Second Act

by Herkness, Nancy

  “Mattie!” Carla yelled down the hallway. “Get your butt in here and help out the doc.”

  With the assistance of the extra tech, they got the dog’s examination completed. As soon as the dog and his owner exited, Carla appeared at the door and gave Jessica her “don’t mess with me” look.

  “I’m going, I’m going,” Jessica said, stripping off her gloves and tossing them in the trash before scrubbing her hands and arms.

  “I nuked it for you, so it might be edible,” Carla said. “You got two more patients and then we’re closing up.”

  She’d lost track of the time and forgotten to eat . . . again. It wasn’t as though she was losing weight, because she was often so ravenous after work that she would grab some fat- and carb-filled fast food and stuff it down at nine o’clock at night. She really had to choose healthier meals.

  When she got to her desk, she found Geode sniffing a tuna melt and a walnut-and-pear salad from one of her favorite places, the Ceres Café. When she bit into the sandwich, she tasted tarragon, garlic, lemon, and a sharp, tangy cheddar. “I’ll save you some tuna if you let me eat in peace,” she said, shooing the cat off the desk.

  Her cell phone pinged with an incoming text message, but she ignored it until she’d polished off half the sandwich and several forkfuls of salad.

  She glanced down to see Pete’s name and swiped it. Business trip got canceled. Would really like to see you before Saturday.

  A shimmer of pleasure suffused her body. It felt nice to be wanted. She mentally reviewed her schedule. She was committed to Hugh on her evening off, and the rest of the week was filled with work.

  Maybe a late drink on Thursday night? Nine-ish?

  There was virtually no delay before he replied, As long as I don’t get in trouble with your fairy godmother, I’ll be at your door then.

  A smile curled the corners of her lips. She may get huffy and leave some residual mice and pumpkins around. But if you don’t mind me in rags, it’s all good.

  My first response about what I’d like to do with your rags could get me in trouble, he texted back, so I’ll just say that I find you beautiful in whatever you wear.

  He was upping the level of flirtation. Her stomach felt unsettled by the escalation, so she gave Geode his promised treat and packed up the rest of her dinner.

  Her phone pinged again, and she debated whether to read it or not. She wasn’t sure she could handle another exchange with Pete right now. But she looked anyway and found Diego’s name on her screen.

  Khonsu vomited. Not looking so good. Can you come?

  “Oh, dear,” she muttered as she texted him back: Two more appointments and then I’ll be there.

  When Jessica walked through the front door of the Carver Center, Emily was leaning against the reception desk, wearing her usual tailored skirt and blazer and talking with the night guard. A look of relief crossed the director’s face when she saw the vet.

  “Diego is downstairs with Khonsu,” Emily said as she pushed off the desk. “We cleaned out a storage room and moved both dogs in there. I’ll show you where it is.” She led the way to the stairs, her low-heeled pumps clicking on the gray linoleum. “It would be devastating for Isaiah if something happened to his dog. But you already understand that.”

  Jessica nodded. “Khonsu isn’t a puppy or elderly, so giardiasis shouldn’t be fatal for him.”

  “You’ve saved more than one of our dogs,” Emily said. “I trust you to pull Khonsu through.”

  But Jessica had lost plenty of patients over the years. Every single one of them broke her heart a little, but the dogs at the center were especially precious because the kids loved them without reservation.

  At the foot of the stairs, Emily bypassed the kennel area, turning into a narrow hallway with several doors leading off it and pushing open the second one. “There’s not a lot of room in there, so I’ll leave you to it.” She wrinkled her nose as the stench wafted out into the corridor. “Not to mention that you need a gas mask to survive in there.”

  Jessica laughed as she walked into what was really a large closet.

  “Doc, it’s so good to see you.” Diego knelt by Khonsu’s crate, his brown eyes clouded with worry. “He wouldn’t take his metro, and then he vomited. He seems really weak.”

  Jessica put on sterile gloves before opening the door of the crate to find the dog curled in the corner on a towel. His oversized ears were folded back against his head, and he did nothing more than lift and drop his tail twice when Jessica reached in to pet him. “Hey, boy, I can tell you’re not feeling so great.”

  She pulled the towel forward to bring the dog closer to her and pinched up his skin at his shoulders, frowning when it didn’t settle back in place immediately. “He’s very dehydrated. Let’s give him an IV of sodium chloride fluid. You want to prep the cephalic vein the way I showed you at the clinic?”

  Diego’s face lit up. “Sure thing, Doc.”

  Jessica pulled a tray out of her duffel bag and supervised while Diego laid out the equipment necessary to shave and sterilize Khonsu’s leg. The boy worked with careful but sure movements before shifting around to hold the dog and occlude the vein for Jessica to do her part. Once she had the catheter in the vein and firmly taped in place, she let Diego hook up the IV of electrolytes. Khonsu lay listlessly through it all.

  “I wish he was being cooperative because he trusts us,” Jessica said, “but I’m afraid it’s because he’s weak.”

  “Yeah, he took a turn for the worse all of a sudden.” Diego stroked the dog’s head with a look of concern.

  “I’m going to give him an injection of Cerenia to prevent any more vomiting,” Jessica said. “Will you keep him still for me?”

  Diego immediately moved into the proper position for immobilizing the dog. “Tiana’s been giving me lessons about how to hold an animal,” he said. “Sometimes it’s not so easy.”

  “Tell me about it,” Jessica said, remembering their struggle with the big shepherd mix.

  Khonsu didn’t react at all when Jessica gave him the injection. She muttered a mild curse under her breath before she could stop herself, but Diego just nodded. “He’s in rough shape. How come it’s hitting him so hard?”

  “He must have some sort of immunodeficiency.” She glanced at her watch. “You should go home. You have school tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to leave him alone,” the boy said.

  “He won’t be, because I’m staying here.” Diego still looked torn, so Jessica gave his shoulder a little push. “Go! Tomorrow is my day off, which means I can sleep late.”

  The boy got to his feet with slow, reluctant movements.

  “One more question,” Jessica said. “Are any of the other dogs showing symptoms?”

  His expression lightened. “Not a one, Doc.”

  “That’s because you caught it right away and isolated these two.” Although some of the dogs might actually have the giardia parasite without any outward indications. But Diego didn’t need to know that right now. “You should be very proud.”

  The boy ducked his head, but she saw the pleasure on his face. “Thanks, Doc. I’ll tell Ms. Emily you’re staying.”

  “Don’t forget to wash your hands!” Jessica dumped her own gloves before she pulled out her phone to call Aidan. “Damn it,” she said, when the phone showed no signal and no Wi-Fi. The thick cement walls of the basement closet must be blocking reception.

  She walked out to the staircase and got a weak signal, so she texted her brother about her plan to spend the night at the Carver Center. His response was: You’re such a sucker, sis. I mean, such a good person.

  She snorted, but his brotherly snark cheered her up.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs, and Emily rounded the corner. “Khonsu must be bad if you’re staying the night,” she said, her kind face tight with worry.

  “He’s severely dehydrated. For some reason, the giardiasis has hit him harder than normal. But he’s on an IV now, so he shoul
d perk up.” She hoped.

  “I assume you don’t have to be with him every minute, so I’ve made up the cot in the nurse’s office for you to sleep on.” Emily gestured an apology. “It’s on the third floor, which means you’ll have a lot of steps to climb.”

  The mention of a bed sent a wave of fatigue through Jessica. “I’d climb Mount Everest for clean sheets right now.”

  “I know the feeling,” Emily said. “I’m heading home, but you have my number if you need anything. James, the night guard, is here. He loves the dogs, so he’ll be happy to help.”

  “Does he clean up diarrhea?” Jessica asked with a grimace.

  Emily laughed and waved good night as she started back up the stairs.

  Visions of resting on a soft pillow danced in Jessica’s brain while she checked on Khonsu again. He still wouldn’t lift his head, but when she pinched up the skin on his neck, it settled back into place a little more quickly. “You’re getting hydrated, buddy,” she said, stroking his head. “Now you need to find some energy. Guess you don’t want to go out, huh?”

  Shaq stood up and wagged his tail at the word “out,” so she swapped gloves and gave him some love. Then she trudged up three long flights of stairs.

  The flights seemed to get longer each of the five times she traveled up and down them during the night to check on the dogs and clean up both poop and vomit. However, at six the next morning, Jessica was rewarded when she found Khonsu sitting up on his towel.

  Sure enough, his gums were pink and moist, and his skin snapped right back on his neck. She blew out a sigh of relief and removed the catheter. She wouldn’t have to tell Isaiah that his K-9 Angel hadn’t made it through the night.

  She sat back on her heels and considered climbing the stairs to sleep until the staff came in. But the third floor seemed so far away, and in the corner, there was a big, soft dog bed that Diego must have been using to sit on. God knew she’d slept on dog beds before. She zipped up the hooded sweatshirt she’d commandeered from the nurse’s office and curled up on the bed, falling asleep as soon as her eyelids closed.

  “Dr. Quillen is sound asleep downstairs in the quarantine room,” Emily Varela said after welcoming Hugh to the Carver Center. He liked the fact that she treated him with warm courtesy but no awe.

  “The quarantine room?”

  She smiled. “It’s a large storage closet that we put a couple of dog crates in to keep the sick ones from infecting the rest of the K-9 Angelz. Those are our rescue dogs.”

  “She’s sleeping in a closet?” Painful flashbacks from his childhood rose up and clawed at his throat.

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds.” Emily turned toward the stairs. “I’ll be happy to show you.”

  “I don’t want to take up any more of your time. Please just point me in the right direction, and I’ll find her.” He wanted to talk with Jess privately, because he wasn’t sure how the conversation would go.

  Emily hesitated a moment before she said, “At the bottom of the stairs, turn left and go into the hallway. The closet is the second door down.”

  Playing a character who fought for the good guys had its perks. People tended to trust him without knowing why.

  He jogged down the stairs. When the shooting schedule had changed unexpectedly, it had left him with the whole day free. All he could think about doing with that time was seeing Jessica again, so he’d taken a chance and arranged for a helicopter to New York from Boston. Of course, he hadn’t told Jess that the shoot had moved to Boston or that he was flying down early to see her. If he was already here, she couldn’t tell him not to come.

  However, it had taken him most of the helicopter flight to track down her whereabouts. Fortunately, Aidan had proved helpful, but her brother had warned Hugh that Jess might refuse to leave the sick dogs.

  Which was why Hugh preferred not to have Emily as a witness to their discussion.

  A chorus of barking greeted him when he reached the foot of the staircase. Various-sized crates stood in a neat line down one side of a spare but immaculate room. These must be the K-9 Angelz Emily had referred to. He understood why an infectious dog would need to be separated from the pack.

  The narrow hallway led into the bowels of the building, although it also was clean and well maintained. When he came to the second door down, he put his hand on the knob and lowered his head to listen. No sound emanated through the metal, so he cracked the door open.

  The odor that wafted out made him jerk back a step and blow out a huff of disgust. If Jessica was in there, he couldn’t imagine how she was breathing. Bracing himself, he pushed the door farther ajar.

  First he saw two crates with the sick dogs lying in them. Neither barked, he assumed because they didn’t feel well. Leaning farther in, he found Jessica, curled up in the corner on a faded brown dog bed, an overlarge gray hoodie zipped up over her hot-pink scrubs, her hair in a crazy tangle, and her hands tucked under her cheek.

  The small, close space, her tightly curled body, the ill-fitting hoodie, all yanked him back to when he was eight years old. His new foster mother had taken him upstairs to show him his bedroom and opened the door to what had once been a walk-in closet but now held a cot and a plastic set of drawers. The hanging bars had been left in place, but they were too high for Hugh to reach back then. He had nothing that required hanging up, anyway.

  His foster mother had told him he would be sleeping in there because he was small and didn’t need any more room than that. His meager clothing and few possessions, including his mother’s photo, had gone in and on the chest of drawers. Of course, when the social worker visited, his things got moved into the youngest son’s room, but the kid didn’t want Hugh sharing his space, so he went back to the closet as soon as the social worker left.

  It wasn’t the worst place he’d ever slept, but his child’s soul had been shredded by this clear indication of how unimportant he was to his new family.

  All those wounds gaped wide, pouring out the agony of being unwanted. He strode into the storage room with one goal—to get Jess out of there.

  He shook her shoulder gently. “Jess, wake up. We need to go.”

  Her eyelids fluttered open halfway, an expression of bewilderment on her face. “Hugh? No, it can’t be.” She closed her eyes and snuggled her cheek back against her palm.

  Without further thought, he went down on his knee, snaking one arm under her shoulders and the other under her legs, and brought her up against his chest before he rose again. Thank God for all the muscle-building workouts his personal trainer put him through in order to be convincing as a secret agent.

  Jessica woke up enough to grab his shoulder as he exited the stinking storage room and kicked the door shut behind him. “Hugh? What on earth? It can’t be six o’clock already!”

  “I got the day off, so I came early,” he said, walking down the hallway. The fist that had clenched around his heart eased more and more the farther away he got from the closet. He filled his lungs with clean air.

  “You can’t just scoop me up and whisk me away to wherever you think you’re going. I have sick dogs to tend.” She began to squirm, so he had to tighten his grip to keep her from falling.

  “Emily said you texted someone named Diego that the dogs had pulled through fine.” He kept walking. “I promise to find another vet to come check on them.”

  “Do you think some busy vet will just drop everything to make a house call to the Carver Center?” She sounded both annoyed and incredulous.

  “Yes, I do. My assistant can find someone to do virtually anything. You can speak with the vet yourself when he locates one.”

  “Your assistant. Of course.” She subsided for a moment, and he thought she actually nuzzled her nose against his neck and inhaled. Not that he blamed her after she’d spent the night in that horrific stench.

  He reached the bottom of the staircase and put his foot on the first step.

  “No,” she said, struggling in earnest. “I’m a full-grown woman.
You cannot carry me up a flight of stairs.”

  “If you knew how many weight machines I have been tortured by, you would be reassured that I can, in fact, carry you up the stairs.” Now that he had her warm, curvy body against him, he was reluctant to release it, even though she smelled a bit like the closet. Her silky rat’s nest of hair brushed against his cheek, and he enjoyed the feel of her arms wrapped around his neck.

  “There might be people up there,” she said. “Please don’t embarrass me in front of my clients.”

  That was a plea he could not ignore. As he set her down on the floor, she staggered slightly, so he had an excuse to pull her into him again, the press of her breasts on his chest sending a streak of desire down his center. “Jess, you’re exhausted.”

  “I just need a shower and a couple of hours of sleep,” she said, her palms flat against his shoulders as she pushed away.

  “I have an entire hotel suite waiting for you,” he said. He’d planned to fly her to Gavin’s mansion on the beach in Southampton but had scrapped the idea when he found out how she’d spent the night. So he’d reserved the penthouse at his favorite Manhattan hotel. Although he was staying at Gavin’s house in the city while filming, he wanted total privacy for Jess to rest in. “Without any ulterior motives except to wrap you in the luxury of rest and give you the pampering you deserve.” That was true at the time. Now that he’d touched her, his motives had become murkier.

  She shook her head. “I have plans for today.”

  A shock of disappointment ran through him. “Plans that can’t be postponed?”

  She rubbed her hands over her face in a gesture of fatigue. “I don’t know.”

  “Jess, let me take care of you for one day.” He cupped his hands over her shoulders in an effort to communicate his earnest wish. “I’d like to do this. For old times’ sake.”

  An odd expression crossed her face, one he couldn’t read. “Why?”

  “For starters, you were sleeping on a dog bed in a room that reeked of shit. Clearly, you need rescuing.” And he needed to save himself from his memories.