The Promise of Lightning

by Linda Seed

  “I’ve had my phone off.” Specifically to avoid Liam’s calls.

  “The foreman at the ranch is out sick today, so Liam’s filling in. He’s not coming on the cruise.”

  Megan blinked at her in surprise. Liam had to come. She might not want to talk to him, but she needed him to show up for the cruise. If he didn’t, she might have to talk to Drew. And if she talked to Drew, she might somehow give away the fact that she was thinking erotic thoughts about him.

  That wouldn’t do at all.

  She lay her head back down on the table and gave in to the rhythmic throbbing.

  Maybe if she were lucky, she’d fall off the side of the boat and get eaten by a shark. Right now, the thought seemed really appealing.

  Eddie didn’t look good.

  The cat always had his issues: He was temperamental in the extreme, picky about his food, and slow to warm up to new people and animals. But today he looked more unhappy than usual. His food bowl remained untouched, and he didn’t seem to want to do his favorite activities, such as tripping Drew while he went about the business of getting dressed and brushing his teeth.

  The cat was lying in the corner of the hotel room limply, squinty-eyed, his mouth hanging slackly open.

  Drew wasn’t much on diagnosing cat ailments, but he tried to think what could be bothering Eddie. As far as Drew could tell, Eddie hadn’t eaten anything in the room that wasn’t meant to be eaten. He hadn’t gotten into any kind of accident, and there’d been no other cats or dogs in his orbit to fight with.

  “What’s wrong, Ed?” Drew crouched down and rubbed behind the cat’s ears. Eddie simply closed his eyes in response.

  Before Eddie, Drew hadn’t had a pet since the golden retriever they’d had when he was in high school. He hadn’t been looking for a pet, either. But a couple of weeks before, he’d been in his workshop with the door open to catch the morning breeze when Eddie had sauntered in, meowing at him.

  Drew had shooed the cat away, but the next day he’d come back, mewing insistently. On the third day, Drew fed him a can of tuna he’d dug out of the back of his pantry.

  Everybody knew that once you fed a stray cat you’d never get rid of it, so Drew had pretty much accepted Eddie at that point. He’d asked around the neighborhood whether anybody had lost a large orange tabby, but Eddie had no collar, and it seemed pretty clear to Drew that the animal was homeless.

  Or had been, until now.

  At first, Eddie had accepted food, water, and a place to sleep, but he hadn’t allowed Drew to touch him. He’d mostly taken up residence underneath a work bench, refusing to come out except to eat or to make his daily treks into the forest surrounding Drew’s house.

  But gradually, he’d begun to be more bold, coming close enough to sniff Drew’s shoes or tentatively brush his leg on the way to somewhere else.

  Eventually, Eddie had allowed Drew to pet him, then to pick him up. But he still didn’t much like other people, and that was why Drew had elected to bring him on the trip rather than getting a cat-sitter.

  But maybe the trip, with all of that time crammed into a cat carrier under the seat of a Delta jet, had stressed him out more than Drew had realized. Maybe he missed his home. Or maybe he was mourning the fact that he was stuck inside the hotel room and couldn’t wander outdoors the way he was used to on Salt Spring Island.

  Drew peered at Eddie, and the cat gazed mournfully back at him.

  Then Eddie let out a strangled, explosive noise that was either a cough or a sneeze.

  Not just stress, then.

  “Are you sick, buddy?” he asked the cat.

  Drew hadn’t really wanted a cat, but he’d gotten used to having somebody around, even if that somebody didn’t contribute to the rent and wasn’t much of a conversationalist.

  Seeing Eddie in distress bothered Drew more than he would have expected. The cat needed a vet.

  It occurred to him, of course, that Megan was a vet, but Megan would be on the Morro Bay cruise today and would have taken the day off.

  Drew pulled out his phone and checked for vets’ offices in Cambria. He found two: Megan’s clinic, which specialized in large animals like cows and horses, and one other, a place in the Tin Village area that seemed to be more focused on dogs and cats.

  If Drew took Eddie to the vet, it would mean that he wouldn’t get to Morro Bay in time for the whale-watching cruise, and would miss out on a fun-filled day of camaraderie with the Delaneys and the McCrays.

  Drew grinned and stroked Eddie’s fur.

  “I owe you one, dude.”

  Drew called Julia and made his excuses about the whale-watching trip. At first, she was upset that he wouldn’t be there, but he played up Eddie’s suffering, even going so far as to take a short video of the cat’s misery on his phone so he could send it to Julia.

  Once she’d had a chance to watch the video—complete with one of Eddie’s strangled cough-gag-sneeze episodes—she texted that he was off the hook. He’d known she would. Julia had a soft spot for children and animals—anything small and helpless and, preferably, cute.

  With that done, he loaded Eddie into his cat carrier and put him in the rental car.

  It was a measure of Eddie’s misery that he didn’t even protest being put into the carrier. Usually, Drew risked his eyesight and a certain amount of spilled blood every time he had to take Eddie anywhere. This time, the cat just submitted limply.

  Drew drove Eddie to the Tin Village vet’s office. Tin Village was a collection of industrial-looking, metal-sided structures off of Burton Drive that housed a variety of businesses ranging from a hardware store to a cookie shop to various business headquarters for the restaurants and shops on Main Street.

  The vet’s office was in the center of the complex, its unassuming door almost hidden behind a pair of potted palm trees. Cutout silhouettes of a dog and a cat adorned a glass panel in the upper half of the door.

  When Drew approached the receptionist, she frowned at him in a combination of scorn and concern for Eddie’s plight.

  “I’m sorry.” The woman was upper-middle-aged, maybe fifty, with blond hair shot with gray that had been sprayed into an immovable bob. “We’re completely booked up. You should have made an appointment.”

  “I kind of didn’t want to wait,” he said. “He seems pretty sick.” He held up the cat carrier so the woman could peer in at Eddie through the mesh on its side.

  “Have you tried Megan Scott?” the woman suggested. “She mostly works on cattle, horses—that kind of thing. But she takes domestic animals, too.”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s busy today,” Drew said.

  The woman scrunched up her nose in either thought or sympathy—it was hard to tell. “Right, the wedding. Today’s the whale-watching thing.”

  In a town this small, it was no surprise that the receptionist knew Megan’s business. Drew had experienced much the same thing on Salt Spring Island. If he’d been home, his neighbors would already know how many times Eddie had sneezed since eight a.m., and whether the cat had managed to take a shit. Which he hadn’t.

  The receptionist suggested that Drew try a clinic down the highway in Cayucos and gave him the name and number. He went back to his car, got in, and loaded Eddie into the passenger seat.

  He could try the place in Cayucos, sure. But the boat wasn’t set to leave for forty-five minutes yet, and Drew couldn’t help thinking about how Megan had looked last night in the passenger seat of his car, her skin shining softly in the moonlight.

  It wasn’t a question of whether it would be self-serving to call her now about Eddie. It was only a question of how self-serving.

  Eddie let out another gag-like explosion of air and cat mucus.

  “You’re right, Eddie,” he said. “Your health comes first.”

  Chapter Ten

  Drew didn’t have Megan’s cell phone number, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Liam. He considered asking Julia, but her patience with him skipping out of the cruise was
going to come to an abrupt end if she knew he was trying to take another one of her guests with him.

  He briefly considered which of the Delaneys was most sympathetic to him, and he realized that it was Sandra, despite her crusty attitude. Sandra was not going on the cruise—“If I wanted to watch a bunch of whales jumping around, I’d go to a damned aquarium,” she’d told Julia—and so he tried her at home.

  “Well, Christ on a Cheez-It, boy, why do you need to call the woman?” she demanded over the phone. “You’ll be face to face with her all afternoon on that damned boat. Though it’s beyond me why any of you are doing such a fool thing in the first place. You want to look at water, you can see it from the damned beach.”

  Drew had a sudden insight and he grinned, glad she couldn’t see it. “Sandra, are you afraid of the water?”

  “Hmph.” The sound was neither denial nor affirmation. “I just don’t see why you’d want to leave a perfectly good piece of solid ground, that’s all. You got a problem with that?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Well, then.”

  He took another stab at the original purpose of his call. “Um … Megan’s cell number? I wouldn’t bother her, but my cat is sick.”

  “Sure he is.” She let out a harsh cackle. “You want to make a move on Liam’s girl, I guess that’s your own business. But I figure you ought to do it like a man instead of bringing a defenseless cat into it.”

  He considered protesting his innocence and maybe sending her the same video he’d used to placate Julia. But Sandra wasn’t much for explanations or excuses.

  He waited silently for a moment while she considered the situation.

  “It’s your funeral,” she said at last, and gave him the number.

  Megan was in her car on her way to Morro Bay, thinking about how to avoid Drew, when Drew called her.

  “Are you in Morro Bay yet?” he asked, without introduction.

  “Who is this?” But she knew who it was. How could she not recognize his voice when she’d heard it purring indecent things into her ear in her dream?

  “It’s Drew. Listen, I know you’re taking the day off work for the whale-watching thing, but … Eddie’s sick, and the other vet in town is booked up.”

  “Who’s Eddie?” If she’d been able to focus, she’d have understood that Eddie was a pet of some kind, but she couldn’t focus, because that voice …

  “My cat.”

  She took a moment to get hold of her faculties, then reminded herself that she was a professional and the welfare of a helpless animal was at stake.

  “What are his symptoms?”

  “He won’t eat, he’s listless. He just lies around with his mouth hanging open in a way that looks really weird to me. And he’s got a sneeze. Or maybe it’s a cough. It’s kind of hard to tell.”

  “Sounds like he’s got an upper respiratory infection.”

  “You mean, like a cold?”

  “Exactly like a cold.”

  “Well … that doesn’t sound too bad. Except that he hasn’t eaten or had anything to drink since yesterday. He seems really miserable.”

  Megan continued driving south on Highway 1. On the one hand, she’d been hoping to avoid the whale-watching cruise, and now she could. On the other, the reason she’d wanted to avoid the cruise was so she could avoid Drew.

  She pondered the irony of that while she thought about the cat and its ailment. She didn’t have to take care of Drew’s cat. The other vet in Cambria might be booked up, but there were at least three vets in Morro Bay he could try, and when you added in San Luis Obispo, Los Osos, and Templeton, there had to be at least a dozen.

  But he hadn’t called them; he’d called her. The cat needed help, and what kind of doctor would she be if she could simply ignore an animal in need?

  She let out a sigh, flipped on her turn signal, and took the next exit off the highway so she could turn the car around.

  “I’ll see you at my office in fifteen minutes.”

  “Look, Megan, I’m sorry to do this to you. I—”

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  Megan told herself to focus on the cat, not the man. Eddie was sick and needed her help, and she couldn’t help him if she was thinking about what it would feel like to have Drew’s hands on her body.

  Those hands had been all over her last night in her dream, but she couldn’t think about that. If she thought about it, then she couldn’t do her job. Besides, she might start stammering and blushing, and that wouldn’t do.

  Eddie was lying on the examining table, and Megan checked his eyes, his nose, and his throat. Considering what Drew had told her about Eddie’s temperament, the fact that the cat allowed her to poke and probe him without much protest was an indication of his ill health.

  “Is he up to date on his vaccines?” Megan didn’t look at Drew as she asked the question. Instead, she peered into Eddie’s nasal cavity with a scope.

  “Yeah. I got him his shots as soon as I figured out he was planning to stay.”

  “Good. Has he had any of these symptoms before?”

  “Now that you mention it, yeah. When he first started coming around, he had the sneeze. It wasn’t this bad, though.”

  She used a cotton swab to take a sample of mucus from the inside of Eddie’s nose. This, finally, provoked a response, and with skills honed from years of experience, she deftly dodged a swipe from the cat’s claws.

  She stroked the cat’s head with her latex-gloved hand to soothe him. Then she scooped him up into her arms.

  “He’s dehydrated,” she told Drew. “Let me keep him overnight, and I’ll give him fluids and keep an eye on him. It’s possible that he’s a chronic carrier of a viral infection that’s triggered by stress. The trip out here might have been too much for him.” She stroked Eddie’s head and felt his gentle purr against her chest.

  Drew stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets. “Well, is he going to be okay?”

  “Sure. I’ll make him comfortable and give him an antibiotic to make sure there’s no bacterial infection. He’ll be good to go in a few days. You’ll have to keep an eye on him in stressful situations, though. I assume you’re going to fly him back home after the wedding?”

  “That was the plan.”

  “He might have another flare-up. If he does, you want to watch for dehydration and any trouble with his breathing.”

  Drew nodded. “Listen, thanks for doing this. I didn’t want to ruin your plans for today, with the cruise and everything, but …”

  “Kids and pets,” she mused. “You never know when they’re going to get sick, and they usually don’t do it on anybody’s schedule. Come on, you can follow me back.”

  Drew followed Megan as she took Eddie into a room that had been the kitchen back when this place had been used as a house rather than a business. On one wall stood a row of stainless steel cages where hospitalized patients could await their recovery. Because Megan had taken time off for Wedding Week, Eddie was the only patient in residence. The cages stood empty, clean, and gleaming in the overhead lights.

  Megan opened the door of a small cage and deposited Eddie inside. She closed and latched the door, turned around, and snapped off her gloves.

  He was standing close to her, so close that he picked up her scent—some kind of flowery soap and the sunscreen she’d applied in preparation for the cruise that was even now leaving without them.

  He felt her nearness like an electric charge through his veins. He wanted to reach out and touch her, but until the breakup happened, she was still with Liam. And even after the breakup did happen, making a move on her would effectively destroy any chance he had of forging a good relationship with the Delaneys.

  Or one Delaney, in particular.

  She cleared her throat, and he thought he saw a hint of color rise to her cheeks.

  “You can leave him here for a day or two so I can watch him,” she said. “I’ll take care of him.”

  “What do I owe you?” He was standing too cl
ose to her, he knew, but he made no move to back away.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. You’re a Delaney, and the Delaneys are practically my family, so …” She blinked hard as she realized what that implied about her future with Liam. “I mean, they would be, if … I didn’t mean …”

  “I have to pay you,” he told her. “This is your business. You’re a professional. You deserve to get paid.”

  “It’s a favor. I’m doing you a favor. Or, I’m doing Eddie one.”

  He hesitated. He knew what he was about to say could get them both in trouble, but he said it anyway.

  “At least let me buy you lunch, then.”

  “Oh, I … shouldn’t. Liam—”

  “It’s just lunch. To say thank you, that’s all. You missed out on the event today because of me and Eddie, so I figure it’s the least I can do.”

  It was only logical. He was just being polite. She was doing him a favor by taking care of Eddie, and he figured he owed her one back.

  The problem was, even Drew didn’t believe that.

  Megan had her own set of rationalizations.

  She had begged off on the cruise and had come back to work because of a sick cat, not because of Drew. She had refused his offer of payment because of her close relationship with the Delaneys, not because of any personal feelings she was developing for him. And lunch with him was simply a friendly compensation for her time, and not anything inappropriate.

  It certainly wasn’t a date.

  That was what she told herself as she gave Eddie a round of antibiotics and subcutaneous fluids. She set him up with a humidifier to help with his breathing, and then she and Drew went outside and she locked up the office.

  Eddie wasn’t in any kind of life-threatening danger, so he’d be fine if she went out with Drew and checked back in on him in an hour. Since he was her only patient at the moment, she would bring him home with her overnight so she could monitor him.