Harlequin Heartwarming March 21 Box Set

by Claire McEwen

  “Of course. Doctor Dolittle talked to animals. And Rex sure can get chatty sometimes.” On cue Rex lay down and let out a contented yowl. “See?”

  “He’s a gorgeous dog.” Rex rolled onto his back and Emily leaned down to rub his belly.

  “I’m glad you think so, because I have a question. Any chance he can come to work with us for the rest of the day? He’s used to being in a clinic. He’ll just lie down in a corner and keep an eye on things.”

  Emily’s brows rose. “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  She gave Rex’s belly another rub. “You’re going to be nothing but trouble, aren’t you, big dog? Just like your owner.”

  “We might be trouble, but we keep things interesting.”

  “Is that what you call it?” Her glance was a hundred percent skeptical. “He can be on trial, just like you. But neither of you should get your hopes up that this will become a permanent thing.”

  Wes couldn’t help it. His hopes were already up. Today was fun. They worked well together and they could talk stuff out. Even when she’d gotten mad at him about how he’d handled Fred Corrigan, they’d managed to joke about it. Wes glanced at the remains of his sandwich, sitting on the wrapper on the picnic table. He looked up at the redwood trees arching green and brown so high into the sky. His hopes were up all right. He’d be pretty disappointed if things didn’t work out for him to stay in Shelter Creek.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “SO LET ME get this straight.” Vivian grinned at Emily over her margarita, or, as the older ladies in The Book Biddies Book Club liked to call it, a cougarita. “After I saw you the other morning at the coffee shop, you thought you saw a guy who used to live with your family, except he disappeared one night, never to be heard from again.”

  “Correct.” Emily was sitting on Maya’s grandmother’s living room carpet, leaning against the couch to support her aching back. It had been a long day.

  It was Wednesday night, book club night, and she was enjoying a quick chat with the younger generation of Book Biddies, who also happened to be her friends and her colleagues at the Shelter Creek Wildlife Center. Maya ran the center, Vivian was the program director there, and Trisha was in charge of wildlife rehabilitation. Emily provided veterinary services and helped out however she could.

  “So…” Vivian went on. “You hid behind your car and crawled along the sidewalk so you could check him out without him seeing you?”

  “Yes.” Emily grinned at the memory. “It was so ridiculous.”

  “And then what happened?” Maya scooted down onto the carpet from the couch to be closer to the conversation. “It was Wes, right? I heard a rumor he’d come back to town.”

  “I followed the guy to the feedstore, and yes, it was him. We talked for a couple minutes and he told me he was back in town, hopefully to stay. And that he’d become a veterinarian. That’s when I just about had a nervous breakdown and I left.” Emily reached for her plate of sweets. Thank goodness it was dessert night at book club. She had some serious emotional eating to do.

  “Is he the guy you mentioned on the phone?” Annie Brooks was sitting in an armchair near the fireplace and must have overheard their conversation. “The one who was working with you at Fred Corrigan’s when we spoke on Monday?”

  “Yes, that was him.” Emily chased a bite of Trisha’s lemon cake with a sip of her ice water. No alcohol for her, in case she got an emergency call.

  Maya regarded her thoughtfully while swallowing a bite of her chocolate chip cookie. “I thought you hated Wes Marlow.”

  “I don’t hate him. I was angry and hurt for a long time. And of course I worried about him, too. But that was all so long ago.” Emily tried to find words to explain, then gave up. “I’m not really sure what I feel about him anymore.”

  “You were so close in high school,” Maya said. “When I think of you during those years, I picture Wes right there with you.”

  “We thought we were in love. We had all these plans to go to college together, and vet school together. Then we’d both work for my dad. I was so young and naive I totally believed it all.”

  “That must have hurt like the dickens when he left,” Annie said.

  Her old-fashioned language got Emily smiling. “Yes, it hurt like the dickens, for sure.”

  “I always suspected you had a broken heart in there somewhere,” Maya said.

  “What do you mean?” Emily looked at her friend. “You couldn’t have known in high school, right? We kept it a secret.”

  “You told everyone you were just friends.” Maya winked at her. “But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t all see how crazy you were about each other.”

  “What?” Trisha gaped down at Emily from her seat on the couch. “I had no idea you had such a romantic past.”

  “Well, it’s not romantic anymore.” Emily swirled the ice in her glass. “I’m just trying to figure out if I want to work with him.”

  “You definitely need someone to work with you,” Maya said. “Though I’m biased, since if you get some help at your clinic, we can see you at the wildlife center more often.”

  “He seems like he’s a good veterinarian,” Emily said. “Plus, the truth is, if we don’t work together, he’ll probably set up his own practice and we’ll end up competing against each other. That won’t be fun. Especially because I’m sure a lot of ranchers would flock to him since he’s a man.”

  “Flock. Ha,” Annie said with her usual bone-dry humor. When her joke was met with silence, she sighed. “Flock? Flock of sheep? Ranchers? Oh, never mind.”

  “I get it, Annie,” Trisha assured her. “Emily, I hate to agree with you, but I think you’re right. You might lose some clients if he opens his own practice.”

  “Aha. So this is a case of keeping your enemies close,” Vivian said.

  “Except he’s not my enemy.” Emily shrugged. “The truth is, he’s great with animals, especially horses. He’s smart and funny and really seems to want us to get along and work together.”

  “He sounds like your perfect partner.” Maya’s grandmother, Lillian, their book club host for the evening, had been listening quietly from her seat near Annie. “Maybe it’s best to let go of whatever happened in the past and work with him. You’ve been running yourself ragged these past couple years. Wouldn’t it be great to share the practice with someone you trust?”

  “But how can I trust him when he just walked away from my family without a word?” Emily set her glass on an end table close by. “I’m so confused.”

  “He made that choice a long time ago,” Lillian said. “People change. You can’t let old wounds hold you back, especially if you stand to gain from this situation.”

  “Think about it,” Maya said. “You could have some free time to do whatever you want. More time to work with wildlife, or to hang out with us, or to take those cute animal portraits you’re so good at… It could be great!”

  “I know what the problem is.” Monique, another book club member, had come closer to listen. She was leaning on the doorframe that separated the living room from the hallway. She was a hairdresser, and her locks were strawberry blond this week, curling elegantly around her shoulders. “The problem is that he’s really handsome. A total hunk.”

  “How do you know that?” Vivian waved her hand as if to erase the question. “Never mind. You always know everything that goes on in this town.”

  “One of the perks of owning a salon,” Monique said. “Plus, he’s been jogging past my shop in the evenings with that pretty dog of his. I have to admit, I’ve been enjoying his flybys, so I asked around to find out who he was. Turns out I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed the handsome new man in town. There are a few young ladies who have their eye on him.” She smiled her Cheshire cat smile. “And a few older ones, too.”

  Jealousy oozed through Emily’s veins and made
her resent Wes all over again. She didn’t want to be jealous. She didn’t want to be anything but neutral when it came to him. She shoved the jealousy back into whatever dark corner of her brain it came from. “He can have them all. I just need a coworker I can count on to take over a bunch of my cases. I have no idea how my dad survived as the only vet around here all those years.”

  “A lot fewer people lived in Shelter Creek back then,” Annie reminded her. “And there are a bunch of new ranches also. Vivian and Jace live on land that was abandoned for decades. Trisha and Liam’s new place was just a hobby farm before they took it over. And now Jade’s boyfriend, the one who was in the fire, has moved his sheep over to that ranch south of town. No wonder you’re so busy, Emily.”

  “Speaking of ranchers, how did it go with Fred Corrigan?” Emily was ready to get the spotlight off herself and her dilemma with Wes.

  “What happened to Fred?” Lillian asked. She and Annie were roughly the same age and had known, or tolerated, Fred for decades.

  “Emily went out to vaccinate his heifers and found his ranch in total chaos,” Annie said. “She called me and I went out there with some other folks to clean up and see what the problem was.” She sighed. “The truth is, I think Fred needs to retire. His health isn’t that great and his heart isn’t really in his work anymore. I called his daughter, the one who has a goat dairy? I told her she better get up to see him and figure out what to do. In the meantime, I’ve got a few of my hands over there, working for him.”

  “How did you convince them to work for Fred?” Emily knew that no sane ranch hand would want to go from working with kind, competent Annie and her sweet husband, Juan, to dealing with grumpy Fred.

  Annie leaned forward conspiratorially. “Do not tell a soul. Fred is paying them, but I’m still paying them, too.”

  Emily gasped. “That’s so generous. Can you afford to do that?”

  Annie shrugged. “When I married Juan we merged our ranches and our assets. We have more than enough. And Fred…well, what does he have? His wife has passed, his bad attitude scares everyone away… I can’t bear to see his animals suffer as a result. But it’s only temporary. Hopefully, his daughter will come to her senses and move her goats up to his property. Then she can combine her business with his and they’ll be all set.”

  “Ladies, are we ever going to talk about the book?” Emily looked up to see another book club member, Kathy, standing behind Lillian. She’d been in the kitchen chatting with Eva and Priscilla, the other Book Biddies, who now filed into the living room, cougaritas in hand.

  “Yes, we need to do that,” Lillian said. “Otherwise we really might just have to officially change our name to The Booze Biddies. Now, did anyone read it?”

  They talked about the novel for a while, and then, as the discussion wound down, and most of the women had gone to the kitchen to put their glasses in the sink, Maya leaned over to Emily. “Do you want to go to Dex’s after this? Caleb is there playing pool with some of the guys.”

  “Yes, please come,” Vivian added. “Trisha can’t. She has to get home to take over watching Henry so Liam can go out with the boys. But we’d love to have you with us. Jade is going to meet us there with Aidan. It will be fun to catch up with her.” Jade Carson was a local firefighter who’d been caught in a wildfire out on Aidan Bell’s remote ranch. Now Aidan lived near Shelter Creek and the two of them were dating.

  “I don’t know,” Emily said. “I have a lot of work tomorrow.”

  “But you need to get out.” Maya put her hands together in a prayer-like gesture. “You need to blow off some steam and have some fun. Plus, it will take both of us to beat Vivian at pool. She’s a shark.”

  Emily looked at her friend in surprise. “You are?”

  Vivian grinned. “I’m full of deep secrets like that. Now, come on. We’ll make you forget about Wes for a few hours. You need a break from your troubles.”

  It would be nice to go out, Emily realized. She almost never did. Sleep was precious when it was so often disturbed by an animal emergency. And playing pool might distract her from thinking about Wes. Though probably not. It was already Wednesday. On Friday she had to tell him if she was willing to extend his trial period for another month. Did she want to work with him for four more weeks? If she decided not to, could she keep going on her own without hitting a wall of exhaustion? There were still no responses to her job postings. Her mind was spinning from too many questions with no good answers.

  “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go play some pool.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  WES PUSHED HIS way out of the bar and hit the icon on his phone. “Jamie, is that you? How’s it going in London?”

  “Hey, bro. It’s going pretty good. Did you make it out to that little town?”

  “I made it.” The last time they spoke, Wes had been at a park outside Phoenix, letting Rex stretch his legs.

  “And how’s the girl of your dreams?”

  Wes jogged a few paces away from the entrance to the bar. The big gravel parking lot gave him some privacy as long as his cell signal held out. There was an oak tree off to one side of the lot and he headed toward it. “The girl, Emily, is all grown up and she’s a veterinarian, too. She’s letting me work with her on a trial basis.”

  His brother whistled low. “Sounds like your strange, small-town fantasy might be coming true.”

  Wes took the bait. “It’s not strange to want to live in a pretty little town near the California coast. It sure has better weather than Texas.”

  “What are you doing right now?”

  “I’m at a local bar with a few guys I knew in high school. We’re playing some pool, having a couple beers.” It was great to reconnect with Adam. The poor guy was going through a rough time, trying to figure out how to raise his two kids on his own. It was hard to believe he was a single dad. Adam had dated his ex-wife, Tanya, since high school and now, all these years later, their relationship had fallen apart. It made Wes wonder. If he’d stayed, and he and Emily had remained a couple, would they have lasted?

  Then it hit him. If it was nine o’clock at night here, that meant it was five in the morning in London. “You’re up early, bro. Is everything okay?”

  Jamie was quiet for a beat too long. “Yeah, everything’s fine. Just getting used to it, you know? Maybe I’m not quite on London time yet. I couldn’t sleep.”

  Worry coiled in Wes’s stomach. “How’s the job? Have you gotten to know any of your coworkers yet? Maybe you could invite some of them out for a beer this weekend.”

  Jamie’s laugh traveled the miles between them. “You never stop worrying about me, do you? The job is fine. My coworkers seem nice, and we hit the pub last night after work, so I’m ahead on the social game. I’m eating my vegetables, too, if that makes you feel any better.”

  Wes grinned. “It does, actually. I’m glad things are going okay.” A couple of cars pulled into the lot and he heard women’s voices chatting and car doors slamming. He watched from the shadows of his oak tree while they crossed the lot. One of the women was tall, with long wavy hair. Was that Emily?

  He wished his stomach didn’t do that flip. It wouldn’t serve him well. He needed to maintain a professional relationship with her. He had to ignore the feelings he’d carried around for all these years and convince her that they could work together. If anything was meant to happen with her again, it would only happen once she trusted him and knew she could rely on him. After she respected the man and the veterinarian he’d become.

  “You still there?”

  He must have spaced out on Jamie. “Sorry, I got distracted for a minute.”

  “I should let you go back to your evening,” his brother said. “I may as well get out for a run since I’m awake so early.”

  “But we’ll talk soon.” There was something in his brother’s voice, a tired note, which had Wes a little worried. It
was probably nothing. Maybe Jamie was just homesick. That was understandable considering he’d recently moved to a different country.

  “Yeah. But tell me one thing before you go. Do you fit right into your small cow town? Does everyone wander around like you, wearing hats and boots and all that stuff?”

  Wes laughed, picturing Jace and Caleb inside, playing pool, and wearing exactly that. “Some folks do, yeah.”

  “You really are out in the Wild West,” Jamie said. Despite summers they’d spent living and working on dude ranches, Jamie had never bought into the Texas cowboy aesthetic.

  “And I think you’re already getting a British accent. Do I say cheerio before I hang up?”

  “Please don’t,” Jamie pleaded. “I’ll call you next week.”

  “Call anytime,” Wes told him, wishing he could see his brother’s face right now. Maybe it never went away, that feeling of needing to protect him.

  Jamie hung up and Wes put his phone back in his pocket. Walking toward the bar, he glanced up at the sky, clear and crisp after rain this morning. There were so many stars without the lights of a big city to dim them. Wes pulled in a deep breath and sent a prayer up to those stars to watch over his brother.

  Walking back into Dex’s, the noise hit him instantly. The place was big, a lot more like a pool hall than a bar, and it had filled up with more people since he’d arrived an hour ago. Heading toward the pool tables in the back, he scanned the room for the tall woman he’d seen in the parking lot. He’d guessed right; it was Emily. She was sitting at the table with Jace and Adam, laughing at something Jace said. A dark-haired woman was sitting next to Jace, tucked up under his arm. That must be his wife, Vivian. Jace had told him earlier in the evening how he’d met her. Vivian had been studying the elk that had overrun Jace’s ranch, and then had discovered an endangered salamander. She hadn’t been Jace’s favorite person in the beginning, that was for sure.

  If they went from that rough start to the laughter Wes saw in their eyes when they smiled at each other, maybe there was a scrap of hope for him and Emily, too. Looking at her from across the room, he sure wanted there to be hope. Her long hair gleamed like tarnished gold in the light of the lamp that hung over the table. She was wearing a pretty lace top and fitted jeans tucked into brown cowboy boots. Her smile was wide and genuine and lit up some part of his heart he’d forgotten about over the years. Now he remembered. This was how it had felt when he fell for her the first time. Like there was no one in the room he wanted to see, no one else he could focus on but her.