by Dixie Cash
She had to laugh at the thought of an invitation to have a drink after work. Back home that would have meant one of the hot spots. Trendy upscale bars or restaurants filled with career-climbing, well-dressed professionals. And here? Well, here it meant a cup of coffee at Kay’s Koffee Kup or a soda at Hogg’s.
She should call Sunny and tell her. Her buddy, who spent most of her time in various expensive watering holes around the world, would find social life in Salt Lick hilarious. Paige, on the other hand, had begun to think Salt Lick quaint and somehow soothing.
In the vet clinic parking lot, she killed the engine and took a moment to inspect her face. She swiped her lips with J. Lo’s Cherries in the Snow lip gloss and gave her golden mane a tousle. She decided to forgo perfume, doubting that any fragrance could overpower the horse smell on her, and who knew, maybe that was perfume to a veterinarian. She needed to take advantage of every opportunity to impress Spur. What had Debbie Sue said? Oh, yeah, “leave him something to think about.” So far, most of what he had to think about would make anyone cringe. Today Paige intended to change that.
No receptionist greeted her when she entered the office, even though the HELP WANTED sign was gone. She could hear muffled voices behind the door just to the left of the desk. Should she wait or make her presence known? She didn’t see the harm in opening the door and getting someone’s attention. There were no acts of privacy with animal care, were there? And, after all, she was a customer. She had come here to make purchases.
Fixing her smile, Paige opened the door. And froze. A tag-team wrestling match with a big dog was taking place on the examination table. All four participants looked up, and to Paige’s astonishment, she was face-to-face with the mysterious brunette.
Without warning the big dog kicked his hind legs free from the brunette’s grip, vaulted from the table, and headed for Paige.
A short guy she had never seen yelled in a falsetto voice, “Oh, stop him…. Oh, my God! Please stop him!”
Instinctively Paige made a grab for the dog’s body as he darted past her. His slick coat slid through her hands as if he were greased and she was left holding on to his long tail. She hung on for dear life. The animal jerked her to her knees with unbelievable strength. Overpowering her efforts to get back on her feet, he pulled her toward the front door. Still she hung on. Over her shoulder Paige could hear the commotion of others coming to her aid and outcries in the falsetto voice. “Hold on! Oh, please hold on! Don’t let him go!”
Ahead, Paige saw the glass door closed and felt relief. Then to her horror, the dog pushed his muzzle against the door, creating a narrow opening and wedged his lean, muscular body into it. He squirmed through, dragging Paige with him to the great outdoors and freedom.
Paige tightened her grip on the snakelike tail and wrestled the dog to the ground, maneuvering until she could wrap her legs around its body. She rolled on the gravel parking lot with her arms encircling his head. He scratched and clawed. Dog yelps pierced the air. All she could think of was hanging on.
Through the chaos, she could see a man’s feet dancing on tiptoes. “Oh, my goodness,” the falsetto voice cried. “Oh, my goodness!”
Paige heard Spur’s order. “Get his leash!”
The next thing she knew, Spur was on the ground beside her. He replaced her legs with his own and took the dog’s head under his arm. Paige crawled away and rested on her hands and knees as the brunette woman appeared with a harness and slipped it over the dog’s head. “I’ve got him! Let go! I’ve got him!”
As if he realized the fight was over, the dog gave up. He trotted over to the effeminate guy, tail wagging, his teeth fully exposed in a grin that stretched his mouth comically.
“Oh, my baby. My poor baby.” The man wrapped his arms around the dog’s neck and covered the canine face with kisses. “I’m so sorry. Oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”
Paige managed to creak into a sitting position and examined herself. Her insides were quaking. Blood showed on her torn jeans at both knees, and her knees were on fire. She couldn’t see her elbows, but they were on fire, too. Dog slobbers covered her. She fought not to break into tears.
The brunette and the dog owner walked back into the clinic, leading the dog. Spur came over, bent down, and slid his arm around her waist. “Damn. You okay?”
Paige stared after the brunette. So that’s who she was—Spur’s new receptionist. Typical. She had probably applied for the job, hoping to snare the new doctor in town, the new, good-looking and eligible doctor in town. Edwina and Debbie Sue didn’t know her identity, so she had to have driven a long way to get this job. What some women won’t do for a man’s attention.
Pitiful.
Well, if he liked that type—overly made up, a little on the plump side, tacky shoes, then more power to him.
“Paige? Paige, I said are you okay? Let me help you up.”
Coming out of her dazed state, she realized Spur was talking. She wanted to slap his hand away and tell him his brunette bimbo needed his help more than she did, but she gave in and accepted his assistance. He lifted her to her feet as if she weighed nothing. When she stood upright, the pain in her knees worsened. “Ouch!”
She bent over to reexamine the damage but felt light-headed. The ground seemed to be rising to meet her.
Spur grabbed her arm and steadied her. “Whoa there. Let me look at you. You’ve got a nasty bump on your forehead. You must have hit the glass door pretty hard. Looks like your knees and elbows are pretty banged up, too. Let’s go inside. Let me take a look.”
The last thing she wanted was first aid from an incompetent gold digger like his receptionist. She had every intention of refusing help, but Spur’s strong arm around her waist guided her back into the clinic. “It isn’t necessary. I’ll just go home and clean up and put on a Band-Aid.”
“I bet you don’t even have Band-Aids at your house.”
“So, what? Is that supposed to say something about my character?”
The effeminate man led his dog toward them. The dog actually grinned and behaved as if he hadn’t just caused a train wreck. “Dr. Atwater, if it’s all the same to you, I’m just going to take my Sammy home. I can’t take much more today. I need to lie down and put a cool cloth on my head. When I think how close I came to losing him—” The dog owner blinked back tears as he turned to Paige. “Thank you so much for helping. You were magnificent.”
“You’re, uh, welcome, I guess,” Paige mumbled.
After the owner and his beast left, Spur escorted Paige to the exam area behind the receptionist’s office. “Hop up here and let me take a look at those knees. Mind if I rip these jeans a little farther?”
“There’s no need to do that, Spur,” the receptionist said. Her sudden appearance in the room set Paige on edge.
“Ma’am,” the brunette said, “why don’t you go into the bathroom and take them off. I’ve got a lab coat you can wrap around yourself.” She held out a blue coat.
“That isn’t necessary. I’ll just go—”
“That’s a great idea.” Spur pushed her toward the bathroom door. “Go on, now. Change.”
Paige limped into the bathroom with the coat slung over her arm. Grimacing and hanging onto the sink, she removed the jeans. Her knees resembled hamburger. Two thin trails of blood ran down her shins. Spur had been right. She did need medical attention. Wrapping the coat around the lower half of her body she returned to the exam area.
Spur took a step toward her. “Do you need help getting on the table?”
“I can do it just fine,” she lied, still shaking inside. His hands came to her waist, and he lifted her onto the table.
He spoke to the brunette. “Why don’t you stay with us. I might need your help.”
Well, this was an interesting conclusion to the day, which had started with a sloppy seduction attempt by a lecher. Now, here she sat in her panties, covered only by a coat, with Spur and his girlfriend. Never a dull moment.
Spur examined the bump
on her head, then began cleaning her fiery wounds with a cooling substance that had a numbing effect. The brunette’s gaze remained glued to what he was doing. He stopped and looked up. “Sorry. You two haven’t met. Paige, this is my sister Electra. ’Lectra, this is Paige McBride.”
Stunned, Paige stared at the brunette. Looking closer, she saw a family resemblance.
“It’s nice to meet you, Paige,” Spur’s sister said.
“Electra,” Paige gushed, “it’s so nice to meet you, too.” She is so cute. She looks just like Spur. “It’s so nice that Spur has you working with him. I love your shoes.”
“That hurt?” Spur asked, gently dabbing at her wounds.
“No,” she lied again. In truth, she wondered if she would be able to walk tomorrow. “It stings is all.”
“What came over you, grabbing that dog like that?”
“I don’t know. The guy was yelling for someone to stop him. I was so determined to hold on I didn’t realize what was happening.”
Spur continued to work as he talked. “You shouldn’t try to restrain an unfamiliar dog. He could have attacked you.”
“I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t let him just run past me. I could see him getting run over or lost.”
He looked into her eyes with such warmth and tenderness she almost sighed. “You’re pretty special to have done that, Paige.”
He went to a white cupboard and came back with a tube of something and a pile of gauze pads and rolls of gauze. “This is an antibiotic ointment,” he said as he squeezed strips from the tube onto a thick gauze pad. He gently placed the pad on her knee, and she winced. Holding the pad in place, he wrapped gauze around it and her knee and secured the bandage with tape. Then he moved to the other knee.
When he finished with her knees, he examined her elbows and gave them similar treatment. At the end, she couldn’t comfortably bend her arms or legs. Though he may have gone slightly overboard on the first aid, no way would she have denied herself the pleasure of his undivided attention. “Gosh, I look like a mummy,” she said.
Their eyes caught, and his gaze lingered. Finally, he looked away and declared, “There shouldn’t be much scarring. The abrasions aren’t that deep.” He reached into a cupboard and retrieved another tube and more gauze bandages. “Remove this dressing tomorrow and put on some of this antibiotic ointment. Also clean bandages. I don’t want you working in the barns without those wounds being protected.”
“Oh. I didn’t even think of that.”
“I’m giving you extra bandages to take home.”
“Okay, thanks. Does it feel funny to be talking to your patient? Giving them instructions on what to do?” Paige managed to smile, though her knees still felt like hot coals had been pressed to them.
Spur smiled back and she relished being taken into his space. “I always talk to my patients,” he said. “Some of them are smarter than their owners…. Do you need anything for pain? I may have a few people medications around here somewhere.”
“Uh, no. I’ve got aspirin and stuff.”
Electra left the room and came back, holding up Paige’s torn jeans and inspecting the ripped and frayed knees. “These don’t look like you’ve worn them much. Lucky for you they can be saved. It’ll just take a little time on the sewing machine.”
Paige almost said, That’s okay, I’ll throw them away, but she thought about Spur and his sibling’s upbringing and stopped herself just in time. He hadn’t described his childhood in graphic detail, but patched and repaired clothing had surely been a part of it. Paige felt chastened by her own abundance of everything. Everything material, that is.
Paige had never threaded a needle, suspected she would have better luck flying a jumbo jet than operating a sewing machine. When she had clothing that needed mending, if she didn’t trash it, she took it to her favorite dry cleaners, which had an alterations department. “Yes, I think you’re right, Electra. I’ll do that. Thanks so much.”
She lumbered across the room, stiff legged.
“Good Lord, Spur,” Electra said. “You’ve got her wrapped up like a double amputee. She can’t even walk.”
“I’m fine. Really.” In the bathroom, with some effort, Paige put on her ragged jeans, then returned to the exam room, carrying the lab coat.
“I want to thank you,” she said to Spur and his sister. “How much do I owe—”
“Nothing,” Spur said.
“If we collect from anyone,” Electra said, “we’ll send a bill to Randy.”
“But he couldn’t help it because his dog was scared. I’d rather pay—”
“No,” Spur said. “Nobody’s paying. It was just one of those things that happens.”
With Spur’s arm around her waist, Paige limped to her Escalade. No man she could think of had ever treated her so gently. She loved his arm around her. She took full advantage of the moment by leaning into him and letting him support her.
“Sure you’ll be able to get home okay?” he asked her.
She loved his showing concern for her. She had no doubt he really cared. When she had difficulty lifting her foot into the Escalade, he reached for it. “Here, let me help you.”
He all but lifted her onto the driver’s seat. He was so close, and his eyes were locked on hers. The next thing she knew, his lips, too, had found hers. Kissing him seemed like the most natural thing she had ever done, and it was all she had imagined it would be. She wanted it to go on forever.
Their lips had barely parted when Electra walked up. She planted her fists on her hips. “Spur Atwater, don’t you dare let her drive home. She can barely bend her legs.”
“Oh,” he said, a frown forming a crease between his brows. “I guess you’re right. I’m so accustomed to working with animals it’s kind of an assumption on my part that someone will be looking after my patients. Do you have somebody you can call?”
“Uh, well…” She could think of no one. Though she believed she had bonded with Debbie Sue and Edwina, the friendship was too new to impose on it. “No one, I guess. But I’ll be fine.”
“I’m driving you home.” He bent and scooped her from behind the wheel, carried her around the Escalade, and deposited her on the passenger seat. Returning to the driver’s side, he told Electra. “’Lectra. Close up for me, please. I’m driving Paige home. Pick me up there in about half an hour.” Turning his attention to Paige he said, “Tell her your address, Paige. I remember where the house is, but I don’t know the address.”
“Two-eleven Mustang Drive.”
“Got it,” Electra said. “See you in half an hour…. Or so.”
eighteen
Paige felt foolish that Spur had made such a big deal out of a few scrapes on her extremities and a bump on her forehead. The undivided attention had been great, no argument there, but she didn’t want him thinking her helpless.
She preferred he think of her as strong and resilient. The kind of woman who could have gone west by covered wagon and helped her husband clear the land while keeping her hand on the plow and carrying a baby on her hip. Or standing by his side through famine, drought, flood, or pestilence.
Pestilence? Yuck. Who was she kidding? Those poor women had a terrible life, and many were worn out or dead before they hit thirty. Okay, forget the pioneer woman. She didn’t want to be made of that kind of stuff, she just wanted to be able to endure a runaway dog dragging her across a parking lot. Some might call her a sissy, but the results had been a kiss and a chauffeured drive home by a really hot guy.
Spur pulled the Escalade into her narrow driveway and killed the engine. “Wait for me,” he ordered. “Don’t try to get out alone.”
He opened the passenger door and offered his hand to her. She attempted to scoot out, but her knees were held rigid by the bandages. Legs straight out and slightly spread, she slid from the seat to the concrete surface. “See? I’m all right.” She smiled up at him.
Spur tilted her chin upward. “I know. You’re gonna be good as new in a day or two,
but you’re not now, and I’m going to make sure you get into the house with as little discomfort as possible. No more discussion. Mind me, now. I’m the doctor.” He gave her a grin and a wink.
At this moment Paige would have done anything he said, would have ridden Sammy the dog across town on a tiny saddle if she had known it would result in this treatment. She was putty in his hands.
A reedy voice broke the fairy-tale moment. Paige looked and saw Koweba Sanders staring with an expression of alarm at her bandages. “What happened to her, young man? Oh, good gracious, Pat. Do I need to call the law?”
“No, ma’am,” Paige yelled. “This is a friend of mine.”
“She had an accident. She was drug,” Spur said.
“Accidentally drugged?” Mrs. Sanders’s expression turned stark. “Listen here, young fella, I watch 20/20. You better not’ve slipped her one of those date rape drugs. I’ve got a good mind to call up Billy Don—”
“Mrs. Sanders, listen,” Paige yelled, taking the octogenarians hands in her own. “This is my friend. He is helping me. I am fine.”
Koweba smiled and patted Paige’s face with gnarled fingers. “Pat, if you say nothing’s wrong then I’ll believe you.” As she turned to leave she shot Spur a murderous look through squinted eyes. “But I won’t forget you, young man. I got the license number of that big thing you’re driving. Anything funny happens here and I’m reporting you to the authorities.” Without further comment she hobbled back across the street.
Spur looked at Paige. “But it’s your car, your license plates. Can’t she see that?”
Paige arched her brow and shrugged. “I don’t think she can see much.”
“She doesn’t seem to be able to hear much, either.” Spur sighed. “But, I think she’s genuinely fond of you, Pat.”
Paige started laughing and momentarily forgot her injuries. Spur braced her with his powerful arm and walked her into the house.