toughness about Ava Martinez, despite all the soft feminine curves, that hinted of personal battles hard won.  Regardless of that, Jordan had spent the day looking at evidence of what one depraved man could do to a woman.  And being a slave to his protective nature, wasn’t about to leave her alone.

“Humor me,” he cajoled.  “My chain mail gets rusty if I don’t use it often enough.”

Detecting that he may have put a chink in her own armor when her lips twitched, he pressed his advantage.  “And you’d be doing me a favor.  If I stay here, it won’t put me in the awkward position of kicking Clay and your friend out of my bed.”

The lip twitch turned into a frown.  “And what makes you think that Katie’s just going to fall into bed with a man she just met?”

“Well, no offense.”  He tugged innocently at his ear.  He thought no such thing.  “But she was sort of… rubbing against him for the best part of the last hour.  Just making an educated guess.”

She rolled her eyes. 
“Men are
such
pigs.”

“First a knight, now a pig.  I’ve really come down in the world. But since you’re a veterinarian, th
e fact that I’m
swine shouldn’t pose too much of a problem.”

When her smile threatened again, Jordan ran his hand down the arm he was still holding.  “Can I stay?  I promise not to wallow in the mud.”

FOR
the first time in her determination to be rid of him, Ava wavered.  Despite the fact that she had what she considered a very strong backbone, she had to admit that the goon in the T-Bird was beginning to make her nervous. 

Jordan Wellington spelled bad news for her in almost every possible way, but tonight she figured he just might be the lesser of two evils.

Plus, she had to admit.  He was awfully damn cute.

“Okay, Porky.
You can stick around.”  And when he grinned, dimples flashing, and Ava was tempted to just eat him up, she figured it was a damn good thing that she happened to be a vegetarian.

IT was stupid.  Yes, it was stupid, and ill advised, and an all
-
around bad idea, and there was every probability it would blow up in her face.  But it was hard to remember that fact when Ava was having so much fun.

There was no denying that aside from having a great personality, a keen mind, and a body that made her want to pull on her hiking gear and launch an expedition, Jordan Wellington was fun
to be around
.  She looked at him over the stingy remains of the pizza – half loaded, half plain – that sat between them on the cot. 

“I swear,” Jordan commented as he tossed the crust from his final piece back into the open box.  Ava closed the lid, stretching over to toss the box onto her desk because the cot had chewed up the tiny bit of floor space that wasn’t stacked with product samples and files.  “I don’t know where you managed to put all that in your tiny little body.”

“Give me a break,” Ava shot back around her final mouthful of cheese.  “I had a carton of yogurt and a banana for lunch today, and then the surgery took so long that I didn’t have a chance to eat dinner.  Do I look like the kind of woman who makes a habit of skipping meals?”  

“I…” he closed his mouth.  “You do realize there’s no safe way for me to answer that.”

“Tactful.”

“Cautious.  A man doesn’t learn to step carefully around a question like that – or its close relatives, do these jeans make me look fat and do you think she’s prettier than me – he’s going to trip a landmine every time.” 

“Why do you think we ask?”

WHEN
she smiled – landmine defused – Jordan tried to find more room for his long legs by crossing one bare foot over the other. 

He’d ditched his shoes a couple of hours ago, and was working his way up to losing the pants.  Not that he had any ulterior motive in mind. He simply could not be comfortable sleeping in his clothes.

He hoped to convince Ava that she wouldn’t be comfortable in hers, either.

“So do you do this often?” he asked, as an alternative to moving forward with that portion of the night’s program.  If he didn’t think about something other than Ava Martinez naked, his pants were bound to become even more uncomfortable.

“What?  Sit in my office in the middle of the night and eat pizza with random guys?” She licked sauce off her fingers and nearly caused Jordan to break out in a sweat.

“First of all, I’m not random.  I’ve seen you three times in as many days, so we practically have a relationship.  But I meant do you often stay overnight to keep an eye on your patients?”

“Probably once a week.”  She brushed her hands together as the last piece of crust disappeared into her mouth.  “I try to schedule most of my surgeries on a single day, so that I only have the one night to contend with.  But there are emergencies, like today, so I can’t always plan.”

“It’s so cool, what you do.”  Jordan thought of the dog she’d operated on today, which he’d helped Ava move into a cage after the animal had woken up.  Then he thought about Finn and hoped that Clay would remember to let him out.  “I guess I never really considered the fact that veterinarians are actually doctors.”