Animal Instincts (Gilded Knights Series Book 3)

by Emilia Finn

  “The phone is ringing, Carmel.” I peek across the room for a single second and raise a brow. “Please do your job.”

  “Oh…” Offended, the woman turns on her heels—literally, heels—and stomps her way back to her desk.

  I catch snatches of “Lakeside” and “appointment”. But a minute later, she’s back in my doorway with a flirty smile. “So, about that—”

  “Who is waiting for me, Carmel?” My hands, bloodied and busy, work on Patricia, but my brain allows me room to focus on my schedule. I’m certain there must be clients in the waiting room who have an appointment. “How many?”

  “Um…”

  Taxed by simple math, Carmel turns once more and makes her way toward the end of the hall. A minute later, she comes back with a pleased smile. “A pig, a parrot, and a pregnant dog.”

  “Alright.” I draw a deep breath and try for the hundredth time this week to think of a better way for Carmel and I to coexist. I hired her to be the face and voice of Lakeside, but all she wants is to make me listen to that voice, all while looking at her face, and the phones continue to ring out. “Send the pig owner to me. Please.”

  “Now?” Carmel’s brows rise to two sharp points. “In here?”

  “To the doorway,” I explain. “Where you are. Then stay at your desk and answer those phones.”

  “You sure get grumpy when you’re busy,” Carmel pouts. “What do you want me to do with the parrot and the dog?”

  “I want you to take my instructions, please. Send Andi to me, the others can wait a minute. And I swear to god, if I hear my phone ring out once more, I’m gonna lose my damn mind.”

  “I can’t be everywhere at once,” she huffs. “You want me here to take instructions, you also want me to get the pig owner, and you want me to answer the phones. All at once.”

  “Andi!” I shout, loud and commanding, so Carmel jumps. Sadly, Patricia remains still, dying and weak. “Come here a sec!”

  Nacho’s excited honks are the first thing I hear, then a single second later, her toenails clicking against my waiting room floor. I look up to Carmel and force a smile. “Once Andi leaves, I’ll call you back, and we can discuss the next one.”

  “Are you and Andi a thing, Dr. Rosa?” Carmel plops her hands on her hips and simpers. Leaning into the room, she adds in a whisper, “Because I heard she’s married, and a bitch.”

  “Hey y’all!”

  Carmel jumps when Andi Cruz, local mini-pig owner and resident loudmouth with the confidence of a runway model, smiles for us—only for that smile to notch up when Carmel squeaks and spins away from the exam room.

  Andi’s gaze remains on Carmel’s back for a moment, but eventually she gives up and glances back to me. “Martha wasn’t much, Doc, but she was a million times better than what you’ve got now.”

  “Yeah,” I sigh. “How’s Nacho doing?”

  “Oh, she’s fine.” Andi drops to a crouch and pats her pink-nosed pet. “All peppy again and annoying Riley. I haven’t paid for that visit yet, by the way. I wasn’t invoiced, so…” She shrugs.

  “No charge. Fuck,” I groan when Patricia’s condition doesn’t change, and her uterus won’t be massaged in no matter how hard I try. “I’m gonna have to amputate.”

  At that, Andi’s brows whip up. “What are you doing to that poor baby?” Standing slowly, she peeks across the room at my examination table. “She doesn’t look great.”

  “She’s been treated as a machine for too long,” I exhale. “She makes her owners money by making babies. But she can’t anymore.”

  “So what are you amputating?” Andi doesn’t come into my room. Unlike Carmel, she understands that what I’m doing requires a sterile space… concentration… a lick of common sense. “I don’t understand the correlation between this cat and that word.”

  “I’m gonna take her uterus,” I answer. “A cat hysterectomy.”

  “With or without her owner’s permission?”

  I scoff and pull my hands back. Leaving Patricia on my table for a moment, I move to the sink and flip the taps on to clean up. “Without. If I don’t, she dies. So this is my decision.”

  “And the owners of said baby-making, money-making cat are to pay for this surgery?”

  “I’ll invoice them for it.” I pump soap into my hands and lather. “But I suspect they’ll be pissed and pretend they can’t afford the surgery. So I’ll withhold Patricia until they agree to a payment plan, which they won’t. And then…”

  “Then Lakeside will have a new pet?”

  “Yup.” I turn off the tap and reach for a paper towel. “They don’t treat her well where she lives. She’s fed, plumped, and inseminated. Now she’s here, almost dead, and the owners are nowhere to be found.”

  “Maybe they’re busy,” she tries. “Ya know, lots of kitty litter to buy for all the babies.”

  Calling bullshit, I glance up and raise a brow. “If Nacho needed surgery, where would you be?”

  “Here,” she admits with a gentle smile. Andi looks down at her sweet pig. “I’d be where she is. I’d be in the room if you let me, so she could see me when she fell asleep, then I’d be here again when she woke.”

  “Exactly, because you’re not an asshole.”

  I step to the doorway and look into the hall. Andi has to take a step back to make room for me, which she does without hesitation.

  “Carmel?” I call. “Come here a minute.”

  I move back into the room, only to step to another door that leads to an operating room in the back. The first room is where pets and their owners go for general exams, vaccinations, worming, and temperature checks. But the operating room is out of bounds for everyone except me and—

  Well, I used to have a receptionist I trusted to enter. But now…

  “Carmel?”

  “I don’t think she’s here, Doc.”

  My gaze snaps back to Andi’s. “What?”

  “She’s not coming down the hall. I don’t hear her clicky shoes.”

  Frustrated, I stomp back through my examination room and into the hall. I pass the dying Patricia, the smirking Andi, then move toward the front of the clinic. I stop in the middle of my waiting room and spin. There’s a parrot, as Carmel said, and a pregnant dog, just as reported.

  But there’s no Carmel.

  “Where the hell is she?”

  “She went out there,” the pregnant dog owner points toward the glass door. “Didn’t say where she was going, though.”

  “I’m gonna lose my fuckin’ mind.”

  Spinning back, I move around the reception desk and into the small office, then plopping down on Carmel’s seat, I whip out the resume I’ve kept under the keyboard since receiving it, flip it straight, then start dialing.

  My pulse thuds against my throat, and my fingers mess up the phone number I try to dial, forcing me to start again, but I get it right on the third attempt. Then I wait.

  Andi and her pig stop by the doorway. Owner and pet, both smug, both cute, watch me as the phone rings in my ear.

  The call rings… and rings… and rings. It goes on so long that I worry I won’t get her, but just as I’m tempted to hang up and go back to Patricia, the line connects, and a woman’s voice hits my ear.

  “Hello? Tabitha Lawrence speaking.”

  “Tabitha Lawrence,” I rush out on an exhale. “This is Dr. Rosa. I don’t know if you recall, but I’m—”

  “The unprofessional, rude, impolite jerkwad vet who probably already has a dozen sexual harassment cases pending? Yeah,” she adds on a huff. “I recall.”

  “Er…” My eyes shoot to Andi’s and stop. She can’t possibly hear Tabitha, but still, she grins as though she can. “Yep, that’s me. Uh… are you still looking for a job?”

  Tabitha

  Jerky McJerkerson

  Oh god, yes! I’m desperate for a job! Save me from the monotony of unemployment and low self-esteem.

  “No.” Calming myself before I let the guy know how eager I am, I swal
low down the nerves in my throat and rest my head back against the seat in my car. “I’ve got a few options I’ve been mulling over.”

  “Oh… well…” Dr. Rosa sounds genuinely saddened by my answer. “Um… how about higher pay than what was advertised, and you can have an extra week of vacation a year, assuming you’ve done your job and gotten my office organized.”

  “Wow, I don’t—” I was going to say I don’t know what to say, that I’m flattered, and yes please, but Rosa beats me to it and continues on.

  “Two extra weeks a year of vacation, salary is negotiable, weekends aren’t mandatory, you can have my parking space out front, and Nacho is here, healthy and well. She’d like to say hey.”

  As though on cue, a pig’s snort fills the call and makes me smile.

  “Did you read my resume, Dr. Rosa?”

  “Er…” Paper rustles on his end as he, no doubt, hurriedly scans my documents. “Yes?”

  “Uh huh. So right now, your eyes will be skimming over my education.”

  “I didn’t peg you as a New Yorker, Miss Lawrence. There’s no accent or anything.”

  “I wasn’t born or raised there. Do you see that college, Dr. Rosa? Do you see my grades?”

  “You were either extraordinarily gifted in your studies, Miss Lawrence, or gifted using Word, and while typing this resume, you changed a few numbers around.”

  “Uh huh. I don’t want your parking space, Dr. Rosa, nor do I mind working weekends.”

  “So…” His voice fades away. “What do you want?”

  “Equal opportunity. I applied for the administrator position, so I’ll do that job, but you have to know my end goal is to be in that examination room with you.”

  “I need someone to answer the phones,” he counters quickly. “If I wanted someone in my space while I was trying to operate, I’d keep Carmel.”

  “Blondie not working out, huh?” I smirk and study the street around me. “How do you feel about people who say I told you so?”

  “I loathe them. Do you want the job, Miss Lawrence, or will I call the next on my list?”

  “Ha!” I bark out an actual laugh that manages to evaporate the worry and stress I’ve carried since my failed interview. “You don’t have a list, Rosa! You have no hope except for me. Which is why you offered extra vacation time and a parking space.”

  “I have a list,” he grumbles. “Do you not recall the twenty-something applicants vying for this position?”

  “I do remember them,” I scoff. “I still say you have no list.”

  “Listen here, Tabitha.” Beckett’s tone swings from exasperated to downright terrifying in a single beat of my heart. “I have a dying animal on my table right this moment. I have a waiting room that needs tending, phones that need answering, and a coffee mug that needs filling. I’m giving you ten seconds more to make a decision, but then I have to go. No matter how fun this pissing match is for us both, I have an animal on my table that I’d rather not die. Do you want the fuckin’ job or no?”

  “Yes.” I blurt the word out too fast, too desperate. “I want the job.”

  “Great! I’ll start you on a fair salary, higher than advertised. Saturdays would be cool if you worked them, but not mandatory. You can still have my parking space, since I made the offer. We’ll organize your vacation time once you start. And since it’s the beginning of the month, I need you to learn payroll too. Neither of us gets paid until someone pays us, so it’s best if you know how to do that quickly.”

  “Er… well. Okay. I guess I’ll get on that first thing Monday. Is nine o’clock a good starting time?”

  “No, I’m gonna need you here now.”

  My eyes shoot wide. “Now?”

  “Right fucking now. You have five minutes to get here, or the offer lapses and you’re on your ass.”

  “Well, that’s not true,” I snicker. And yet, I start my car and set my phone on speaker. “You still have no list to fall back on.”

  “Okay,” he concedes. “Not true. But still, I need you here in five. Patricia is dying, I need to take her in to surgery, I have other clients booked in, Carmel has gone fuck knows where—oh, and when you arrive, it’s also your job to fire her. I don’t have time for that shit.”

  “No pressure at all,” I grit my teeth and pull around the next corner. “And if she doesn’t accept her dismissal?”

  “She probably won’t,” he admits. “You’re gonna have to convince her. She’s not entitled to severance, since she wasn’t here long and she sucked at her job, but she is entitled to her pay up to today. You can take care of that once you deal with mine and yours.”

  “And while I’m taking care of all that, how would you feel if I paid myself a salary as high as yours?”

  He snorts. “You’ll be ripping yourself off. I pay myself enough to cover the mortgage and the cost of my daily coffee. If that’s all you want, then I just got myself a hell of a deal.”

  “You pay your— You don’t even— Nuh uh! You drive a spiffy truck and wear suits. I’m certain, Dr. Rosa, you pay yourself a handsome salary.”

  “The truck belongs to the practice. And my tailor is a family friend, he likes to make my wardrobe.”

  “Explains my observation that your suit was made to fit you.”

  Silence envelops us for a moment before Beckett adds, “You noticed how I looked?”

  “Sexual harassment case number two-five-three.”

  “No!” Laughing, the jovial sound carries through my car and makes me smile despite myself. “No sexual harassment case. It was only a question. Listen,” he turns grumpy again. “What time are you gonna be here? I have shit to do.”

  “I need an hour.” I pull into a parking space and cut the engine. “I need to get my breast enhancements and lip fillers first. Then I’ll have to dig in my closet and search for my thong and heels, since apparently they’re requirements for the job.”

  “You’re seriously mad, huh? I never intended to fight with you the other week, Tabitha.”

  “Intended or not,” I push out of my car and grab my briefcase as I go, “you were rude, unprofessional, unkind, and generally a really shitty person. It’s crazy for me to even consider accepting the job.”

  “But you did!” he throws in. “The job has been accepted, Miss Lawrence. Now we’re negotiating start times.”

  “Uh huh. And your expectations are unrealistic. I’ve asked for an hour, which I think is already a short amount of time, considering the Botox I’ll need.”

  “You don’t need Botox,” he chuckles low in the back of his throat. “Tabitha? My sweet, sweet new administrative assistant? Can you be here in the next half hour, please? I’m begging you.”

  “Sure.” With a sigh, I push through the now-pristine glass door and pass the wall of unchewable leashes.

  Stopping in front of the desk Martha sat behind a couple weeks ago, I look down to find Beckett Rosa, hunched and sad, with his head in his hand and the phone pressed to his ear.

  “Get out of my seat.”

  Stunned, Beckett’s head snaps up, and when his eyes stop on mine, they widen. “Fuckin’ A!” He drops his phone and jumps to his feet. Then—unprofessional and rude—he leans across the desk and grabs me in a rough hug. “Thank god you’re here.”

  Releasing me, he spins away from the desk and passes the woman I met last time I was here. “Andi, you show her around. Tabitha,” he comes around the office space and stops at the end of the hall. He’s wearing a suit again, a perfect fit, and a five o’clock shadow that lines his jaw and stretches down his neck. His hands are broad, muscled as he fusses with his coat buttons. But his smile is what holds any woman’s attention. Wide, friendly, and pearly white. “I have to go be with Patricia now, but I’m so happy you’re here. You do the thing you did last time, but without treating my patients. Book em’ in, do the schedules, get my office running smooth, then we’ll discuss the rest. Good?”

  “Uh… sure. Good.”

  “Thank fuck.” Pumpin
g his fist, he turns on his heels and runs along the hall, so I’m left standing in the middle of the waiting room, Andi and Nacho in front of me, clients sitting behind.

  I peek over my shoulder as warmth tickles my cheeks.

  “Welcome aboard,” the dog owner grins. “And don’t worry about his potty mouth. We’re used to it now.”

  “Er… okay.” I look back to Andi. “Nice to see you again.”

  “And you.” She takes a step back to allow me room to come through the doorway, then the moment I pass, she refills the space. “Nacho is doing great, by the way. The antibiotics cleared her right up.”

  “That’s great.” Setting my briefcase on the floor, I slowly turn the chair Beckett was filling a moment ago. Then sitting down, I settle in and pretend I can’t feel the warmth beneath me. “So… I guess I got the job.”

  Smiling, Andi leans against the doorframe and crosses her arms. “You’ll love it here. Dr. Rosa is a sweetheart, but he works hard, so he can get grumpy sometimes. The customers who come through here, in my experience, are always pretty cool. You’re new to town, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  I move the mouse beside the keyboard to power up the computer. Instantly, I’m met with a wall of Dr. Rosa images. The vision is an assault to my eyes, the collage a garish display of self-love.

  “I don’t know what would be worse…” With quick movements, I make my way to the display settings and search for a picture of a garden, or a sunset, or a lobotomy. “If Beckett put that there, because he loves himself, or if Carmel put it together.”

  Andi snickers as I click on an image of waves at the beach. “I’m gonna assume the receptionist did that. She fancies herself in love, methinks. You married, Tabby?”

  Surprised by her use of my nickname, I glance across and study Andi’s kind smile. Then I shake my head. “I have a boyfriend. We’ve been together a long time, but we’re not married yet.”

  “That’s nice. You being single might’ve become an issue for when you and Dr. Rosa decide you wanna start touchin’.”

  My eyes widen at her words.