by Erin Wright
But speaking of not cutting it, she also wasn’t anywhere near 50 years old. Hell, she probably wasn’t even 25. He tried to remember when the VanLueven girl had graduated from high school, but after a while, that sort of thing just blended together. Too many teenagers and kids and infants to keep track of.
Well, she was here. He might as well see how she did around the animals in the back. “C’mon back here,” he said with a jerk of his head, heading down the hallway to the back. “You should meet our current crop of patients.”
She followed him, her tennis shoes squeaking on the worn gray tile floor. “I heard about the job opening,” she said as they walked, “from my mom, who heard about it from the book club, Between the Covers, so honestly, I’m not sure if I even have the qualifications you’re looking for.”
They got to the back, where the dogs were barking, the cats were meowing, and there was just a general sense of chaos.
So, a typical day at Whitaker’s Vet Clinic.
“Do you love animals, and do you want to work with them?” he asked bluntly, watching her as she began to wander around the crowded room. She stuck her fingers through the wire of Pickles’ cage, and Adam bit back his warning not to stick her hands into cages with random animals. Pickles was an older dog, though, that’d just had a growth removed and was docile as a sloth. The worst he could do was slobber someone to death.
She nodded as she laughed lightly, Pickles’ pink tongue lavishing her fingers with kisses. “Yes, very much. My mom wouldn’t let me have a pet growing up; she said one human child was quite enough for her, without my dad around to help, you know? But I’ve always loved animals and they seem to like me.”
She moved down a couple of cages to Sir Grouch, who got his name for a reason. Before Adam could yell out a warning, though, Kylie had unlocked the door and was pulling out the crotchety old cat, snuggling him against her chest. “Oh, aren’t you a sweetie,” she cooed as the cat’s rusty, loud purr filled the air.
Adam was pretty sure his mouth was dragging on the ground. In all of the time he’d been taking care of Sir Grouch – and keep in mind, his owner had adopted the damn cat when he was being weaned from his mom – he’d never missed an opportunity to let loose with his claws at least once per visit, if not multiple times per visit. Adam tended to wear long-sleeve shirts even in the heat of summer exactly because of cats like Sir Grouch.
And yet…
“So you’re at college, right?” Adam asked, tearing his eyes away from the insanity in front of him. “In Oregon? Or Washington? I can’t remember.”
“I was in Bend, Oregon, attending a small community college there.” Adam could hardly hear her over the din of the dogs barking and Sir Grouch purring, but what he didn’t miss was her 100-watt smile. “I’m home for a bit; I got my generals done but I didn’t want to keep going until I figured out what I wanted to do with my life.”
He moved a little closer. So he could hear her better, of course. Nothing else. “So you’re not going to school to become a vet tech or something?”
She shook her head, her straight blonde hair swishing with the movement. Sir Grouch was now bathing her chin in kisses.
Adam felt faint. Kisses. The damn cat was kissing Kylie. Was he dreaming? He might be dreaming.
“It never occurred to me, honestly,” Kylie said, answering his question. “I love animals well enough, so I could, but I won’t lie and say that it’s been a lifetime goal of mine.”
Adam stared down at her, thinking. She wasn’t 50 years old. She didn’t come equipped with a steely-eyed gaze, at least that he could tell. She didn’t have a single gray hair on her head. She wasn’t a vet tech in training.
“Any receptionist or billing experience?” he asked hopefully, grasping at straws. Despite her complete lack of any characteristics that he’d been looking for in a receptionist, he still wasn’t willing to turn her away.
Not yet.
She shook her head again, nuzzling her face against Sir Grouch’s mangy coat. “I worked at a gas station in Oregon for four years while going to school. Pumping gas for customers.” A shadow passed over her face and then it was gone again, replaced by a…60-watt smile. Flickering from being plugged into a shitty outlet. “It’s taken me four years to do two years’ worth of generals because of working full-time, but I’ve been trying hard to stay out of debt. Now, though, I need to make a decision about what my career is going to be, so here I am. I’m staying with my mom for the moment, while I contemplate my choices.”
Sir Grouch had snuggled down and appeared to be drifting off to sleep in Kylie’s arms. A nap. In the arms of someone else other than his owner.
It was stupid and impulsive and would probably go down in history as one of the dumbest reasons on the planet to hire a person, but Adam couldn’t help it. Sir Grouch had voted, and had overridden every one of his reasonable concerns.
“When can you start?”
Chapter 6
Kylie
Kylie came walking up to the vet clinic, the morning rays just beginning to peek over the horizon. She was grinning to herself. I have a job, I have a job…When she’d been talking to Dr. Whitaker the afternoon before, she’d been so sure she wasn’t going to get hired. She didn’t have bookkeeping or receptionist experience. She wasn’t on the fast track to become a vet tech. Hell, she’d never even owned a pet.
And yet, he’d hired her.
She wasn’t about to question why, but instead, just thanked her lucky stars that finally, something in her life was going her way.
She felt a little twinge of guilt over not telling Dr. Whitaker about her pregnancy, but she quickly shoved the thought away. No one wanted to hire a young girl who was almost four months pregnant, unmarried, with no place to live, and no prospects. She’d just have to work hard, hope her morning sickness continued to stay under control, and wear loose-fitting clothing for as long as possible. Hopefully, by the time the vet realized the truth, he’d also know what a great employee she was, and wouldn’t want to fire her.
Could he even fire her for being pregnant? She had no clue. They didn’t exactly hand out legal advice along with defective condoms, although she was pretty damn sure that should be changed in the future.
Either way, this was Idaho, not exactly home of workers’ rights. Getting fired for being pregnant totally seemed plausible to Kylie, not to mention that even if it wasn’t legal, how would she fight it? It wasn’t like she had deep pockets, let alone a lawyer on speed-dial.
No, her best bet was to just work as hard as her body would allow her, and make him realize she was indispensable. Let the bad news hit when it would, and hope for the best.
She wandered down the hallway to the back where she found Dr. Whitaker working on cleaning cages and filling water bottles. “Good morning, Dr. Whitaker,” she called out. He looked up and shot her a huge grin.
“Hey! Is it that time already?” His eyes flicked up to the clock on the wall. “Time flies when you’re having fun.” He strode over and shook her hand. “Ready to have some fun of your own?”
The butterflies that were busily dancing up her arm at his touch told her that she was already having fun, but she tried to ignore that thought. This was her boss. Nothing more than that. She’d already been dumb enough to fall for one completely ineligible male. She didn’t need to bat twice at that pitch.
“Sure, sure!” She looked around at the cages, suddenly realizing that if he wanted her to clean up cat shit, she was up shit creek. She couldn’t fake an allergy to cat poop, could she? That seemed like a strange substance to be allergic to, to say the least.
Dr. Whitaker caught her glance and said, “Most of the stuff back here is taken care of by Ollie – he’s the teen you met yesterday. He’s better back here than up front, so best to leave these tasks to him or me. Where I need your help is with paperwork. And coffee. I have a coffee pot and supplies for it over there,” he jerked his head towards what appeared to be an employee kitchen, which mostly se
emed to just be a dorm fridge, microwave, and coffee pot, “but I never take the time to make a pot. It’d be great if you could do that.”
She laughed a little. “I’m pretty sure I can make coffee every morning,” she said with just a hint of wryness in her voice. She didn’t want to appear to be laughing at her new boss…even if she was.
He grinned back. “I knew there was a reason I hired you. Okay, let’s go over the phone system and files and stuff.” They walked back upfront, Kylie trailing along behind him, studying the sway of his ass in his tight Wranglers as he walked. She gulped. She’d heard that sometimes, hormones could get out of control when a girl was pregnant, and considering the bolt of desire that just shot through her, she was going to guess she was one of those girls.
This was gonna be one tough job, if only because she had to keep her hands to herself while doing it.
He ran through the phone with her, how to check messages, what he wanted her to say when she answered, how to turn on the computer – she noticed he had no password or login for it; she didn’t even know computers could be set up that way anymore – and then, the grand finale.
“I have a calendar,” he said, pulling a small book out of the front pocket of his shirt. She looked at it, trying to hide the surprise on her face. When he said he had a calendar, he meant an honest-to-God calendar, not something online or on his phone.
She mentally revised his age in her head. She’d thought that maybe he wasn’t so old after all, but this…this was starting to make her think her original guess was correct. Maybe he just had good genes, and appeared to be 35 when he was actually 85.
Really good genes.
“One of my biggest struggles is keeping all of my appointments straight,” he said, holding the calendar out for her to take. She began flipping through it, reading the bold if sloppy handwriting as she went. “I realized that this was only going to get worse if I hired you. I can’t have my calendar in my pocket and here at the clinic at the same time, but we’re both going to need access to it if having you here is going to do me any good. So! I realized: You could take my calendar and put it into the computer. Then I can see it on my phone and you can see it on the computer at the same time!”
He sounded like he’d just discovered the joys of the internet last week, and was now excitedly spreading the knowledge to others. Next, he was going to start telling her all about those handy-dandy apps that can be downloaded to a phone, or how he finally set up a profile on Facebook last week.
She bit down so hard on the inside of her cheek, trying her damnedest to keep from busting out with laughter, that she tasted the iron tang of blood filling her mouth. Her best wasn’t good enough, and he read her like a book. “I probably sound like the world’s biggest idiot when it comes to computers, don’t I?”
“Uhh…”
“They never did much for me,” he continued on, thankfully not requiring her to reply. “I’ve always been happiest around animals, not electronics. I only got a smartphone when my flip phone died a violent death under the hoof of a cow and the Verizon Wireless store didn’t have another one in stock to replace it.” He was holding out the newest iPhone as if it was a snake that was going to bite him, and she struggled to hold back another laugh.
To go from a flip phone to the latest and greatest iPhone was a bit like upgrading from a Geo Metro to a Lamborghini. The fact that the sheer power and capabilities that he was holding in his hand seemed to be completely lost on him was…endearing. She’d even go so far as to say adorable.
Completely insane, but adorable.
She took the iPhone from him after he thumbed it to unlock it, and began flipping through. He only had the basics installed, so she quickly downloaded the Google Calendar app and showed him where she’d put the icon. “I’ll put all of your appointments into Google Calendar here on your computer,” she gestured towards the hulking monstrosity on the desk that was probably old enough to be her mother, “and it’ll show up on your phone. Easy peasy—”
“—Pumpkin squeezy,” he finished for her with a grin. She grinned back. Yeah, impressing Dr. Whitaker wasn’t going to be hard after all.
Chapter 7
Adam
Adam was staring down at Kylie, panic blossoming inside. He’d made a mistake. Absolutely, positively made a mistake. She was way too beautiful, way too smart, way too…young. He should not have hired her. Forget a 50-year-old woman; he needed a 60-year-old woman in here. Hell, make her 70 and then she’d be the same age as his mom and his heart would absolutely not be going a hundred miles an hour just being around her.
This was a bad idea. A very, very bad idea.
He should just fire her now. Except, he had no reason to fire her right now, and jerking her around was an awful thing to do. Not to mention that bringing the wrath of Carol VanLueven down upon his head wasn’t exactly something he was looking forward to. Now, there was a woman who couldn’t be trifled with.
No, firing Kylie would be a real jackass move to make. He just had to stick it out. Maybe not spend so much time in the office. Or any time at all in the office. Not if she was going to wear perfume that smelled like wildflowers, anyway. He could pretend an allergy to her perfume; ask her to stop wearing it. Anything to keep his sanity.
She was waving her hands in front of his face. His eyes jerked up to hers. “You okay?” she asked. “You were gone there for a minute.”
“Good, good, going to go check up on some patients,” he said, heading for the door before he realized he had no idea which patients those would be. He turned around with an embarrassed grin on his face, plucked his calendar out of her hands, scanned through today’s entries, and then handed it back. “Leaving now. I’ll be back at 5,” he promised her, and then he walked out the door, breathing in the fresh, non-wildflower-perfumed air once he got outside.
Well, she knew how to run a computer, and at least in that arena, she was a huge step up from him. Hiring her was a great idea, even if she made his heart twist in his chest.
Maybe.
Chapter 8
Kylie
Oliver burst through the front door and stuttered to a stop, his eyes taking in her sitting behind the desk. “Oh,” he grunted, sounding like he’d accidentally swallowed his tongue. She stood up and walked around the desk to him.
“I’m Kylie VanLueven. And you are?” she said, holding her hand out to shake his. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t follow formalities otherwise. His gaze darted this way and that as he put his hand out to shake.
“Oliver Blank,” he mumbled, “but you can call me Ollie.” And then he took off for the back like his ass was on fire.
She laughed a little to herself as she sat back down at the desk. Had she been that uncomfortable around boys when she was in school? Probably. Hell, she felt like doing just that this morning around Dr. Whitaker.
She got back to work on the calendar project. She’d finished putting everything in until the end of the year, and, for a lack of something else to do, had started back on January 1st and began working her way forward. At least this way, Dr. Whitaker would have all of his appointments in his calendar to refer back to whenever he needed.
And anyway, there was no way she was going to sit around and just wait for the minutes to tick by until five o’clock hit. There was no faster way to make her completely insane than to be stuck doing absolutely nothing.
Well, that week-long stint of hiding in bed aside, of course, but that wasn’t exactly a normal thing for her.
She’d almost caught up to May when the front doorbell jingled and in came Dr. Whitaker, shit and hay and animal hair all over his clothes…and never looking better than he did right then. How did he manage to make cow shit look good?
She shoved the thought aside and grabbed the stack of messages from the desk. “Hi, Dr. Whitaker,” she said, smiling as she walked around the front desk and over to him. “Here’s your phone calls for the day. I marked the ones that seemed urgent in the corner with a star.” S
he pointed those out. “I also have almost all of the calendar entries done. Did you play around with Google Calendar at all during lunch?”
He shook his head, not even looking at her as he thumbed his way through the messages. “Kylie,” he breathed, “this is…amazing!” He looked up and grinned. “Wow! You’re wonderful!”
“It’s just some phone messages,” she pointed out, but her cheeks were glowing red anyway. Her previous guess that as long as she didn’t kill a patient she’d be a step up in Dr. Whitaker’s eyes was turning out to be true. Which was embarrassing as hell, honestly.
“But I can read them all! And they make sense. And I bet you didn’t tell a single person today that they weren’t allowed to have one of my business cards.”
“What?” she said, dumbfounded, just staring up at him. Praise was nice, sure, but praise that made sense would be even better.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, waving her off. “Listen, do you want to go down to the Muffin Man Bakery and grab a donut to eat? My treat, as a way to say thank you for–dammit!”
“What?” she said again. She rolled her eyes at herself. Her vocabulary really needed some variety. Maybe she could start adding in the word “Huh?” for shits and giggles.
“We can’t go to the Muffin Man,” he said, clearly disappointed. “There was a big fire a couple of months ago, and Gage just got the insurance check recently from what I’ve heard. It hasn’t reopened yet.”
“Oh. Damn.” Kylie was genuinely depressed right along with her boss. A donut sounded amazing to her at the moment, even though sugar was awful for a person…but hell, she was pregnant. It wasn’t like watching her figure was going to do her much good at this point. “Well, I’ll take a raincheck on the idea. We can do it later, when they reopen.”