Concentrate, she told herself.
Cam paid attention to the facial injuries first, leaving the deep bite marks behind the dog’s ear untended.
‘That’s where the worst infection is likely to be,’ he said. ‘I’ve flushed them out as much as possible, and I’ll leave them open so I can keep an eye on them.’
He moved a portable X-ray screen and positioned it above the left front leg, which was badly mutilated, but the X-ray, when they both peered at it on the little office screen, showed no breaks to the bones, although the shoulder tendons were badly torn.
It was two hours before Cam was finally satisfied that he’d done all he could for the dog at the moment, and the animal was swathed in bandages.
‘How will you keep him quiet enough to allow the wounds to heal?’ Lauren asked, scratching at a small patch of unbandaged skin on the dog’s back.
‘With so much damage, I’ll sedate him for twelve hours,’ Cam said. ‘I just hope that when it wears off he feels bad enough not to want to move. I don’t want to keep him in a crate, which would be the obvious answer. He was probably kept in one most of this life, and he’ll be terrified. The poor chap is traumatised...’
He hesitated, his eyes on the dog, his hand absently fondling the animal’s head.
‘I’ll put him in a kennel out in one of the runs,’ he decided finally. ‘They’re all empty at the moment, apart from one very pregnant cat. I’ll keep them well apart and I’ll just close off the open run so he can’t get out into the rather patchy grass.’
But Lauren was barely listening. ‘You think he’s been kept in a crate?’ she whispered, her heart aching at the thought of this dog’s life. On impulse, she added, ‘Can I have him when he’s better? I have a patient who really needs a dog, and I’ve told him I’ll find one. This fellow can come and convalesce with me, and I’ll introduce him to Mr Richards as soon as he’s up and about again—the dog, not Mr Richards. And if he doesn’t want him, I’ll keep him. My last dog died two years ago, and I haven’t felt up to replacing him before now.’
‘We’ll have to see,’ Cam said, sounding so exhausted that Lauren suddenly realised how late it was—close to three in the morning.
‘I should go,’ she said. ‘And, no, you definitely don’t need to walk me home.’ She put her hands on his shoulders and looked deep into his tired eyes. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she said, and won an exhausted smile. ‘You go to bed.’
‘All alone?’ he managed.
She gave him a little shake. ‘As if you’re fit for anything else...’
She kissed his cheek and stepped away from him, but he caught her hand.
‘I want to come with you.’
She squeezed his fingers, then disentangled them. ‘Look,’ she said, touching his shoulder, ‘if you’re really worried I’ll take Henry’s old bike and be home in no time.’
His smile was a weak effort.
She kissed him again, quickly on the lips, then turned him towards the stairs, and said, ‘Go to bed! Now!’
Only after he’d settled the dog in a bed in one of the kennels, and cleaned up most of the mess, did he follow her orders.
She didn’t take the bike, preferring a quiet walk home along the path she knew so well. The peacefulness of it helped the tension of the operation—of Cam—to slowly subside.
When she did get home, she showered, fell into bed, and was still asleep when Janet arrived for work, calling up the stairs to her that there were patients waiting!
* * *
Cam was awoken by a small hand tugging at his arm.
‘Daddy, there’s a dog in one of the kennels all over bandages! He looks sad and I think he’s hungry.’
Cam opened his eyes and peered blearily at his daughter. ‘What were you doing out at the kennels?’ he asked.
Maddie smiled at him. ‘I went to visit the cat. Madge came with me, with the food. No kittens yet, but she’s so big they must be coming soon!’
He closed his eyes, aware that he needed to get up, showered, dressed and fed, and to be ready for any patient that might come in.
‘Be a love and slip downstairs and ask Madge if she’ll make me some coffee. Tell her to use Henry’s old filter machine—I’ll need more than one cup.’
‘But what about the dog?’ Maddie asked, edging backwards towards the door.
‘Later,’ he said. ‘Now, go!’
With his first coffee in hand, he walked out to the kennels, where the dog lay quietly, stiff with tension in spite of the sedation.
Cam squatted beside him. ‘Hello, old boy,’ he said gently. ‘You’ll be feeling a bit rough, but we’ll soon get you well.’
He moved the bowl of clean water closer, talking all the while, hoping his tone would tell the dog that he was safe.
‘I’ll be back later,’ he said, and hurried back to his rooms, where a parrot who needed his toenails clipped was waiting for him, and Madge was sitting at the reception desk where his nurse usually sat.
‘She went off with the locum,’ Madge murmured to him as he carried his patient into the treatment room. ‘She left a note, and an address for you to send on any mail and wages, if they’re due.’
Oh, great, he thought. But his attention was on the bird, who was eyeing him closely, as if deciding where best to nip him.
‘He’s really gentle, and very old, so he won’t bite,’ his owner said.
Wrong.
One look at the clippers and the bird let out an indignant squawk and nipped him sharply on the thumb.
But the job was soon done, the thumb bandaged, and his next patient—a constipated poodle—had arrived.
Somehow he got through the morning, and he had finally closed the door, aware that he should be writing up all the notes his nurse would normally do, but craving a small nap instead, when Lauren arrived.
‘I thought I’d sit with the dog for a while...just talking to him.’
‘Forget the dog—you’re an answer to a prayer.’ He paused then added, ‘No, don’t forget the dog. I have to look at him anyway, and if you’ve the time to talk quietly to him that would be excellent, but first of all do you know anyone who’d like a kitten, or a job as a veterinary nurse?’
It said a lot for Lauren’s equanimity that, although she smiled, she honed in on the immediate problem.
‘Don’t vet nurses need special training?’ she asked.
‘Usually,’ he said, ‘but if I can’t get a qualified one straight away, even just someone to sit at the desk would do...’
* * *
He looked so uptight—this usually ultra-casual man—that she immediately crossed to his desk and lifted the phone.
‘The agency who supplies temps when my nurse or receptionist go on leave might know someone,’ she explained as she waited on hold. ‘Some don’t last long because we’re an hour’s drive down from Riverview, and they don’t like the commute, and if they rent down here they miss the city’s social life.’
The phone was finally answered at the agency and Lauren asked about trained veterinary nurses. The woman she spoke to was someone she knew, who assured her there was a young woman living on the lake somewhere who was fully trained.
‘She’ll get back to me,’ Lauren reported to Cam, when the conversation had finished, and explained to him that one might be available locally. ‘Actually, she’ll probably phone you, as I rang from your number.’
He just stared at her, as if stunned that she’d made it sound so easy.
‘So, the dog...?’ Lauren said, bringing him back to the reason for her visit. ‘How is he? May I go and talk to him?’
‘What about the kittens?’ he said.
Lauren shook her head at his persistence. ‘Are they even born yet?’ she asked, and he shook his head in turn. ‘Then wait until they are, then wait again until they’re about a week old and totally f
urry and adorable, tumbling over each other. Then take some pictures and put them up in the shops in the village—they’ll be gone in no time.’ She hesitated before adding, ‘You might have to promise to spay them when it’s time, but that shouldn’t be a bother.’
He grinned at her. ‘Thanks a bunch,’ he said.
But she’d stopped listening, her thoughts back on the dog. ‘So, can I sit with the dog?’
Cam frowned, obviously weighing up some objections. ‘You’ll need to be careful,’ he said. ‘He’s probably been abused all his life, and he’ll see all people as abusers, so he might try to get in first with a snap or a bite.’
Lauren smiled at him. ‘He’s so trussed up, I doubt he can do me much harm,’ she said.
But Cam still looked worried. ‘There’s another thing...’ he said, and she waited.
And waited!
‘You might get too close to him,’ he finally admitted, ‘and that might not be good for you or him.’
‘Why ever not?’ Lauren demanded. ‘I’ve already told you I know someone who’ll take him when he’s better.’
‘That’s as may be,’ Cam said, clearly still worried. ‘But he could turn out to be too aggressive, even dangerous, and he might have to be put down anyway.’
‘No way!’ Lauren told him. ‘Don’t even think about that until we see what a little kindness and friendship might do for him.’
She could see Cam was unconvinced, and she knew that he was operating, as she was, on not enough sleep.
‘Just let me spend some time with him,’ she added. ‘I’ll be very careful.’
She could tell he was about to agree, but would insist on accompanying her.
‘I’ll be fine, and I think he’ll be better with one person rather than two,’ she said, touching him on the arm. ‘Just tell me the code for the gate and then go have a sleep.’
He did so reluctantly, and as soon as she’d repeated the numbers she left his rooms and headed for the kennels.
She was pleased, when she considered it, to be out of Cam’s presence. Away from the unsettling feelings he caused her...from the urge to move close to him, to—
Don’t even go there, she told herself.
What with one thing and another, there’d been far too much togetherness between them lately—and for all the strange sensations it was causing in her body it was feeling far too comfortable.
Almost normal...
CHAPTER SIX
HER AFTERNOON PATIENTS WERE, again, mainly people needing new prescriptions and wanting to know just what was going on with their long-term single doctor.
Like in any small country town—or village, really—anyone new was newsworthy, and for a male newcomer to be seen out and about with the local spinster... Well, she’d known it would start the tongues wagging...
‘They say he’s a nice man, the new vet,’ one woman said. ‘Did his wife die?’ she asked.
Which brought up something Lauren really didn’t want to think about.
She avoided answering the question with a blood pressure check, and went on to ask about her patient’s grandchildren—always a welcome topic.
But his marital status was questioned again by her last patient, a schoolteacher pretending interest in Maddie but really after gossip.
Lauren avoided that too, by asking about the woman’s eldest, who was up in Riverview at university. Doing well, apparently.
‘It’s all they’re talking about,’ Janet said to her when she’d shown the final patient out. ‘It’s because you went out to dinner with him—now everyone knows.’
‘Knows what?’ Lauren demanded, far too abruptly, because she knew that Janet would always be thinking of Lauren’s interests.
‘You know what people are like,’ Janet said. ‘And anyone new gets talked about. So you’ll have to accept a little gossip about yourself and the new vet, even if it was only a very casual dinner.’
‘It was!’ Lauren snorted, then realised she was too tired to be thinking clearly. ‘I’m sorry I snapped, Janet,’ she said. ‘I didn’t get much sleep last night—and, no, it’s not what you’re thinking, you wretch.’
She explained about the dog.
But the marital status questions stayed with her as she went through to her kitchen and made a sandwich, then gathered a few scraps of meat she had in the refrigerator to take over to the dog. She’d wrap her sandwich and take it over there—they would eat together, her and the dog...
Getting back to Cam... He was married, and she had to remember that. People who left to ‘find themselves’ could easily come back. And his wife had been a good mother—Cam had told her that.
Although Lauren felt she’d managed perfectly well without a mother, she did remember times, particularly in her teens, when she’d have loved to have had a mother to talk to, to tell her things... To comfort her when things—boys, more often than not—were disturbing or upsetting her teenage self.
Her consideration of this stayed with her on her walk across to his house and around to the kennels, where she keyed in the gate code and made her way carefully to the injured dog’s run.
She spoke softly to him as she approached the gloom of the kennel in the dusk, and wondered if there’d be a light. Did injured dogs need night lights?
‘Hello, old boy,’ she said, as she came quietly into the shelter.
‘Not so much of the “old”, thank you,’ a deep voice said, and she let out a cry of what she hoped hadn’t sounded like fear.
‘What on earth are you doing here?’ she demanded.
‘He’s my patient,’ Cam said.
But the lack of sleep, concern about the dog, and the muddle she was in over her feelings for this man all crashed down on her and she slumped onto the floor, head bent, as her eyes started leaking tears.
‘Hey...’ Cam said, standing up and moving so he could sit beside her and put his arm around her. ‘I gave you a fright. I’m sorry.’
He pulled her close against his body and she felt his lips pressing kisses on her hair.
‘This is stupid,’ she finally managed to mutter. ‘I never cry.’
He held her closer, so his body warmed her, and just for a minute or two she relaxed against him, nestled into him.
‘It’s lack of sleep,’ she said against his chest. ‘And the dog.’
Having produced two more or less sensible sentences, she knew she should ease away—ease out of those arms that held her, away from the security that was something she’d never known...never felt before.
Had she been lonelier than she’d thought? Was that why Cam’s arms were so comforting?
She didn’t think so—had never felt that. So it must be Cam’s arms in particular that were producing these wonderful sensations...
This was dangerous!
But although the word was like a red light, flashing in her brain, she let him hold her, finally lifting her head for the kiss she was sure they both wanted.
The kiss was warm and comforting, but there was more than that to it. Sensuality and desire caused a physical ache deep inside her—a yearning for something she could barely understand.
She finally eased away from him, dug a handkerchief out of her jeans and cleaned up the remnants of her silly tears.
Back in control.
Almost...
Deep breath, and then sensible conversation.
‘I’ve a sandwich, if you’d like to share, and I brought a few scraps of ham for the dog, if that’s okay and if he wants it.’
She knew she was yammering on so that she didn’t have to think—or, worse, talk about what had just happened—but Cam accepted half her sandwich and agreed that the dog might like the ham.
He sounded so cool and in control. She still felt confused about her weakness, and found herself feeding bits of sandwich to the dog, so she didn’t have
to think about the man who’d held her in his arms and somehow managed to kiss her body back to life.
‘Well, he’s certainly well enough to eat,’ Cam said, definitely in control. ‘I’ll feed him mine as well, if you don’t mind?’
‘Go for it,’ Lauren managed, but her voice was husky and a trifle wobbly.
Cam pulled her close again. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘I’ll walk you home. We’ll have some tea and toast—if you’ve any bread left after the sandwiches.’
‘I’ve always got spare bread in my freezer,’ Lauren said, deciding it was time to take control of the situation.
‘I was almost sure you would,’ he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice.
In spite of all the reasons she could list for not getting involved with this man, she knew she wanted nothing more than for him to walk her home, his arm around her shoulders, his body close to hers...
* * *
They did have tea and toast—but much later.
Cam was more or less dressed—his T-shirt was on inside out—and Lauren was in her faded old dressing gown, cuddly and familiar.
‘I shouldn’t have let that happen,’ she said, her face still flushed from their lovemaking.
‘And why is that, oh, wise one?’ Cam teased.
She frowned at him. ‘You know very well—there are dozens of reasons.’
‘Like?’ he prompted.
Again that smile was in his voice, and her body trembled.
Get a grip, she told herself.
‘Gossip,’ she said, ‘which won’t bother me, but might be hard for Madge to listen to, and it could hurt Maddie too.’
‘Not the dog?’ he teased, but she shook her head.
‘It’s not a joke,’ she said. ‘This community might be spread out about the lake but it’s small, and there’s nothing a small community likes better than some fresh gossip.’
‘Would it hurt you?’ he asked, not joking now, and his blue eyes looked at her so tenderly she had to bite back tears.
Bloody hell. Hadn’t she cried enough for one day?
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