Linda Goodnight - Finding Her Way Home

“Wear this.” Trace tossed her an apron that weighed a ton.

“What’s in this thing? Bricks?” She draped the gray apron around her neck.

“Close. Lead. Keeps you from being exposed to radiation.” He disappeared behind a short wall. The hum and thump of the machine filled the room. Trace reappeared to reposition the animal again. “A couple more.”

Cheyenne kept her hands where he instructed while he finished the procedure.

“All done. Hang the apron inside here and then stay with Chauncey while I process these.”

He disappeared again and Cheyenne stared down at the sedated dog. He was a mess. Blood coated his golden brown coat. Cheyenne was pretty sure the white protrusion on his leg was a bone.

She shivered and tried to think of something else.

Noises came from behind her. Thumps and thuds. Buzzes and bells. And then the vet was back again, standing next to her. His focus was on the patient, but Cheyenne edged away from him and the peculiar sizzle of nerve endings he caused. She didn’t know whether she liked or hated the feeling, but liking it wasn’t an option.

“Other than the mangled leg, I don’t see anything life-threatening.”

She flicked him a glance. “Seriously?”

“I’ll need to keep him overnight to rule out internal injuries, but he doesn’t seem to be as bad as I first thought. I wasn’t kidding when I said sometimes the worst-looking injuries end up not being so bad after all.”

“That’s true. I’ve seen people I didn’t think would survive but they did.”

He swiveled toward her, expression curious. “You have?”

Cheyenne mentally kicked herself. She hadn’t intended to discuss her former life with anyone in Redemption. Let the past lie buried. If it would.

Avoiding the doctor’s intensely blue eyes, she fiddled with the crinkly paper beneath the Yorkie. “I just meant—you know, on the road and stuff.”

Dr. Bowman didn’t respond, but she could feel him looking at her, curious. At least she thought she could. Lately, her emotions didn’t always line up with reality. She knew this but she couldn’t always control it.

Lack of control made her mad. Life in general made her mad. The feelings thrashing and banging around inside every time Trace Bowman came close made her mad.

But then, she’d been mad for the past year. Had she really expected things to improve just because a town was called Redemption?

Trace shook droplets of water from his hands and reached for a paper towel. The surgery on the Yorkie’s leg had taken longer than he’d hoped, so Jeri had sent waiting patients home until tomorrow. A half dozen of the sickest had chosen to wait, but the injured dog was resting peacefully, still sedated, in a soft enclosure.

The pet owners had left, although the man had been blunt about not running up a huge vet bill. “Put him to sleep. I’ll get her another.”

Trace usually liked everyone. He couldn’t say that about this guy. “That won’t be necessary. We can work something out.”

“I’ll hold you to that, Doc.” And with that warning he had ushered his wife from the clinic.

Some people.

With a weary sigh, he shot a look at his new assistant. She was an enigma. Not very friendly, either, but he’d known that when he hired her.

Even though the capable Jilly had returned, once the surgery was set up and ready he’d called Cheyenne in to help, too. Some perverse part of him must admire a tough woman with a chip on her shoulder.

Troubled. He could see it in the tense set of her shoulders and jaw. He could hear it in her terse answers. And he could read it in her soulful glares and the way she overprotected her three feet of personal space.

The question was why? And what exactly did the Lord expect him to do about Cheyenne Rhodes?

“Pretty good assistant for a first timer.” In a light tone, Trace tossed the compliment casually over his shoulder but didn’t move in her direction. He’d already discovered that if he got too close, her defenses went up and she’d back away. “You didn’t faint or gag or run away.”

“I don’t faint.” She stated the fact as though slightly insulted. He noticed she didn’t mention the other two.

“You’d be surprised how many grown men turn pale when I start drilling into bone.”

She shrugged one shoulder. “You did the hard part. All I did was play gofer.”

He turned slowly, leaning his hips on the sink behind him as he dried his hands. “Appropriate job in an animal hospital, don’t you think? A gopher.”

Her full lower lip curved. “Have you ever treated a gopher?”

Trace felt a rush of energy through his very tired body. Any hint that he was getting through that iron wall of hers cheered him immensely.

“This is a community of tulips and smooth, green lawns. Saving a gopher could get me tarred, feathered and run out of town.”

For a nanosecond her dark, dark eyes twinkled and he held out the hope that she’d come back with a snappy retort. She turned her back instead. Stainless steel surgical tools clattered against a metal basin as she dunked them into antiseptic cleaning liquid. “What do I do with these after they’re washed?”

Fighting down a frisson of disappointment, Trace studied his new employee’s stiff shoulders. Did friendly conversation always make her nervous?

Lord, I’m trying, so give me a little direction here, okay?

“Toss them in that box for a trip to the autoclave.” He ripped a couple more paper towels from the dispenser and sprayed antiseptic cleaner on the metal table. “I can’t stop thinking about that couple.”

The comment forced her to look back over one tense shoulder. “Me, too.”

“Think we should contact the police?”

“Won’t do any good.”

“How do you know that?”

She hesitated for one brief second before turning back to the sink. “I just know.”

Spoken like a woman with secrets.

He threw the paper towels in the trash can and studied his assistant. For the first day of work, she’d done all right. But her work ethic wasn’t what concerned him. The way he felt with her in the room did.

She was puzzling and bristly. Yet despite those negatives, he wanted to know her better.

Her hair pooled like black ink against the blue lab jacket he’d loaned her. There was something about Cheyenne Rhodes that made him want to go on looking at her. He felt a little stupid about that. The woman was pretty, sure, but so was Margo, and though they’d dated off and on for a year, he’d never wanted to stand and stare at Margo Starks. Cheyenne’s beauty wasn’t the thing that intrigued him, really. Rather, he was fascinated by the way she narrowed her eyes in speculation, the way she held herself aloof and the subtle sense he had that she was hurting every single minute.

Something was sorely wrong in Cheyenne’s world, and he was a doctor, a man called and trained to ease suffering. He wouldn’t rest until her wounds, whatever they might be, were healed.

Cheyenne was feeling better about her new job. Maybe this would work out all right after all. The vet was easygoing and didn’t lose patience even when she couldn’t find something. The other women were cordial, even though the clinic buzzed with patients, phone calls and animal sounds until they seldom had a spare moment. Cheyenne figured this was a good thing. Being busy kept her mind off everything else. Everything, that is, except the handsome vet. All he had to do was walk into the room and a buzz of energy shimmied along her nerve endings.

After feeling dead inside for so long, the reawakening stung like frozen fingers warmed too quickly. Wisdom warned to tread carefully.

Last night, when she’d arrived at the motel, her thoughts were torn between the too-attractive vet and the Yorkie owner. She was convinced Emma was a battered wife. This morning the husband had picked up the dog, paid the bill and left without a thank-you.