“Okay, okay,” Jess said with a laugh, backing away. “Thanks for the tongue-bath, Suzie. I think she’s going to be fine.” She wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“Now what?” asked Sean.
“You just need to observe her closely for the next few hours.” Jess scratched Suzie behind the ears. “Keep an eye on her, and if she begins to show any signs of sluggishness, starts vomiting or seems wobbly on her legs, you’ll need to take her straight to the twenty-four-hour animal hospital in Caulfield. That’s the closest to Hailey and Rob’s place.”
“Oh.”
Something about the tone of his voice made her glance up. As she did, a memory from Saturday night washed over her—the naked bunch of muscle in Sean’s arm as he’d leaned over her, body poised to kiss her intimately. The scarlet heat of a blush started somewhere near her toes, but reached her hairline in mere seconds.
Thankfully he seemed too busy fiddling with getting his phone out of his pocket to notice.
“I don’t suppose,” he said, frowning at whatever his phone was telling him, “you could keep her here for observation?”
“What, do you have a date?”
Jess would have given anything to take the words back, to collect them from the air and stop them from ever being said. But no, they were out there, for better or worse.
“What?” He looked confused for a moment, but then that confident, slightly smug expression was back, complete with the almost smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth and had to make any mortal woman weak at the knees. “A date? Now, why would you ask that?”
Jess stood and moved to the other side of the table, putting distance between them as she fought to regain her composure. She didn’t want Suzie to be sick, but if the dog could fake a fainting spell right now, she’d be everlastingly grateful.
“I just meant, you must have plans. If you can’t look after Suzie.” Lame, lame, lame.
“I have things to do,” he said.
She knew he was being deliberately vague, just to taunt her. Frustration at his carefree nonchalance finally won out over her embarrassment. “Well, things will have to wait,” she said sharply. “I don’t have the facilities to keep animals here overnight.”
The smile was gone. Sean looked once again strained and unhappy. “I should have known this wouldn’t work,” he muttered.
“What wouldn’t work?”
“Me, dog-sitting.”
“Huh?” Sean dog-sitting? In fact, what was he even doing here? Wasn’t he supposed to be in Sydney by now? “Why are you dog-sitting? Why isn’t Hailey’s cousin looking after Suzie while she house-sits?”
“Ah, you missed the last-minute change of plans. The cousin dropped out. I’m the house sitter.”
“You’re looking after Hailey and Rob’s house? For six weeks?” Her voice rose and she heard the shrill note. What had happened to fly-by-night Sean, here and gone again before she knew it?
“I know.” His shoulders fell, and Jess would have sworn he looked somehow defeated. “I should have known it was a bad idea. I already had to get a plumber in to fix the dishwasher this morning.”
If Hailey and Rob had been stupid enough to leave him in charge of their home and their dog, they probably deserved to come home to a ruined house, women’s underwear scattered everywhere and a sick pet. But as much as the thought was satisfying, she also knew she couldn’t let it happen—she loved Suzie too much for a start.
“Well, then, you’re just going to have to put on your big-boy pants and adapt to the responsibility.” Jess put her hands on her hips, preparing herself for a lecture. “If Rob and Hailey trusted you to—”
“God, not you, too!” Sean threw his hands in the air. “Do you think I didn’t get enough of that shit at the wedding?”
Jess didn’t want to feel sorry for him. Between that sexy smile and those puppy-dog eyes, she was pretty sure Sean never had to try very hard to achieve anything in life. People must just cave to his wishes all the time. But right now? Right now he looked stressed and slightly panicked, like a cornered dog in an unfamiliar environment.
“Look, Sean,” she tried again, with a more conciliatory tone this time. “It’s not a big deal. All you have to do is stay home tonight and keep a close eye on Suzie for the next four hours or so. If she hasn’t shown any symptoms by then, you can rest easy.” She nearly said “go to bed easy” but stopped herself just in time. She didn’t want to put bed and Sean in the same sentence, even in her head.
Sean scrubbed his face with both hands, his palms against his stubble making a rasping noise. “It’s just...”
He looked at her then, his green-and-gold eyes piercing. “I have a meeting, a teleconference, that’s going to take a couple of hours. It’s a pretty important one and I need to concentrate. I can’t change it, but I don’t want to leave Suzie unsupervised. There’s no one else I can call on.... Help me out, please.”
Jess wasn’t sure if it was the pleading tone in his voice or the bewitching spell of his eyes, but she believed him. She was probably just a sucker. Mark had used similar tactics to protest his innocence and she’d believed him, too—the first couple of times, anyway. After that, the deception had been on both sides—Mark deceiving her, Jess deceiving herself.
She didn’t want to give in, but she already knew she was going to.
“I don’t... Okay,” she said finally with a sigh that she hoped communicated the fact that she wasn’t necessarily happy about it. “I’ll watch Suzie.”
The lines between his brows eased as his eyebrows lifted in surprise. “You will?”
Jess rolled her eyes. As if he didn’t fully expect everyone to capitulate to his every whim. “Yes. I’m a chump, but I will. I’m only doing this for Suzie, though. You’d better—”
“Thank you!” Sean leaped around the table, grasped her face in both hands and planted a kiss right on her lips. Before Jess had even comprehended what he’d done, he’d pulled away again and was crouched down in front of where Suzie sat, rubbing her sides. “Oh, Suzie, Suzie, Suzie. You are a daft dog.”
Jess managed to stop herself from pressing her fingers to her tingling lips. But only just.
She knew she should say something, but for a moment all she could do was watch as Sean made funny faces at Suzie. He tickled her chin. “But even if you are dippy, I’m growing kinda fond of you.” Then he grabbed the dog’s head and pressed his lips to her cheek with a loud smacking noise.
That was how much his kiss meant.
“Don’t cause any trouble for the lovely Jess, will you?” He stood up and checked his watch—one of those oversize, expensive, diving kinds. “Crap, I’ll only just make it. Thanks, Jess, you’re a lifesaver. I’ll pick up Suzie as soon as I’m done. From your place?”
Jess nodded dumbly.
“Cool. Thanks again. See you later.”
The bell on the front door rang loudly as he made his exit, the building strangely silent for a beat afterward. As if he’d taken some kind of vital energy out the door with him.
Jess stood still, her brain taking a moment to catch up with everything.
“So,