Page 54 of Her Three Rangers

Some fucking choice.

“Do either of you know what Grace’s schedule is like today?” Cody asked, finally speaking up as he looked from me to Ty.

“She usually just does half-days on Saturday,” Ty offered.

“We need to see if she has any house calls scheduled,” I said. Standing and looking across the field to the clinic.

“If she does, she’s going to have to cancel,” Cody said. “Or one of us will have to go with her.”

I knew that neither of those would be good options. Grace would never agree to the first one, and the second would mean that one of us had to stay behind and miss the sting operation.

Not that it mattered that much, since we were just going to be observers.

Still, I sure as hell didn’t want to miss the action, and I knew these guys wouldn’t want to, either.

“I’ll talk to her,” I said, already moving in that direction. “We can make a decision once we find out what the rest of her day is going to be like.”

“Okay,” Ty nodded. “Come back and let us know as soon as you talk to her.” He gave me a stern look. “And try to at least pretend to be sensitive when you bring it up. I don’t want her to be upset or stressed out today.”

I didn’t think I needed to dignify that with a response, so I just walked over to my bike and revved the engine.

Pretend to be sensitive.

I could be sensitive, dammit.

I was the most sensitive motherfucker out here.

“Why the sudden interest in my schedule?” she asked, barely glancing up at me from behind the stack of paperwork on her desk as I stood in the doorway of her office. “I’d have to double-check with Jenny, but there aren’t any house calls scheduled, as far as I know.”

“Okay, good,” I said. “Great. But… you’re sure? Should you go ahead and ask Jenny now?”

She looked up at that. “Why? Do you have something planned? I’ll be off in a couple of hours, Jaeger, so whatever it is might have to wait until then…”

Be sensitive.

Dammit.

“No, nothing planned,” I said, then realized that was technically not true. “Well, nothing that will involve you.” Also, technically not true. Fuck. “Nothing that you need to worry about, I mean.”

Okay. Fuck it.

Every time I opened my damn mouth, I only seemed to make things worse. And now she was looking at me like she not only knew something was up, but that I might be just on the verge of pissing her off.

Which was pretty typical for me, if I was being honest, but not ideal for today’s purposes.

“Jaeger, please tell me what’s going on,” she said, not a hint of emotion in her tone as she spoke each word evenly. “Whatever the problem is, I’m sure we can figure out what to do about it.”

“There’s no problem,” I said—not a lie this time. “Well, as long as your schedule is clear, I guess.”

She shot me an annoyed look and pressed the intercom button on her desk.

“Jenny, do I have any house calls scheduled for this afternoon?”

“Nope,” Jenny’s reply crackled over the speaker.

“Any last-minute appointments?”

“Nope,” Jenny repeated.