by Kayla Perrin
She glanced at Connie and the technician, who’d been introduced as Sami, but neither seemed to notice her embarrassment. She chanced a quick peek at Rachel, but she, too, seemed unaware of Jill’s gaff. Whew! “I should let you all get back to work.” Desperate to cover her awkwardness, she spoke too loudly. She took a deep breath and turned to her daughter. “How about a late birthday supper? I can make your favorite.”
“Sorry, Mom. I’ve got plans to meet up with some friends to celebrate tonight. Can we do something on the weekend?”
“Sure,” Jill said, trying to hide her disappointment.
The fine hairs on the back of her neck prickled. Grant hadn’t moved. He merely regarded her, a puzzled expression on his face.
She muttered a quick goodbye, unable to get out of the clinic fast enough.
*
Grant watched Jill close the door to the clinic and turned to Rachel. “So you still haven’t told her about Austin, eh?”
At least she had the decency to look chagrined. “I will when the time is right.”
He shook his head. Let it go, he told himself as he returned to his office. She wasn’t his child. He wasn’t responsible for her actions, and he could only do so much to encourage her to be honest with her mother. At least they seemed to be getting along better.
Jill’s visit and her cupcakes had come at the right time. They were a perfect antidote for the emotional meeting he’d just had with his last patient. He hated being the bearer of bad news, but he couldn’t sugar-coat the truth. His clients expected honesty from him, and although he’d tried to be as gentle as he could with Mrs. Simmons, there was no way to put a positive spin on Sherlock’s situation. The four-year-old Beagle was in great pain from a herniated disc.
The owners had already spent a considerable sum of money to get a complete neurological work-up in order to confirm the intervertebral disc disease diagnosis. Treatment called for an even more costly surgery. However, given how far the disease had already progressed and the amount of rehabilitation required afterward, Grant had recommended they euthanize the dog. The Simmons had neither the money nor the physical stamina to ensure a successful outcome.
He’d given Mrs. Simmons some heavy-duty painkillers for Sherlock, but urged her to make her decision quickly. There was no sense in prolonging the dog’s suffering.
He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, the taste of chocolate still in his mouth. And the icing …
Those were freaking-fantastic cupcakes. He licked his lips, remembering her gentle touch on his mouth. Jill wasn’t bad, either. Damn, the woman cleaned up nicely. His body stirred as he thought about how her dress had clung to her hips, stopping just above her knees in order to showcase her fantastically long, lean calves. And the shape of her ass as it swayed out the door …
He shivered in anticipation … but of what he didn’t know. His senses heightened and he was on edge. This was becoming an annoyingly frequent sensation whenever Grant thought about her. He tried not to, but it was tough. Every time he saw the daughter he was reminded of her mother. It was probably a good thing Rachel wasn’t going to be around much longer.
“Mom stop!”
Grant snapped out of his contemplation of Jill’s ass and hurried to the door to see the woman, herself, marching toward him, poor stoned Sherlock in her arms, and a frantic Rachel behind her. Shit!
Jill was panting from the exertion of carrying the slightly obese Beagle.
“Where did you get him from?” Grant asked.
“His poor owners have been sitting in their car all this time, desperately trying to figure out what to do. How can you be so cruel?”
“I’m being realistic,” Grant replied.
“Mom you need to stop this.” Rachel reached out to take the dog.
“You are refusing to treat a sick animal?” Jill ignored her daughter and focused the full brunt of her fury on Grant.
“It’s not that simple,” he said. He could see she was on the verge of tears. This was worse than the raccoon incident. He already felt bad about Sherlock. He didn’t need Jill’s condemnation, too. “The treatment is long and expensive. Sherlock is already partially paralyzed by the disease. There is no guarantee he’d recover. I can’t, in good conscience, recommend surgery when the odds of success are low and I know the Simmons are on a fixed income.”
“You don’t have to charge them for it.”
“What?”
“You heard me. You could do it for free, or at a reduced rate, out of the goodness of your heart. Oh, I forgot. You don’t have one.”
That stung. He closed his eyes and tried to block out the sound of Rachel and Jill arguing while he attempted to form a rational rebuttal. He couldn’t take on every charity case that presented itself; there were far too many, some more compelling, and most with a greater chance of success than this one. But the look on Jill’s face … Damn, he hated tears.
No, he couldn’t—wouldn’t—do it. He pushed away all sentiment and assumed his most authoritative manner and tone. “While Sherlock is a poor candidate for surgery, that is only part of it. Afterwards, he’d require an extensive period of complete rest in order for healing to occur. He’d have to be in a well-padded area and turned every few hours to prevent bedsores. He’d require assistance with urination, defecation, eating, and drinking.”
“That’s all doable.” Jill shifted the dog to a more comfortable position in her arms.
“Physical therapy, acupuncture, and massage would be required,” he continued as if she hadn’t interrupted him.
“Again, not a problem.”
“And even with all that, about fifty percent of the time, symptoms reoccur.” Grant reached for the dog. Jill reluctantly passed him over. When he had him securely in his arms, Grant scratched him behind his ears. Sherlock’s eyes were glassy and his breathing labored.
Grant knew this wasn’t really about Sherlock. Jill was transferring her fears for Rachel into her concern for the dog. He tried again. “It would be hard on a human being to go through all that—and they would know what was going on. This poor fellow just has months of pain to look forward to and no knowledge that there’d be an end in sight.”
“But the treatment could work,” Jill insisted.
Grant sighed. “Yes, of course. But you’ve seen Mr. and Mrs. Simmons. They’re well into their eighties. Money aside, do you think they have the physical stamina to handle everything that is required for Sherlock’s recovery? And then, after it’s all done, the best way to avoid recurrence is to ensure the dog stays a healthy weight by getting a lot of exercise.”
“I could do it,” Jill said.
Grant raked his fingers through his hair and opened his mouth to continue the argument, but Jill interrupted. “I could. I could do it all.”
Damn! He should have expected that. He was torn between frustration with her unwillingness to see reason and admiration for her determination to fight for what she believed in. He knew Rachel’s cancer had been caught early, but he wouldn’t doubt that a good part of her recovery was due to the refusal of her mother to accept any other outcome.
He gave Sherlock one last rub behind his ears and put him back into Jill’s arms. “I’ll have Connie prepare an estimate for you.”
Chapter 5
Jill lowered her gaze, afraid she would see the I-told-you-so look on Grant’s face. At least the late autumn rain hid her tears. But her red eyes? That was another story.
She hated coming to him, but she’d had no choice. It was Sunday and her own, more sympathetic, vet was closed. She’d hoped to be able to wait until Monday morning, but Sherlock would no longer swallow his pain medication and she couldn’t bear to see him suffer any longer.
Since taking the Beagle home with her earlier in the week, Jill had barely gotten any sleep. Sherlock howled all the time, disturbing the other animals. Rachel had purchased ear-plugs so she could sleep through the night. And during the day, Jill’s concern for the dog affected her concentration
at work so much that she raced home to check on him during her lunch hour. She was exhausted and desperate.
Grant had warned her, but Jill was still shocked when Connie presented her with the estimate for surgery. “It’s one of the most expensive surgeries there is,” Connie had said.
She’d gotten a second quote from Dr. Vanderhorst, but she’d wanted to charge even more.
Jill wished the cost didn’t matter, but it did. Calvin’s premature death had robbed her of a significant portion of the pension they’d been counting on, and while much of Rachel’s treatment was covered by government health care, there were many additional expenses that had slowly drained her bank account. She’d told everyone she was returning to work because she needed something to occupy her days, but in reality, she needed the money more.
“Please help him,” Jill pleaded.
Grant whisked past her, bare-footed, to retrieve Sherlock from her car. Jill followed him into his home, down the hallway toward where the house and clinic connected. “Wait here,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen as they passed it. “There’s coffee.”
Jill ignored him, trailing behind. She didn’t want to let Sherlock out of her sight.
Grant laid the dog carefully onto an examination table. He expelled a gasp of exasperation when Jill stepped in the doorway. “I’m not sneaking him off to euthanize him,” he snapped.
A guilty heat washed through her. That was precisely what she was afraid he’d do.
Grant bent over Sherlock, giving him a cursory examination. “Despite what you think, I don’t play God with my patients.” He carried the dog to a crate, not looking at her as he set up an intravenous drip. “I spent years at school so I could provide the best possible advice, but it’s up to you to decide whether you accept it or not.”
He did care. Jill could see it in his gentle movements and the way he spoke softly, soothingly to the dog while he waited for whatever he had given him to work its magic.
For the first time in her life, she felt completely helpless. When Calvin died, even in her numb emotional state, she’d known what to do: arrange his funeral, register his death, send change of contact information to all the bill collectors … When Rachel was diagnosed only weeks later, she’d immersed herself in the cancer world, overseeing every aspect of her daughter’s treatment. Even Finnegan, Joss, and Sacha, as vulnerable as they were when she’d adopted them, had never challenged her as this did.
Jill wandered back to the kitchen and sat down at the table. She was too tired even to pour herself a cup of coffee.
Eventually Grant returned. “He’s comfortable. I’ve given him something to control the pain and help reduce inflammation.” He poured two cups of coffee and handed her one, before sitting down across from her.
She could feel his gaze on her and she slowly raised her head to meet it. She’d expected to see pity or, maybe, disgust. She’d messed up. Instead, she saw compassion and concern, and she felt a deep thud in her chest.
“You hold on too tightly,” he said.
She looked away. “You’re wrong. I didn’t hold on tightly enough. I took my life for granted and I lost everything.
“You can’t blame yourself for Rachel getting cancer.”
“Can’t I?” She turned back to him. “Two years ago I had everything. I was actually happy that Rachel was away at school. I felt like I had completed that phase of my life; my role as a mother of a child was over. Job well done. Yay me.” She paused to take a deep breath.
If she had known that was to be their last Christmas together as a family, if she had known when she’d left the house that evening, it was going to be the last time she’d see her husband alive, if she had known her life was going to change so dramatically in a few short weeks, she would have taken more care to savor every moment of the journey that had brought her to that point.
Grant cocked his head, his expression serious. “This is about more than Rachel, isn’t it?”
“I should have saved him. Calvin. My husband.”
“What could you have done?”
They’d had a wonderful Christmas. Rachel had returned to Guelph to begin her second semester of vet studies and, while Jill and Calvin loved having their daughter home, they were also enjoying their new childless status. Ordering Chinese take-out in the middle of the week had felt so decadent, Jill thought she’d go for broke and stopped at the liquor store to pick up a bottle of wine, too. At that time, wine was a rare celebratory drink.
If only she had come straight home.
The paramedics said there was nothing she could have done. Calvin had suffered a massive heart attack and had probably been dead before he hit the floor. But wasn’t that what they always said to make the family feel better?
“I should have been there,” she said.
Jill’s life was now divided in two: the period before Calvin’s death and her daughter’s cancer diagnosis, and the period following. The first was a blur because she hadn’t taken the time to appreciate what she’d had. She’d be damned if she’d allow that to happen to the second.
“Are you worried there’s a genetic component to Rachel’s cancer?” Grant asked.
“Calvin died of a heart attack which had nothing to do with Rachel. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. She’ll never have children.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She was tested for the BRCA mutation, though. There was a concern that if she had it, she could develop breast cancer, too.”
“Oh, God, Jill. I don’t know what to say.”
No one ever knew what to say when they found out her daughter had ovarian cancer. At least Grant had the respect to admit it. Not everyone did and she’d had more than her fair share of people’s strange and awkward reactions.
“She was negative, thank goodness,” Jill said. “The doctors said her cancer was a random fluke of nature. We caught it pretty early—stage 1C—which I’m told is lucky, as if anything about this can be considered lucky. They removed all her reproductive organs to make sure they got it all. She would have had both breasts removed, too, if the BRCA test had been positive.”
She was talking too much. Grant probably didn’t want to hear any of this. She was so tired her usual social filters weren’t working. She glanced up at him. He seemed interested, though, and didn’t appear to be the least bit squeamish about the subject.
“What’s next for her? She seems strong. Healthy,” he said.
“We keep monitoring her, hoping, praying it won’t come back. The doctors say her prognosis is good, that there’s no reason to believe they didn’t get it all, and that her likelihood of developing another form of cancer is no more or less than anyone else.”
“And what about you?”
Jill shrugged. She didn’t know how to answer the question. She hadn’t allowed herself to think beyond the next day for so long now, she’d forgotten how to plan a future. But that was for the best. Living for the future had robbed her of it; better to hang on to the present. Keep to the familiar, keep to what was safe.
“What about you, Dr. Palmer?” She wanted to change the subject. “Why is there no Mrs. Palmer?” Her face flamed with the intimacy of the question. Crappy lack of filters. “Sorry, none of my business.”
Grant laughed and she felt herself go even redder. “It’s okay. There was a Mrs. Palmer, once, I’m sorry to say. But we ended up being just another divorce statistic.”
“I’m sorry,” Jill said. The bitterness in his tone told her that he hadn’t been the one to initiate the breakup, and she felt compassion for his pain. But why should that make her feel closer to him? Was he somehow more appealing if he had the same beliefs about marriage as she did? That it was supposed to be forever?
Her fatigue was making her overly sentimental. Maybe his wife left him because he was a jerk? Although he didn’t seem like a jerk. Despite her first impression of him, he seemed very caring. And Rachel certainly adored him.
“It’s okay. We’re both much happier now,”
he said.
Was that sarcasm?
“It’s almost lunch time. Are you hungry?” he asked.
Jill’s stomach rumbled as soon as the thought of food entered her mind. She hadn’t been eating properly and had skipped breakfast this morning.
“I’ll take that as a ‘yes,’” Grant said, winking at her. “I’m going to go check on Sherlock. Why don’t you look in the freezer? I think there are a couple of steaks we can barbecue, and I’ve got stuff to make a salad in the fridge.”
Jill had almost finished preparing the salad when Grant returned to announce that Sherlock was resting well. She was grateful he wasn’t pushing her to make a decision about the dog’s fate just yet.
Grant picked up the large steak Jill had set on the counter and began removing the brown wrapper. “Ah, K, a very good year.”
Jill had noticed different letters written on the various packages in the freezer. “What does K mean?”
“K is for Kedar.”
“And what is Kedar?”
His grin lit up his face and he wagged his eyebrows at her. “Kedar was one of the sons of Abraham. Don’t you know your Bible?”
“I don’t get it.” Jill knew he was teasing her, but he looked so boyishly pleased with himself she couldn’t muster the energy to be annoyed.
“Kedar is also the name of the steer from which this steak came,” he said.
“You label your beef with the name of the cow it came from?”
“Steer,” he corrected. “And of course, how else do you know the age of the beef?”
“I don’t know? You could put a date on it.”
“Now where would the fun be in that?” Grant said. “I can tell precisely how old the meat is: K for Kedar is this year—Doug, my brother, dropped it off a few weeks ago. J, for Jonah—the one who survived three days in the belly of a whale, remember?—is from last year. And if you come across an I, that’s Isaiah, you’d better feed him to the dogs because he’s two years old and probably has freezer burn.”
Jill’s shoulders shook, belying an attempt to suppress her laughter. Finally, she couldn’t hold it in any longer and she doubled over, tears forming in her eyes. “That has got to be the strangest system I’ve ever heard of,” she said when she could finally speak. “It’s kind of barbaric, don’t you think? Cannibalistic, even.”