Natural Born Trouble by Sherryl Woods Page B

it’s all I feel like fixing after a long day.”
    â€œTsk, tsk,” Duke chided. “You should know better. I propose that we all go out tonight. My treat. Since everybody’s so keen on spaghetti, how’s that Italian place? We haven’t tried that yet.”
    â€œIt’s the best,” Sharon Lynn enthused. “Dani loves their lasagna, don’t you, Dani?”
    â€œIt’s very good,” she conceded. “Really, though, I can’t. Not tonight.”
    Duke’s gaze clashed with hers. “Busy?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDoing?”
    She seized on the first thing that came to mind. “I have to keep an eye on Honeybunch.”
    â€œWho’s Honeybunch?” Zachary asked as chocolate dripped down his shirt. He was oblivious to themelting ice cream. Dani instinctively reached for a napkin and blotted it up, then wiped a streak off his cheek.
    â€œHoneybunch is an injured dog I’m treating,” she explained.
    â€œIs he hurt bad?” Joshua asked.
    â€œHe’s getting better,” she conceded.
    Duke shot her a triumphant look. “Then we can stop in and check on him on the way to the restaurant. That should put your mind at ease, right?”
    She sighed heavily. She might as well give it up. There wasn’t an excuse on the face of the earth that would work now, not unless she said flatly that she didn’t want to go with them. There were two problems with that one: first, it was rude, second, it was a lie. A huge lie, in fact. She did want to go. Obviously, some part of her didn’t care that a situation all too similar to this one had practically destroyed her.
    â€œWhy don’t I go on ahead while you boys finish your ice cream,” she suggested eventually. “You can meet me at the clinic when you’re ready.”
    â€œPerfect,” Duke said. “Fifteen minutes?”
    â€œYes,” she said without enthusiasm.
    Sharon Lynn grinned at her. “Have a good evening.”
    Dani nodded. “I’ll speak to you tomorrow,” she said, a deliberately dire note in her voice.
    â€œCan’t wait,” her cousin said, clearly not the least bit repentant over her part in the night’s turn of events.
    Outside the drugstore, Dani briefly considered bolting, but dismissed it. It would be a cowardly thing to do, and no Adams had ever been a coward. Notthat it was Adams blood flowing through her veins, but too many years of the family’s influence had had an effect.
    Ah, well, she only had to get through the next fifteen minutes of dread and what? Maybe another hour for dinner. An hour and a half, tops. That was hardly an eternity. Nor was it really long enough to feed this ridiculous attraction she was starting to feel toward Duke Jenkins. They would be chaperoned, too.
    By ten o’clock she would be home, tucked in bed with a good book, just the way she had been on every single night of the past two years, except for those occasions when she’d been coerced into spending the evening with one family member or another.
    The prospect reassured her. She was actually feeling reasonably upbeat when she heard the doorbell ring in the main part of her combination home and clinic. That optimism lasted until the moment she opened the door and saw, not Duke, but Rob, standing on the front stoop.

Chapter Six
    D ani stared incredulously at the disheveled man standing on her doorstep. It wasn’t so much his identity that shocked her, as his appearance. Rob had always dressed impeccably. Tonight he looked as if he’d grabbed clothes from a laundry basket.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” she asked with an icy calm she was far from feeling.
    â€œCan I come in? We need to talk.”
    â€œWe do not need to talk,” she retorted. “And no, you may not come in.”
    He blinked at her in obvious surprise. “What’s the matter with you?”
    His total lack of understanding of