by Gail Sattler
After she finished with him, the next in line was a woman with another high-maintenance dog, asking for an appointment. Sarah paged forward. “The next opening I have is just a little over three weeks from now. That’s a Thursday at 5:30. Would that work for you?” She poised her pen, ready to write down the name, and she looked up into the woman’s face.
The woman’s lower lip quivered, her eyes welled up, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
Wiping the tear with her sleeve, she sniffled, “I can’t wait that long. I’m so sorry. My landlord is threatening to evict me if I don’t deal with this right away. He told me if the noise doesn’t stop, I’ll have to either give Mimi away or move. I can’t do either one. When’s the next time you’re scheduled to be at Paws and Pals Pets for another dog session?”
“Scheduled? I don’t—”
Josh leaned forward, splaying his fingers over the top of her appointment book.
“We don’t really have anything scheduled at this present time, but I was thinking that next Tuesday I could keep the store open late and have Cat Hour at six o’clock, and Dog Hour at seven. But I haven’t confirmed that with Dr. Faire yet.”
Sarah’s head started to spin. “But—”
Before she could complete her sentence, a lady she recognized from the animal shelter jostled her way through the crowd.
The woman extended her hand. “I’m so glad I caught you. I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Donna Sturkenoch from the animal shelter. I’ve heard about all the good results from your new methods, and I was wondering, since this is raising awareness of animals who are being abandoned to shelters because of problems, if you would be able to help us by hosting a fund-raiser.”
Sarah sucked in a deep breath and blinked a few times to hopefully clear her head. She’d never been involved with a fund-raiser. Andy, as the fire chief, was the one organizations always asked for help, not her. But just as Andy felt strongly about helping to raise money for the hospital foundations, Sarah wanted to raise funds for the animal shelter.
“That would be nice, but I don’t know how I could be of any help . . .” She let her voice trail off as she turned to Josh.
He shrugged his shoulders and extended one hand to encompass the crowd still waiting in line to see her. “You’re quickly developing quite a following. I’ve always been a big supporter of the animal shelter. I’d be more than willing to help. If you need space, you can host something at my store. I can keep the store open for a couple of hours to give people a place to go and provide a pet-friendly atmosphere. I’m not going to say that I’ll match donations, but I can donate a percentage of any purchases made during the event.”
Sarah’s heart pounded. She’d always donated every year to the shelter, but this was her chance to do something that could potentially make a big difference for the animals.
She still didn’t understand why people were coming to see her, but she couldn’t deny that they did.
Sarah turned to Donna. “I suppose I could help. What would you like me to do?”
Donna’s face brightened. “All you have to do is talk to people and sign autographs. We have volunteers who will ask people for pledges.” She turned to Josh. “And thank you so much for your offer to donate part of your sales. That will make a big difference.”
The woman who had asked when her next dog session would be, as if she’d ever had a dog session in the first place, stepped forward. “Is this going to be soon? I’ll be there, and I’ll tell all my friends.” Her voice lowered, and she sniffled again. “I need to be able to show my landlord results by the end of the month, or I’m going to get kicked out.”
Quite honestly, Sarah couldn’t see that anything she could say or do would make that much difference, but she didn’t want to see this woman lose her home, or her dog.
She turned to Josh. “How soon can we do this?”
Donna pulled a tablet device out of her purse and started punching in numbers. “We want to do this while you’re still hot, and with the lineup you’ve got today, we want to get all the people who didn’t get a chance to see you here. The sooner, the better.”
Josh shrugged his shoulders. “I know this is short notice, but we’re both free Tuesday night.”
Elaine tapped on the tablet. “We can’t. All our volunteers are tied up. If you’re free Friday, that would probably bring everyone who didn’t get a chance to see you tonight.”
Sarah and Josh both looked at the long line of people still waiting to see her.
“I guess so,” she mumbled.
The woman sniffled again. “That would be wonderful. I’ll be there.”
Donna smiled. “Friday, then. I’ll call the newspaper in the morning, and we’ll get some posters put up around town. Thank you so much. I’ll see you then.”
Sarah gave Donna a polite smile that she tried to make sincere, and Donna turned and left. The second she was gone, Sarah turned to Josh.
“Why is this happening? I’m not a behavioral expert. All I did was show one man how to control his little dog.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, but think of how much good you can do. As long as you tell people you are only making suggestions, that you’re not an expert, you’ll be fine. I know you certainly won’t make any promises you know you can’t keep. Think of all the money we can raise for the shelter. The animals need you.”
With the abandoned animals in mind, she couldn’t say no.
Josh wrote a note to tape to the table with their last-minute plan to extend his store hours on Friday night and have an open house where Dr. Sarah would be present. The woman with the noisy dog stepped aside and texted madly.
While Sarah spoke to the next person who had been not so patiently waiting, she heard Josh phoning Helen Groves, who owned the bakery. He asked if she would like to donate a couple dozen cookies on Friday evening, allowing them to be sold to add to the contributions for their event.
She turned to Josh again. “What are you doing?”
With no guilt or hesitation, Josh grinned. “Helen loves to be a part of fund-raisers, and people love her cookies. Don’t be nervous. It’s all under control. Think of Andy. He does fund-raisers all the time.”
“But Andy never pretends to be something he’s not.”
Josh broke out into a full belly laugh, causing the last remaining people to stare. “Are you saying that he’s really Santa Claus, or that he’s really a pirate?
“That’s different.”
Josh’s face became serious. He reached down and grasped her hands in his. “All that you’re promising is that you’re a vet, and that’s perfectly true. Don’t worry. You’re good with animals, and you have a heart for them. That’s why you became a vet, right?”
She sighed. “I suppose.”
“Then everything will be fine. There are only a few people left waiting to talk to you. I’ll start packing up, and I’ll take you out for coffee and a donut on the way home.”
Sarah tried to feel the confidence that Josh was trying so hard to instill, but she wasn’t sure either of them succeeded.
Her only thought was that, since they didn’t have the time to advertise, the crowd would consist of the woman she’d just spoken to and maybe a couple of her friends.
Then all would be fine, and life could go back to normal.
Chapter 4
Josh’s head fell back on the couch and he let his eyes drift shut. He didn’t even have the energy to toe off his shoes.
Beside him, the couch jolted as Sarah flopped down beside him. “Where did all those people come from?” she groaned. “Didn’t any of them have anything better to do on Friday night than go to the pet store?”
Josh didn’t open his eyes. “Most of them knew each other. Some were already friends; some knew each other from dog and cat shows and
pet clubs and stuff. I think most of them knew each other from meeting on walks. It turned out to be another social evening for both themselves and their pets.” As if to affirm his words, he could feel the weight of Rufus as the dog laid down on top of Josh’s feet, pressing his back against Josh’s shins. He smiled at the comforting warmth of his dog.
The evening had been a landslide success. Rufus had even met and played with a bunch of his fuzzy friends that evening. “Besides, they got what they came for, which was a lot of good, free advice and free samples. Not to mention Helen’s great cookies. Except they weren’t free. But they’re worth their weight in gold.”
The couch moved. The jostling followed by one thump told him that Sarah had kicked off one of her sneakers, then a muted sound of what sounded like her sock-covered heel landing on the carpet, like she didn’t have the energy to remove the other shoe. At least she’d gotten one more shoe off than he had. “Any idea how much money you raised?” she muttered.
He didn’t have the energy to shake his head. “No idea. I’ve never sold so much in one day.” Not only that, not knowing the scope of what was going to happen, he’d let all his staff go home because he didn’t want to pay them overtime. He’d assumed he would mostly socialize with a small number of people, but instead he’d spent most of the evening running between coordinating groups wanting to talk to Sarah, running the cash register, and restocking items that left the shelf almost as quickly as he put them there. He’d made countless trips back and forth to the kitchen, making dozens of pots of coffee and refilling the cookie plate. “I hope I have enough stock left to sell tomorrow. I had a flyer out, and I have a feeling I’m going to be offering a lot of rain checks. Are you hungry?”
“No. I ate too many cookies. You?”
“Same. Helen said she’d donate a couple of dozen. There had to be over a hundred cookies in the first box. I have no idea how many she brought after that.” They’d even been still warm, which increased the sales of cookies even more. Which also meant, he’d had to make even more coffee.
Neither of them spoke, which was a welcome silence compared to the ruckus they’d just experienced. In addition to the noise level of so many conversations going on at the same time in one building, they’d also escaped too many dogs barking at too many cats. He thought he’d been very specific when he’d worded the poster that of the two hours, one hour was for dogs, one was for cats. But they’d all come together. Fortunately, the dogs stayed in the dog section, and the cats stayed in the cat section, and there was no trouble except for the noise.
Once more, the couch shifted, and he knew from the panting and hot breath on his arm that Scruffy had just jumped up into Sarah’s lap.
“I think you’re famous,” he said, still without moving or opening he eyes. This was surely one of the strangest conversations he’d ever had. He couldn’t move a muscle if he tried, and he suspected Sarah felt the same.
“I’m only famous within the customer base of your store. Which is fine with me.”
He didn’t remind her that besides the feed and tack store, only one other pet food store did business in Bloomfield. That other small mom-and-pop operation only sold organic food and natural health products for animals, and therefore only held a small client base. Previously, his only competitor in town had closed when the owner retired. Unless anyone went out of town to the larger cities, he pretty much had the whole house-pet supply market for the town of Bloomfield. “Whatever my market base, we had hundreds of people in the store tonight.”
She groaned again. “Can you believe some of them asked for my autograph? Someone asked me when my book is coming out. I can’t write a book. I had enough trouble writing my brochure.”
He felt himself smiling. He’d seen one of the times someone had asked her for her autograph. She’d turned as red as a beet and about as coherent. She’d actually stammered. In all the years he’d known her, he’d never seen her so rattled. Of course, as soon as the woman asked a question about her cat, Sarah shook herself out of it, and once again became the esteemed veterinarian everyone had come to see.
“You did fine.” In fact, she’d done so fine that they’d raised a considerable sum for the animal shelter. So much, between the percentage of sales he’d donated, and Helen’s spectacular cookies, plus people simply putting money in a jar after listening to Sarah’s great advice that he wanted to celebrate their success. He cleared his throat but didn’t open his eyes. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”
That must have grabbed her attention because the couch jiggled, indicating she now sat upright, forcing him to do the same.
Begrudgingly, he opened his eyes, straightened, and turned to her.
“I’m going out with Hayden again tomorrow night. Why?”
Something in his gut ached like he’d been sucker-punched. “I thought you said that you weren’t interested in Hayden.”
“I never said that. In fact, what I believe I said was that if he asked, I’d probably go out with him again. And he asked. So I said yes. Why? Is there something about him I should know? I know he wants to get married again.”
“I thought you weren’t interested in getting married.”
“I never said that either. A few years ago, I said I wanted to get a good foundation for my clinic before I started to think about more than just casual dating. I’ve thought about it. Maybe it is time to start looking toward the future. I’m not that far from thirty, and I’ve never had a serious relationship. If I wait too long to start trying to find that elusive Mr. Right, it might be too late. What about you? You’re three years older than I am. Any prospects? Crystal?”
He nearly shuddered at that thought. He didn’t have anything against smart women—in fact, he preferred to spend his time with intelligent people. But with Crystal, even though she was a nice woman, once they got past the weather, they hadn’t had much to talk about, and the conversation drifted to what happened at the high school that day. He didn’t have many good memories of high school, so he wasn’t exactly held captive listening to the adventures and misadventures of the current generation of students.
When he was with Sarah, on the other hand, they never lacked for conversation. That hadn’t changed since the time she was eight years old and had lost her front baby teeth. She’d told him all about how, unlike people, a beaver’s front teeth never stopped growing, and then before he could think of what she was doing, she’d grabbed both him and Tucker by the hands and, yakking constantly, she’d dragged them to the creek, hoping to see a beaver. For an entire hour, during which time no beaver had dared show its teeth, or its face, or any other part of its body, they’d sat there with Sarah holding tightly onto his hand, squeezing it every time something moved as they waited for that elusive beaver.
It had been the first time he’d ever held hands with a girl, and come to think of it, the most memorable. Tucker’s twerpy little sister, at the time probably half his size, had held him captive.
He strangely hadn’t been bored or impatient. After listening to all her beaver factoids, he’d also wanted to see a beaver, and he’d been disappointed that they had to go home for supper before they did. In fact, she’d got him so interested in beavers, he’d built a beaver dam, complete with a plush beaver he’d bought with his allowance, as his science project in school, and he won first place for the nature segment at the science fair.
When he started looking for his Ms. Right, he was going to look for exactly that same thing, as corny as it felt—friendship and compatibility first, meaning someone he didn’t get bored with, even in the silent moments. Someone with whom he would share common interests, growing into an attraction that zinged, just like in the movies, before the happy couple rode off into the sunset.
He looked at Sarah, who stared at him as if he’d sprouted alien tentacles.
“What?” he asked, barely holding back on telling her to close h
er mouth.
“You had a really strange look on your face. I’ve never seen you like that before. Are you overtired?”
He wasn’t about to admit that the reason he probably looked zoned was because he’d just imagined a high point in his life to have the same ending as one of the sappy chick flicks she enjoyed watching so much—except this movie had a beaver in it.
He was obviously more tired than he’d thought.
Sarah shook her head. “We should really get motivated and add up all the totals and do your bank deposit. No insult to your company, but I really need to get home and go to bed. From what I just saw, the same goes for you. We both have busy days ahead of us.”
Josh pushed himself up and reached for the bag on the coffee table containing the day’s cash and receipt log. Truer words were never said, but still, he was in no rush for Sarah to go home.
The sooner he went to bed, the sooner she’d be spending another evening with Hayden.
Instead of grabbing the deposit bag, he stood. “I think I’m going to make some good, strong coffee. I’ll be right back.”
Sarah had just put the clip in her hair when the doorbell rang.
She smiled. Hayden was right on time. She liked that.
After one last adjustment to make sure it was right, she turned to answer the door. At the same time as she reached to open it, a male voice echoed through the door.
It wasn’t Hayden.
She opened the door to see Hayden and Josh facing each other, talking. On her doorstep.
“Josh? What are you doing here? Hayden and I were just about to leave.”
Josh’s cheeks darkened, and he cleared his throat. “I phoned but you didn’t answer, so I thought I’d take a chance. I didn’t want to miss you. I have kind of a situation.” He turned and glanced at his car, parked on the street, in front of Hayden’s car.
Crystal sat in the passenger seat, checking her watch.
Josh lowered his voice. “I think I told you that Crystal just took over as the head of the drama club at the high school. It seems she was given a last-minute invitation to go to a play at the elementary school tonight to see a friend’s daughter, who got the leading role. She wants to go really bad, and she thinks that watching is going to help give her some ideas of what to do at the senior high level. She was so insistent, I couldn’t say no. But I really don’t want to go. So I was wondering if you two would come, so I could have someone to talk to.”