The hand holding it out didn’t waver and I realized he’d probably stand there as long as it took and he was in pretty good shape so he could probably stand there a long time and as much as I liked looking at him, especially when he was holding something and the muscles in his arm were tensing in the most attractive manner, it really would be rude not to take the suitcase.

So I did.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Couldn’t have you going back to Houston with duct tape around your bag, now could I?” he asked.

“I didn’t think you’d care how I got back to Houston.” I put the suitcase down next to my old, crappy one which was most certainly going in the trash.

He winced. “About that—”

I held up my hand. “It’s fine.”

“It’s not,” he insisted. “I should have trusted you.”

“Why would you?” I asked, trying to keep my voice level. “You don’t know me.”

“That’s not true.” He took a step towards me. “I do know you. At least, I know enough to realize that everything I said to you last night was wrong. That I was wrong.”

There it was again. An apology. A genuine one. I could get used to this kind of thing. Dammit, I thought. I was NOT supposed to be getting used to this kind of thing.

“You tried to warn me and I took it the wrong way,” Nathan said, reaching out and taking my hands. I didn’t want to melt, but I did. He just felt so good, just the smallest touch made me feel safe and comfortable. I realized how much better I felt just having him there. It made some of the terribleness of the day disappear.

But not all of it.

“Tim,” I said. “He’s—”

“He told me you were his assistant.”

I let out a deep sigh. “Of course he did.” That was typical Tim behavior. There was a reason he rarely worked with anyone else—I was actually a little surprised he had agreed to take on this assignment. Cleaning up after people wasn’t really his scene. Something else must be going on.

And by the expression on Nathan’s face, it looked like he had an idea of what it was.

“It’s usually best to ignore him,” I said. “He’s a blowhard.”

“He’s a disgusting pig.” Nathan’s expression was stormy. “And he said he’s trying to get you fired.”

“What?” I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I had the feeling that Tim wanted me out, I mean, he made it fairly obvious, but he must be feeling pretty confident about his ability to do so if he was telling strangers his plans. Unless he was just a total moron. But while Tim was an idiot in most things, he took his job pretty seriously and I didn’t think he would do anything to risk his own career. He must have an angle.

“He said he was going to take credit for the article. That he was going to use the work you did—grunt work, he called it—and build something worthwhile out of it.” Nathan’s jaw was clenched. “His words, not mine.”

I felt dizzy. I knew that Tim was going to treat me that way, but the fact that he was telling other people those things made me feel so terribly small. I had worked so hard to get where I was, now it seemed like it was getting torn away from me.

“He says they just hired you because they wanted more women on staff. He called you eye candy.” Nathan was talking through gritted teeth.

“All ass, no aspiration,” I muttered. That was Tim’s favorite way to describe the women at the Register, though he made sure to do it around people who wouldn’t report him to HR.

I took a deep breath, feeling tears tickle my eyes. The last thing I wanted to do was cry, but I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep it in. What hadn’t gone wrong in the past few days? Lost my boyfriend, lost my apartment, and now I was going to lose my job.

“Hey.” Nathan gave my hands a supportive squeeze. “You’re not going to get fired.”

How do you know that? I wanted to say. Nathan didn’t know anything about how my job worked or how much I had screwed up this assignment. Honestly, I probably deserved to be fired, especially if Tim could get a great article out of this when I couldn’t.

Nathan put a hand beneath my chin. “Listen to me. He’s a jerk and you’re a great journalist.”

“Ha,” I said, hearing the thickness in my voice.

“What are you doing now?” Nathan asked, catching me off guard with the question.

“Uh, I don’t know. Taking a bath and drinking myself to sleep?” I said bluntly. No point in lying when I was clearly falling apart in front of him.

“What if I told you I could make your day a thousand times better and you wouldn’t have to do a thing?”

Are you going to take off your clothes and feed me chocolate? I thought. Because that would make me feel great in no time.

Thankfully Nathan didn’t wait for an answer. He flashed me a huge smile and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Put on jeans and T-shirt and meet me downstairs in ten minutes. You won’t regret it.”

Chapter Twenty-One

“An animal shelter?” If I had even attempted to make any guesses to our final location, an animal shelter would have never even occurred to me.

“You’re not afraid of animals, are you?” he asked, coming around to get the door for me. Clearly one of the baseball coaches was teaching those boys some manners. Or maybe it was just Chris and Nathan. Either way, I was more than appreciative of the gesture.

“No,” I told him. “Haven’t had much experience with them, but I’m not afraid.”

“That’s for sure,” he said with a wink. He was being so nice to me. He hadn’t even commented when I came downstairs ten minutes after the ten minutes he had allotted, in jeans and a T-shirt and my tear-stained face scrubbed clean. It was the last thing I needed in terms of my growing attraction to him, but totally necessary in terms of how my day had gone so far.

I paused before we got to the shelter door.

“This isn’t some sort of doggy death row, is it?” The last thing I needed was to see some sad-eyed pooch that needed to be rescued or else he’d be put down. My heart was already feeling tender as it was.

“It’s a no-kill shelter,” Nathan assured me. “No death row here.”

The lobby of the shelter was clean and bright, pictures of happy-looking animals on posters adorning the walls. When I thought of animal shelters, the first thing that always came to mind was the one from Lady and the Tramp—a sad, dark place full of abandoned, downtrodden animals.

Nathan thanked the woman at the desk and came over, two visitor badges in his hand.

“Here you go,” he said.

We put them on and I followed him through a heavy metal door, also decorated with a poster. It read: “Who Rescued Who?” and had a picture of a little boy holding a puppy. It was stupid cute.

“Do you come here every month?” I asked Nathan as he led us down a hall. I kept waiting to hear the whimpering and whining of animals in need, but the place was pretty quiet and calm.

“Every week,” he told me. “It’s how I relax.”

I was about to ask him how spending time with sad, lonely animals helped him relax when we came to another door.

“Ready?” he asked and I nodded, not knowing what to expect.

Nathan rapped his knuckles on the door and I heard the patter of feet on the other side. Definitely not animal feet. Human. Then came the buzz of whispers and one authoritative voice that said:

“Hands up, mouth shut!”

The buzzing stopped and I heard something like a gate open and close and then finally the door opened.

A pretty young woman poked her head out of the room, her face breaking into a smile at the sight of Nathan. There came that annoying stab of jealousy. She looked a little older than I was, but I remember Nathan telling me that very first night we met that he preferred older women. And this “older” woman was very attractive, with a charming heart-shaped face, smooth brown skin and shiny jet black hair.