RaeAnne Thayne - A Cold Creek Noel

She should be back there with him. Darn it. If she were better at handling confrontations, she would have told Dr. Arrogant that she wasn’t going anywhere. Instead, she was sitting out here fretting.

“He’s a wonderful veterinarian, my dear. I’m sure your pet will be better before you know it.”

The border collies at the River Bow Ranch weren’t exactly pets—they were a vital part of the workload. Except for Sadie, anyway, who was too old to work the cattle anymore. She didn’t bother to correct the woman, nor did she express any of her own doubts about the new veterinarian’s competence.

“I’m hungry, Mrs. Michaels. When are we going to eat?” Bored with the game apparently, Jack had wandered back to them.

“I think your father is going to be busy for a while yet. Why don’t you and Ava and I go find something? Perhaps dinner at the café tonight would be fun and we can pick something up for your father for later.”

“Can I have one of the sweet rolls?” he asked, his eyes lighting up as if it were already Christmas morning.

The housekeeper laughed. “We’ll have to see about that. I’d say the café’s business in sweet rolls has tripled since we came to town, thanks to you alone.”

“They are delish,” Caidy agreed, smiling at the very cute boy.

Mrs. Michaels rose to her feet with a creak and a pop of some joint. “It was lovely to meet you, Caidy Bowman.”

“I’m happy to meet you too. And I’ll keep my eye out for a suitable vacation rental.”

“You’ll need to take that up with Dr. Caldwell, but thank you.”

The woman seemed to be efficient, Caidy thought as she watched her herd the children out the door.

The reception room seemed even more bleak and colorless after the trio left. Though it was just past six, the night was already dark on this, one of the shortest days of the year. Caidy fidgeted, leafing aimlessly through her magazine for a few moments longer, then finally closed it with a rustle of pages and tossed it back onto the pile.

Darn it. That was her dog back there. She couldn’t sit out here doing nothing. At the very least she deserved to know what was going on. She gathered her courage, took a deep breath and pushed through the door.

Chapter Two

Ben made the last stitch to close the incision on the puncture wound, his head throbbing and his shoulders tight from the long day that had started with an emergency call to treat an ailing horse at four in the morning.

He would have loved a nice evening with his kids and then a few hours of zone-out time watching basketball on the hotel television set. Even if he had to turn the sound low so he didn’t wake up Jack, the idea sounded heavenly.

The past week had been a rough one, busy and demanding. This was what he wanted, he reminded himself. Even though the workload was heavy, he finally had the chance to build his own practice, to forge new relationships and become part of a community.

“There. That should do it for now.”

“What a mess. After seeing how close that puncture wound was to the liver, I can’t believe he survived,” Joni said.

He didn’t want to admit to his assistant—who, after three weeks, still seemed to approve of the job he was doing—that the dog’s condition was still touch and go.

“I think he’s going to make it,” she went on, ever the optimist. “Unlike that poor Newfoundland earlier.”

All his frustration of earlier in the afternoon came surging back as he began dressing the wound. A tragedy, that was. The beautiful dog had jumped out of the back of a moving pickup truck and been hit by the car driving behind it.

That dog hadn’t been as lucky as Luke here. Her injuries were just too severe and she had died on this very treatment table.

What had really pissed him off had been the attitude of the owner, more concerned at the loss of all the money he had invested in the animal than in the loss of life.

“Neither accident would have happened if not for irresponsible owners.”

Joni, busy cleaning up the inevitable mess he always left behind during a surgery, looked a little surprised at his vehemence.

“I agree when it comes to Artie Palmer. He’s an idiot who should have his privileges to own any animals revoked. But not Caidy Bowman. She’s the last one I would call an irresponsible owner. She trains dogs and horses at the River Bow. Nobody around here does a better job.”

“She didn’t train this one very well, did she, if he was running wild and tangled with a bull?”

“Apparently not.”

He turned at the new voice and found the dog’s owner standing in the doorway from the reception area, her lovely features taut. He swore under his breath. He meant what he said, but he supposed it didn’t need to be said to her.

“I thought I suggested you wait in the other room.”

“A suggestion? Is that what you city vets call that?” She shrugged. “I’m not particularly good at doing as I’m told, Dr. Caldwell.”

Sometime during the process of caring for her dog, Ben had come to the uncomfortable realization that he had acted like a jerk to her. He never insisted owners wait outside the treatment room unless he thought they might have weak stomachs. So why had he changed policy for Caidy Bowman?

Something about her made him a little nervous. He couldn’t quite put a finger on it, but it might have something to do with those impossibly green eyes and the sweet little tilt to her mouth.

“We just finished. I was about to call you back.”

“I’m glad I finally disregarded your strongly worded suggestion, then. May I?”

He gestured agreement and she approached the table, where the dog was still working off the effects of the anesthesia.

“There’s my brave boy. Oh, Luke.” She smoothed a hand over the dog’s head. The dog’s eyes opened slightly then closed again and his breathing slowed, as if he could rest comfortably now, knowing she was near.

“It will probably take another half hour or so for the rest of the anesthesia to wear off and then we’ll have to keep him here, at least overnight.”

“Will someone stay with him?”

At his practice in San Jose, he and a technician would alternate stopping in every few hours through the night when they had very ill dogs staying at the clinic, but he hadn’t had time yet to get fully staffed.

He nodded, watching his plans for a nice steak dinner and a basketball game in the hotel room go up in smoke. He had become pretty used to the cot in his office lately. Whatever would he do without Mrs. Michaels?

“Someone will be here with him. Don’t worry about that.”

A look of surprise flickered in her eyes. He couldn’t figure out why for a moment, until he realized she was reacting to his soft tone. He really must have been a jackass to her.

“I’m sorry about...earlier.” Apologies didn’t come easily. He could probably thank his stiff, humorless grandfather for that, but this one seemed necessary. “About not letting you come in during the treatment, I mean. I should have. And about what I said just now. I’m usually not so...harsh. It’s been a particularly hard day and I’m afraid I may have been taking it out on you.”

She blinked a little but concealed her emotions behind an impassive look. For some reason, that made him feel even more like an idiot, a sensation he didn’t like at all.

“You were able to save his leg. I thought for sure you would have to amputate.”

“He wouldn’t be much use as a ranch dog, then, would he?”

Her look was as cool as the December night. “Probably not. Isn’t it a good thing that’s not the only thing that matters to me?”

So she wasn’t like his previous client, who hadn’t cared about his injured dog—only dollars and cents.