After Hours Service
Dr. Kate Hooper has spent years building a life nobody can take away from her. As the owner of an after-hours emergency veterinary clinic, she's accustomed to blood, difficult patients, and making impossible decisions. But when a dangerously handsome stranger arrives with a bullet in his shoulder, Kate breaks more than a few rules to save his life.
Antonio Cagliari is thirty-eight, ruthless, powerful, and accustomed to absolute obedience. As the head of a notorious crime family, he has enemies everywhere and trusts almost no one. The last thing he expects is a sharp-tongued veterinarian who treats his gunshot wound, mocks his intimidating reputation, and demands he say please.
Antonio is fascinated. Kate is attracted.
Neither realizes how dangerous that combination will become.
When a trusted associate is murdered and another disappears, Antonio discovers that someone close to him may be orchestrating his downfall. His enemies are closing in, and the woman who saved his life has become an unexpected vulnerability.
But Kate has secrets of her own.
Born Caterina Barone, she abandoned her powerful Italian mafia family after refusing an arranged marriage. She sacrificed her name, her protection, and everything she knew for the freedom to choose her own future. Falling for another mafia boss was never part of the plan.
Antonio's instinct is to protect what he considers his, regardless of the cost. Kate has already escaped one controlling family and refuses to surrender her independence to another.
As betrayal, violence, and old enemies threaten everything they've built, Kate must decide whether trusting Antonio means losing herself—or finally finding someone dangerous enough to stand beside her.
He rules through fear. She refuses to be afraid. And loving each other might be the most dangerous decision either has ever made.
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Chapter: Chapter FortyI should have been watching the pasta. I was not watching the pasta. I was watching his hands. The way his long fingers pressed into the dough, folding it, guiding it, the flour catching in the lines of his knuckles and the creases of his palms. The tendons in his forearms shifting beneath the ink — dark patterns I couldn't fully see from this angle, but which I knew from previous close inspection involved script and geometric shapes and at least one image that looked like a family crest.He had surgeon's hands. That was what I'd thought the first time I'd treated his gunshot wound, when I'd had to cut through his shirt and examine the entry wound in his left shoulder. Steady, precise, capable of both violence and gentleness depending on the instruction they received."You're staring," he said."I'm observing the pasta.""You're observing my hands.""The hands are part of the pasta process. They're instrumental. I'm being thorough."He set down th
Last Updated: 2026-10-14
Chapter: Chapter Thirty-NineThe GPS announced I had arrived at my destination, and I sat in my parked car for a full thirty seconds, staring at the iron gates and the stone house beyond them. Not a restaurant. Not a hotel rooftop with linen tablecloths and a sommelier. A house. Antonio's house. Unlike the day I came to check Rico's paw, we would be entirely alone tonight.The gates opened on their own, and I pulled my secondhand Civic up a gravel drive that curved between trimmed hedges. The house was old stone, sprawling, the kind of place that probably had a name etched above the door in Italian. But the lights glowing from the ground-floor windows were warm and yellow, and when I stepped out of the car, I could smell something that made my stomach clench with immediate, Pavlovian hunger.Garlic. Butter. Something herbal and rich, drifting from an open window.I'd dressed for an extravagant evening. Fitted black shirt, dark jeans, the one pair of boots I owned that didn't have animal sedative splashed across t
Last Updated: 2026-10-14
Chapter: Chapter Thirty-EightI kissed him harder. My hands moved higher beneath his shirt, mapping the ridges of his ribs, the ink I couldn't see but could feel under my fingertips. His hand slid from my waist to my lower back, pressing me against him, and I felt the hard length of him against my thigh.Then the world tilted, and I was on my back, the couch cushions soft beneath my shoulders, Antonio above me. His weight settled between my hips, his forearms braced on either side of my head, and he kissed my neck with slow, open-mouthed kisses, his tongue tracing the line of my pulse. My fingers fisted in his shirt, pulling it up his back, and my hips arched against him without my permission.He groaned against my throat. The sound traveled through me like a current, pooling low in my belly, and I wrapped my leg around his calf, pulling him closer.Then he stopped.His mouth left my neck. His weight shifted. He braced himself above me, breathing hard, his amber eyes dark in the low light. I made an involuntary so
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter Thirty-SevenAfter dinner, Antonio found a speaker and connected his phone to it. Music filled the house. It was something old and Italian, with a guitar line that wound through the room like smoke. He offered his hand.I kicked off my sneakers. He pulled off his boots. We danced in the living room, barefoot on the hardwood floor, the lake visible through the windows, the last light of the day turning the water copper.He was a graceful dancer. He was deliberate, leading with his shoulders, his hand on the small of my back, his steps measured and slightly off-beat. I followed because the alternative was stepping on his feet, and because his hand on my back made me want to stay exactly where I was."Why did you start the clinic?" he asked as he spun me in time to the music."Because I couldn't work anywhere else," I told him, my cheek near his shoulder. "I applied to three corporate practices. They all wanted production quotas. They demanded their vets push unnecessary procedures, sell prescription
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter Thirty-SixI checked my phone while Lindsey processed the discharge paperwork. A text from Antonio, timestamped 1:23 a.m.The Dogfather: How's work?I glanced at the biohazard bin, where the sock lay in state. I snapped a photo of it, a damp, wrinkled tube sock in all its revolting glory, and sent.Evidence of attempted sockicide. Victim survived. Perpetrator unrepentant.His response came thirty seconds later.The Dogfather: Is sockicide a real word?It is now. I'm coining it. Veterinary forensics.A pause.The Dogfather: Whose sock is it?I looked at Princess Buttercup, who was attempting to lick her ears. I looked at her owner, who was reading the discharge instructions with the furrowed brow of someone encountering complex legal documents.Nobody knows. It materialized from the void. The dog found it somewhere in the ether and consumed it as an offering.The Dogfather: That's deeply disturbing.Welcome to veterinary medicine.Three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.The Dogfather: D
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter Thirty-FiveWalter Cronkite sat on my exam table with the glassy indifference of a reptile who had made a terrible life choice and felt no particular urgency about it. The bearded dragon's throat pulsed, his tiny prehistoric eyes tracking my penlight with the faint interest of someone watching a moderately entertaining television program through a window. His X-ray glowed on the lightbox behind me, a tiny Lego brick sitting in his digestive tract like a geometric monument to poor judgment."Can you explain how this happened?" I asked Walter Cronkite directly, shining the penlight into his left eye. He blinked, slow and reptilian, offering nothing.His owner, a fourteen-year-old kid named Trevor with the slouching posture of someone who had been lectured at length already tonight, shifted his weight from one sneaker to the other. "I don't know. He just — I left some stuff on my desk, and—""And Walter Cronkite decided to sample the inventory." I turned back to the X-ray. The Lego was small enough
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
What Money Can't Buy
At forty-six, billionaire Corbin Barker has mastered the art of getting exactly what he wants. Wealth, influence, and power have made his life comfortable, predictable, and increasingly lonely. Then a blown tire on a deserted highway introduces him to the one woman utterly unimpressed by his fortune.
Twenty-nine-year-old Charlie Thompson is a tattooed, sharp-tongued mechanic who inherited her grandfather's struggling garage and his stubborn independence. She's more comfortable rebuilding engines than attending cocktail parties, and she has absolutely no interest in being anyone's charity case.
Corbin is fascinated. Charlie is skeptical. And seventeen years between them is only the beginning of their differences.
What starts as an unlikely friendship becomes a slow-burning attraction neither anticipated. Corbin discovers the exhilarating frustration of pursuing a woman who can't be bought, while Charlie finds herself falling for a man old enough to know exactly what he wants—and patient enough to let her decide whether she wants him back.
But money complicates everything, especially when their vastly different worlds collide.
He's spent decades building an empire. She's spent her life standing on her own two feet. Neither expected love to demand more courage than anything they've ever faced.
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Chapter: Chapter SeventeenHis suite was on the top floor. The elevator ride was silent except for the mechanical hum of the car ascending and the soft ping of the floor indicator. Charlie watched the numbers change. Corbin stood beside her, his hands at his sides, his jacket buttoned again. The composure was back. She could see it settling over him like a machine returning to its default setting: shoulders set, jaw aligned, every surface in its designated position.The suite door opened with a keycard. The room beyond was spacious, with wall-to-wall carpeting in a color that was trying to be gray and landing somewhere closer to taupe and large glass windows overlooking the Hudson River. The same river they'd walked along last night, now visible in daylight as a wide, gray-blue expanse with a barge moving slowly downstream. An armchair sat near the window, angled toward the view. The bed was made with the kind of precision that suggested housekeeping had taken their time, and the room smelled like cedar and ho
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter SixteenCharlie stepped back from the doorframe, holding the box and the coffee, and looked at him standing in the hallway with his unbuttoned collar and his careful, deliberate posture. She looked at him the way she looked at an engine that was running differently than expected — with attention, curiosity, and the specific wariness of someone who knew that the most interesting problems were also the ones most likely to leave you stranded."Come in," she said. She caught sight of herself in the bathroom mirror through the open door and snorted with laughter. "How did you keep a straight face? I look ridiculous. Go sit. I'm gonna brush my hair.He entered the room. The door closed behind him with that same soft, pneumatic thump. She stepped out a moment later, looking reasonably presentable, considering she was in her pajamas and definitely not wearing a bra. She enjoyed her coffee and donuts sitting cross-legged on her bed while Corbin lounged in the armchair. They talked about the day's pla
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter FifteenThe kiss was not dramatic. It was not the kind of kiss that happened in movies with swelling music and perfect lighting. It was specific and warm and tasted like hotel coffee and cold air and the faintest trace of whatever toothpaste the Marriott provided in its small, white tubes. His lips pressed against hers with a pressure that started light and increased by degrees. Charlie's hand came up and found the lapel of his jacket. She gripped it. The fabric was smooth and dense between her fingers. Her knuckles pressed against his chest, and through the layers, she could feel the steady percussion of his heartbeat, faster than his composure suggested.The kiss lasted longer than it should have. Long enough for the river wind to find the gap between their bodies and press cold air against her exposed skin. Long enough for her to register the specific texture of his lower lip and the way his hand shifted on her face, his thumb tracing a slow arc from her jaw to her cheekbone.He pulled ba
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter FourteenCharlie had put on one of the only two dresses she owned; the other one was a stark black number reserved strictly for funerals. It was a deep, forest green that made her pale skin look almost luminous and turned her red hair into a sudden, striking flame. Unlike her usual jeans and t-shirts, this fabric was fluid and alive, draping effortlessly over her frame before tapering off to brush against her knees. She stared at her reflection, unaccustomed to the softness. The sleeveless dress highlighted her tattoos. She was proud of them. They'd been expensive and had cost a substantial amount of time and pain, but they were top-tier work. Grandpa Lionel had helped her come up with the design.But when she'd opened her door to Corbin's knock at 6:25, his mouth had dropped open. "Wow. You are stunning." He closed his mouth, but his eyes never left Charlie. She grabbed her canvas jacket, since it was the only one she had, and they took the elevator down to the lobby.The evening reception w
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter ThirteenHe'd remembered. Word for word. And he'd built it into his keynote — not as a footnote or an aside, but as the central illustrative example of a failure mode and the human insight that diagnosed it. He'd taken something she'd said and placed it in front of three hundred people in a ballroom that smelled like hotel carpet and conference coffee.Charlie stood. The chair scraped softly against the floor. She gathered her things and moved toward the side aisle, her left leg carrying its familiar hitch as she navigated past knees and chair legs toward the double doors at the back of the ballroom.The hallway outside was wide and polished, the tile reflecting overhead fluorescents in smears of white. A water cooler gurgled against the far wall. Two engineers in matching blue lanyards stood near it, talking about titanium valve seats in voices that blended into the ambient hum of a conference between sessions. Charlie moved past them and turned toward the alcove where a row of armchairs sat
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter TwelveThe Marriott's grand ballroom held three hundred seats, and Charlie had chosen one near the back where the overhead lights didn't reach quite as aggressively. She'd changed into the cleanest clothes she'd packed, a dark button-up she'd stuffed at the bottom of her bag, and jeans with only a faint shadow of grease on the right knee. She still felt like a shop rag draped over a conference chair. The upholstered seat was too soft, the kind of cushioning that made a person sink in and forget they had a spine. Around her, engineers in pressed shirts and lanyards flipped through programs and tapped their phones. The podium at the front bore a brushed-aluminum sign that read NORTHEAST REGIONAL AUTOMOTIVE ENGINEERING SYMPOSIUM, and behind it, a screen the size of a garage door displayed the Barker Dynamics logo: a stylized camshaft inside a hexagonal border.Corbin stepped up to the podium at exactly 9:00 AM for the keynote address, and Charlie noticed the way his shoulders squared before he
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
The Plants Know What You Did
At twenty-five, Ivy Rose Faylan discovered two things that changed her life forever: the man who raised her wasn't her biological father, and plants could talk.
Seven years later, Ivy has mostly adjusted to being half-Fae. She owns Ivy & Rose Specialty Plant Emporium, tends five acres of thriving gardens and greenhouses, and has built an unusual intelligence network. Plants hear everything, people rarely watch what they say around a ficus, and Ivy's botanical gossips are only too happy to share.
Most of what they hear is harmless. Sometimes, it isn't.
When the plants whisper about missing people, suspicious deaths, and secrets someone was willing to kill to protect, Ivy takes what she learns to Detective Steven Sinclair. He's spent years turning her impossible tips into real evidence without exposing her secret, making him one of the few humans Ivy trusts completely.
But Ivy's comfortable life is beginning to change. Her strange magic has transformed her property into something the Fae recognize as a Grove, her plants are becoming increasingly aware, and Ivy is about to learn that being half-Fae means far more than hearing botanical gossip.
Someone has noticed what she's becoming.
Fortunately for Ivy, it's almost impossible to keep a secret when the plants know what you did.
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Chapter: Chapter Nineteen: The Ex-WifeMarcus Hale’s ex-wife arrived at the nursery on Sunday morning carrying a cardboard box, a potted rubber tree, and an expression that suggested she had very little patience left for the world.I understood the expression. I wore something similar whenever someone asked whether succulents needed sunlight.“Are you Ivy Faylan?”“Yes.”“I’m Natalie Hale. Claire said you were taking care of Marcus’s fern.”I glanced at the rubber tree. Its broad leaves were dusty, but otherwise it looked healthy. “I am. Would you like to see it?”Natalie’s expression softened. “Actually, I would.”I led her into the greenhouse, where Fern had been moved to a bright corner among several other recovering plants. Mabel had spent the morning explaining greenhouse etiquette, an undertaking Fern appeared to find both bewildering and reassuring.Natalie stopped beside Fern’s bench. She looked to be in her late forties, with dark hair streaked silver at the temples and the kind of careful posture people adopted w
Last Updated: 2026-10-14
Chapter: Chapter Eighteen: Behind the Filing CabinetBy Saturday morning, Marcus Hale’s basement had become the most interesting room in a house I’d never visited. This was particularly irritating because it contained no plants.“Not even moss?” I asked Steven.“No moss.”“Mold?”“Probably, but I don’t think you want to interview it.”“Fungi aren’t plants, Steven.”“I stand corrected.”I balanced my phone against a bag of orchid bark and continued mixing potting medium. Saturday mornings were busy at Ivy & Rose, and I’d already spent twenty minutes explaining to a customer that a peace lily couldn’t survive indefinitely in a bathroom with no windows.Some people considered this unreasonable.“Tell me about the filing cabinet.”“Crime scene confirmed the marks on the floor are recent. The cabinet was moved away from the wall and pushed back.”“Anything behind it?”“An electrical outlet, some damaged plaster, and a loose section of baseboard.”I stopped mixing. “Loose how?”“Recently disturbed. The wood’s cleaner along one edge, and there
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter Seventeen: Dinner Number TwoBy Friday afternoon, I had learned two things about Marcus Hale’s basement.First, it contained an impressive collection of tax records, obsolete electronics, and exercise equipment that had apparently never experienced exercise. Second, there wasn’t a single living plant down there.I considered this a personal insult. “Not even a spider plant?” I asked Steven over the phone.“No.”“A neglected cactus?”“No.”“An ambitious potato growing in a forgotten cupboard?”“Ivy.”“I’m trying to help.”“I know.”I sat at my desk and regarded Fern, who had been listening to my half of the conversation with considerable interest.“Did you find anything?”“Maybe. There are scuff marks on the basement floor near a metal filing cabinet. Crime scene is checking whether anything was moved.”“Blood?”“Nothing visible. They’re testing.”“Could Marcus have been looking for something?”“Possibly. Claire says he stored older financial records downstairs.”I considered that. “Did Elliot know?”“We’re asking
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter Sixteen: What Plants Mean By FearElliot Hale had apparently decided that being questioned by the police was an insult to his character.Steven called Thursday morning to tell me the interview had lasted forty-seven minutes, during which Elliot had demanded an attorney, threatened to sue the department, and repeatedly insisted that his brother’s death was none of his business.“That last part seems particularly unfortunate,” I said.“Why?”“Because Marcus was literally his brother.”“I noticed.”I tucked my phone between my shoulder and ear while examining a tray of African violets. “Did he explain why he visited Marcus the night he died?”“He claims Marcus called him over to discuss a financial matter. Says they argued, he left, and Marcus was alive when he walked out.”“Do you believe him?”“I believe we haven’t established otherwise.”“Your commitment to being reasonable is exhausting.”“It’s one of my better qualities.”I smiled and pinched off a damaged leaf.“Did the medical examiner agree to review the case?”“
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter Fifteen: Accident, OfficiallyBy Wednesday morning, Marcus Hale’s fern had developed a strong opinion about my office. “Too quiet.”I looked up from the invoice I was reviewing. “You spent years in an accountant’s office. Surely you’re accustomed to quiet.”“He talked.”“What did he talk about?”The fern considered the question. Its fronds shifted slightly in the gentle breeze from my desk fan. “Numbers. People. Things that made him angry.”“That sounds like accounting.”“Sometimes he sang.”I smiled. “Was he any good?”“No.”“Well, nobody’s perfect.”The fern seemed pleased with that answer. I’d moved it into a larger pot the previous afternoon, removed the dead fronds, and given it a thorough watering. It was already looking better, although recovery would take time.I understood the appeal of keeping something alive after losing someone important. Claire had seemed genuinely relieved when I promised to care for it.My phone rang. Steven.“Good morning,” I answered. “Please tell me you have something interesting
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
Chapter: Chapter Fourteen: Dead Man's FernThe first indication that my Tuesday was going to be unpleasant came from a Boston fern. This was not unusual by itself.Boston ferns were dramatic creatures, prone to declaring emergencies whenever humidity dropped below their preferred level. I’d once spent twenty minutes listening to one describe the indignity of being placed beside an air-conditioning vent.This particular fern, however, was genuinely distressed. “He fell.”I stopped examining the shipment of miniature orchids Mari had unpacked. “What?”“He fell, and nobody came.”The voice belonged to a large, rather bedraggled fern sitting on the quarantine bench. Its fronds drooped over the edges of a plastic nursery pot, and several had turned brown at the tips.I hadn’t noticed it arriving. “Mari?”She looked up from her clipboard. “Yeah?”“Where did this come from?”She followed my gaze. “Oh, that. Woman dropped it off about twenty minutes ago. Asked whether we could save it.”“Did she leave a name?”“Claire Hale. Said it be
Last Updated: 2026-10-12
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