by Nicole Snow
Alone with my demons.
Determined to track down Fuchsia Delaney’s trail.
That’s why I’m sitting here like a plank of wood, trying not to let my guts wrench when I think of Ember. If she knew half the things I did, she’d have a thousand more worries than a rough first day.
Like everybody else, she’s innocent of what went down nearly a decade ago.
How close the entire town came to being burned off the face of the earth. Fire and blood and fear.
I can’t let that come back to this peaceful place and hurt sweet, fragile creatures like Ember.
My jaw clenches as I start my truck again.
One way or another, I’ll find Fuchsia and put an end to whatever she thinks she’s about to do here in Heart’s Edge.
3
Gone to the Dogs (Ember)
I don’t know how I’m supposed to show my face in the office today after last night.
I don’t know what I was thinking.
But for just a minute, underneath that glacial mask, Doc had a look I never expected to see on his chiseled mask.
Like he was in pain.
Like there was something buried deep inside him that was still hurting, trying to crawl its way out. Something like a bullet wound that healed over a long time ago with shrapnel still inside.
Only instead of eating at his flesh, it’s scratching at his heart.
Go ahead and say it’s silly. Maybe I was hallucinating, and even if I wasn’t, I don’t have any business wondering about a beast of a boss I’ve only had for a day.
But for just one brief second, I know what I wanted.
I just wanted to make it better.
No, I don’t know anything about him, and it’s not my place, and yada, yada, yada.
Too bad I went and opened my mouth anyway. All raw impulse.
That’s totally not like me.
Doc looked as startled as I felt when I asked if I could help. A different kind of glint ran through his emerald eyes.
I’m still trying to decide if it was genuine surprise or the look he gives a crazy woman.
Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t tell me to pack up my lab coat and stay home, especially after I tripped and literally stumbled my way through yesterday. And then let in a stranger he wanted nothing to do with.
He’s probably afraid I’ll accidentally burn the practice down next.
But since he hasn’t said a word – not one phone call, email, or text – I guess I’m still supposed to report in for the Saturday shift, and hope it’s not too awkward.
Right.
Saturdays were part of the deal with this job. It’s six days a week, twelve hours a day, and if I didn’t love animals so much and the pay wasn’t so good...
It wouldn’t be worth it, I tell myself.
Not even knowing Doc works longer and handles Sundays all by himself.
Not even to spend twelve hours a day with the Dr. Caldwell.
I’m a far cry from those sly, confident women with so much elegance and poise who hang around him, but there’s this weird feeling I get.
Or maybe it was just that last night I was upset and stranded, and he came to my rescue, an unlikely knight in shining armor, and that feeling was me not being used to anyone trying to save me at all.
Not even from my own worst decisions.
Let alone a random twist of fate that left my car dead in the parking lot of the clinic.
I guess I’ll find out today if he even wants me around.
And if the dreaded feeling in my chest – fluttery, like soft wings brushing inside me – comes back, or if it was just a silly, passing thing I can get past to do my job without a thousand distractions.
If I can get to my job, that is.
I still don’t have a car, and my Audi is a lifeless hunk of metal miles away in the clinic parking lot.
Thankfully, there’s Haley Ford. One of the owners of Charming Inn, along with her husband Warren, a huge, bearded man with a brash, but kindly attitude.
I’ve heard whispers about Warren since I showed up in Heart’s Edge.
Something about busting a drug ring and Doc being involved? But I’ve barely seen him since he always seems to be in and out, busy with the property’s constant renovations.
Haley, though, has been sweet as pie. For the few days I’ve been here, settling in, she’s been out to my cabin with her infant son on her hip, making sure I’m comfortable and feeling welcome.
I get it, she told me when we first met – and I told her I’d be staying a while, if that was okay. She’d smiled at me. One of those infectious smiles you can’t help but give back. I’m a transplant, too. My car dumped me here, and then somehow, I stayed. I never meant to make Heart’s Edge home, but...it kind of claimed me.
I can see that now.
I can see how a place like this could claim someone with its quiet, its beauty, its soft blue sky on rugged mountaintops.
It just sneaks up until one day you can’t think of waking up anywhere without the sight of tall peaks and marching virgin forest, or low sloping valleys and the rustic, weathered buildings.
But right now, I don’t have time for sightseeing.
I need to get to work on time.
I finish getting dressed – a little pleated skirt today, something light and breezy as I was sweating in my jeans yesterday, and a tank top – before pulling on my lab coat. Then I sling my bag over my shoulder and scatter to the porch. I’ll just pop up by the big house and see if Haley’s around and not too busy.
If she is, well...
Guess I’ll find out firsthand about walking distance in a small town after all.
I barely make it off the porch, room key in hand, before something moves.
A familiar ash grey Ford truck comes rumbling down the road in a plume of dust.
Doc.
What the–?
He pulls right up outside the gate to the little wooden fence alongside the property, draping one elbow against the open driver’s side window and watching me in expectant silence.
My heart does a weird little flip that tells me that strange, fluttery feeling isn’t just last night, or the weirdness of all this short-circuiting my senses – and my better judgment.
Oh. Wait.
It finally dawns on me between gawking at him and desperately trying to stop.
Doc’s come to pick me up and take me to work.
I freeze in place, blinking.
I don’t even know what to make of that.
If I’d been worried about that target on my back before, now it’s going to turn into a bright red bullseye if there are already clients waiting when we get to the clinic.
A terrible feeling hits as I cross the yard and cut through the fence and quietly climb up into his tall truck.
Today I’ve just become the enemy of every single woman in Heart’s Edge. Awesome.
It makes my stomach tight when I think about the fact that it suddenly bothers me, knowing there’ll be another dozen of them in the clinic today like it’s some warped reality show. 'Accidentally' brushing against Doc’s arm, bending forward just enough to offer a view down the front of their plunging necklines, standing just a little too close to him with their shirts pulled down to show the edges of their lacy little push-up bras.
Ugh.
I try not to be obvious about peeking down at my more modest tank top.
It’s not that I’m flat or anything. It’s that I work in a field that requires a lot of mobility without my chest getting in the way.
So while my bras are cute little pastel cotton, they’re still more for function than form.
And my tank top only shows a hint of cleavage because frankly, with pets, it’s safety first. It’s hilariously easy for something gross to fall down there when an animal decides he wants to get in your face.
“So,” Doc says.
I blink, jumping and lifting my head sharply.
Oh my God.
Oh my God, I�
��m just sitting here eyeballing my own boobs like he isn’t even there.
I can practically feel the blush right down my chest. I peek at him from the corner of my eye.
He’s not looking at me, thank God. Eyes on the road, hands two and ten on the wheel.
He’s so stiff and upright, but he somehow manages to make it look rough around the edges. Without his lab coat he’s less of a stern, icy doctor and more of just a man.
“Just” a small-town Adonis.
Broad-shouldered, quiet, and earthy. The sunlight reflects in soft arcs off the dark-brown hair curving over his thick, muscly forearms, and on the backs of his oddly scarred knuckles.
He has the build and touch of someone who’s used to working hard for a living. Where does he find the time to work out? It’s as easy to picture him on a farm working with animals as I can in the lab and a more sterile, clinical setting.
And there’s something about his face.
He’s so gorgeous it hurts with those thick, lazy eyelashes that make his eyes seem sly. His lips are thin slivers framed by the barest hint of five o’clock stubble, juxtaposed against the harshly masculine edges defining a straight, stern nose, an arrogant jaw, a thoughtful brow.
Then there’s that halo of kindness.
Something I don’t think he realizes is there whenever he blanks himself out in such a cold, distant way.
“So?” I venture.
“I owe you an apology for last night,” he says stiffly, his voice even and toneless. “I hardly made a professional first impression, Ms. Delwen. As your employer, I shouldn’t have snapped at you.”
Wow. I wasn’t expecting an apology. Or really, any acknowledgment at all.
I look down, playing with my bag’s strap. “I’m sorry, too,” I say. “I shouldn’t have asked you something so personal. It wasn’t professional of me. It just really threw me off. The whole thing. Weirdest first day of my life, and I...I guess she just left me...”
I don’t know the word for the uneasy feeling that strange woman gave me.
This prickle, almost like a premonition, but I can’t say that.
So I just finish, “...unsettled.”
Doc says nothing.
I kind of didn’t expect him to.
Whoever that woman was, she’s his business, not mine. I need to keep my nose out of it.
Fortunately, we don’t get mobbed first thing once we arrive at the clinic. There’s time to slip into my lab coat and do a quick sterile scrub on my hands, gloving up, before I see my first patient.
It’s an adorable black lab named Mickey whose owner, a middle-aged woman named Phyllis, is a bit friendlier than Doc’s other hopefuls.
Oh, she’s right there with the flirty looks and coy smiles and not-so-subtle sallies that he answers with clinical disinterest and pointedly literal responses that make me grin behind my hand.
But Phyllis treats this less like a flirt-to-the-death competition and more like some sort of amusing entertainment.
Though as I lean in to peer into her dog’s ears, checking up after a cleaning to get rid of the last of a respiratory infection, she sways against me and whispers in my ear.
“Short skirt,” she teases wickedly. “Smart idea, with legs like those. I’ll have to try that next time. My gams still have a little pump in them after all these years.”
I sputter so suddenly that Mickey shies away from me, giving me an odd look. I drop the scope and immediately scratch under his jaw to soothe him, giving Phyllis a wide-eyed glance.
“Oh, no. I’m not—” I manage to hiss, darting a quick look over my shoulder. Luckily, Doc’s off fiddling with X-rays or something, nowhere in sight.
“Why not?” Phyllis asks, eyes glittering. “He’s not getting any younger.”
“Exactly,” I bite off. “He’s like, twice my age.”
“Oh, not that much older, dear.” She pats my shoulder. “Just old enough to make it dirty.”
I choke out a squeak, my cheeks on fire, blood rushing to my head so fast I feel dizzy.
Stammering, spluttering, I turn away and pick up the scope to focus on Mickey again.
“So I’m going to give y-you a bottle of e-ear wash,” I say, trying – and failing – to keep my voice steady. Trying to mimic Doc, who can be ice cold no matter what anyone says to him. “If you use it once a day, y-you should get rid of the last of the infection and prevent any waxy build-up.”
Yes. That’s exactly what I need to be thinking about right now.
Gross, waxy stuff in a dog’s ears.
Not the tense, thoughtful way Doc’s jaw tightens when he’s brooding.
Not the thickness and roughness of his hands, the hard knots of his knuckles as he grips the steering wheel with his piston hips slouched forward in the driver’s seat.
Not how he’s able to flay me open with a single green-eyed glance.
Not – oh.
Oh, crap.
I’m turning into one of the women out in the lobby, aren’t I? One of his fluttering hopefuls.
God.
Please tell me I’m not doing this.
And I keep my mind firmly on my job for the rest of the day, not even looking at Doc. I keep my head down and try like holy Hades to be the best freaking vet tech this town has ever seen.
I try not to even be alone in the exam room with him during lulls in our clients. Not unless there’s an animal between us.
But even then, I’m jumping out of my skin. Every single time his hand brushes mine as we gently hold a kitten for her first vaccination rounds – or when his fingers curl over mine to help me carefully restrain and soothe an extremely large, very anxious Great Dane with practically twice my body mass.
It shouldn’t be different from touching any other animal.
All part of the job.
But even through the sterile gloves, his fingers are so warm. So tight. So enthralling.
Things have quieted down by afternoon, thankfully. My thoughts are more on paperwork than the boss. I’ve managed to make my heart stop racing nonstop for the silliest reasons.
Until the door bursts open, swinging wildly.
A man comes in covered in blood that leaves my heart tumbling forward for very non-silly reasons indeed.
It’s not his blood.
It belongs to the chocolate brown boxer lying limp in his arms, the poor baby whining in pain and twitching feebly while the man’s wife and two daughters come trailing in, wide-eyed and crying.
There’s barely a moment for explanations – the dog was sideswiped by a car speeding through downtown – before my entire world narrows on the boxer. Doc is there in seconds, gloving up next to me.
We’re quiet, so quiet. We don’t need to say a word as we work over the boxer in silent tandem, prepping him for emergency surgery as quickly as we can.
It’s like Doc gets it. Like he’s tuned to the same wavelength as this precious, hurting dog.
And like I get him.
Every time he needs me, I’m there, with antiseptic or surgical scissors.
Every second I have a moment of doubt, he’s holding me in place with his quiet, calm commands. He’s totally in control, like there’s no reason to panic, no reason to worry.
Because as long as it’s in his hands, somehow, some way, it’ll be all right.
And together, we save that poor sweet baby’s life.
It’s tense. Touch-and-go as we stop the bleeding, as we debride external wounds, as we find the internal damage, as we work to make sure the boxer will survive his worst injuries long enough for us to tend to the lesser ones. We sedate him so he won’t feel a thing until he wakes up, and then work ourselves ragged, making damn sure he will wake up.
It’s surgery and stitches everywhere, tackling one thing after the next.
I don’t know how long it takes. Hours that feel like days, an eternity working over this poor beat-up dog – until bit by bit, he doesn’t look so bad anymore. Wounds stitched closed, breathing smoothing out, b
lood washed away until by the time he’s bandaged up and draped in a blanket, he just looks like a sleeping lump of puppy sweetness.
And as I snip the thread on the last stitch, I can’t help but smile. My entire body feels wrung out and exhausted from the tension, sweat dripping down my spine and soaking the cap I’ve used to tie my hair back for surgery, but wow.
Wow, I feel good.
We saved him.
The two of us together pulled off something really, really good.
I lift my gaze to Doc’s as he pulls his bloody gloves off his scarred hands and tugs his surgical mask down. There’s something strange in his eyes, something I don’t quite understand, but it warms me inside.
I think it might be – approval?
And his deep, husky voice is soft as he asks, “Would you like to inform the family that he’ll be all right?”
I nod quickly, breathlessly, and I’m out the door like a shot with my smile still stretching from ear to ear.
When the nervous, waiting family sees me, they bolt up out of their seats. I don’t have to say a word for them to take one look at my face and start grinning. The daughters start bawling, while the wife steps forward, clasping her hands together hopefully.
“Momo?”
“He’s going to be okay,” I answer, and she lets out a breathless laugh, pressing her hands to her mouth, her eyes gleaming.
“Thank you,” the husband says, hand clutched to his chest. “Thank you so much.”
“Don’t thank me.” I shake my head and belatedly remember to peel my own bloody gloves off, discreetly turning them inside out to hide the red blotches. “We just did what we’re here for. He’ll need plenty of rest for a while, and medications and intravenous care, but he’s going to pull through. You’ve got one tough pup.”
“If you don’t mind,” Doc says over my shoulder, emerging through the swinging doors, “I’d actually like to keep him for a few days. We have the facilities to administer necessary intravenous nutrients and medicines more easily than you can at home, plus I’d like to keep an eye on his vitals.”
The husband nods quickly. “Absolutely. Of course, Doc, thank you. How much do we owe you?”
“I won’t accept payment in cash today.” Doc pulls his glasses off and tucks them in the pocket of his lab coat, eyes gleaming oddly. “But I think we could barter. Mitch, please meet Ember, my new vet tech.”