Читать книгу Listen to the Child - Carolyn McSparren - Страница 10

MONDAY MORNING Mac met Mark Scott walking down the hall of the clinic with his little black-and-white mutt at his heels.

“Morning.” Mac bent down and scratched Nasdaq’s ears while the little dog wagged its whole body. “I need to talk to you. Ten o’clock.”

“Okay,” Mark said, looking at Mac suspiciously. “Please don’t tell me you’ve discovered the newest piece of equipment to make you the perfect surgeon and it only costs two million bucks. I get enough of that from my beloved wife.”

“Sarah simply believes in buying the best for our clients,” Mac said with a perfectly straight face.

Mark rolled his eyes. “She’d been after me to buy the best from the first day she walked into this place. She made my life a living hell until I gave her what she wanted.” He grinned. “I got payback, though. She’s not only made me the perfect wife, she’s given me the perfect daughter. Not a bad trade-off for an ultrasound and a laser. So what do you want?”

As business manager of Creature Comfort as well as vice president of Buchanan Industries, Mark split his time between his cubbyhole in what had once been a storage room at Creature Comfort and a palatial office on the top floor of Buchanan Towers. Since Coy Buchanan—Rick Hazard’s father-in-law—had bankrolled Creature Comfort in the beginning, it was only right that Mark keep an eye on the clinic’s bottom line. However, clinic revenue had increased so much in recent months that he was around less and less these days.

“I do not want equipment.” Mac looked down at Nasdaq. “And put that dog on a diet.” He turned his back on Mark and walked toward his office.

He met Nancy coming out of his office with a sheaf of files in her hand.

“Oh, there you are,” she said, and thrust the files at him.

“And I’m supposed to do what with all this?”

“That’s a leading question, Doctor. Drink the coffee I just put on your desk and read them. You’re spaying a couple of cats at nine.”

“Great,” he muttered. Spaying cats, neutering dogs, stitching up gashes and pinning broken bones of animals whose owners let them loose in traffic. Was that all his life had become? He’d wanted to make a real difference. At least Sarah and Eleanor got to work on a variety of animals. The only time Mac saw the inside of a horse was when one of them needed his help, which, given their levels of proficiency, they seldom did. He badly needed a new challenge.

Maybe he should do what Liz Carlyle was doing—go back to school for a year and pick up an additional specialty.

He had a specialty, blast it. He was the best damn veterinary surgeon in the South—possibly the United States.

Yet he spent his nights watching television and his days spaying cats.

Maybe he should sign on for a tour of duty at one of the big African parks—they always needed vets. He could certainly afford six months of little or no money. Ngorongoro, maybe, or Kruger.

His partner, Rick, would have a heart attack if Mac even suggested a six-month leave of absence. He had responsibilities to the clinic.

“Your kitties are waiting for you,” Nancy said from the door.

“Shaved and prepped?”

“No, Doctor, I thought I’d leave all the prep work to you,” Nancy said with a sniff. “Of course they’re prepped. Come on, get your rear end in gear. You’ve got a full schedule, as you might know if you’d bothered to read what I left you.”

“Someday I’m going to fire you!” he called after her.

“One can but hope.”

He grinned. Anytime he started feeling sorry for himself, Nancy brought him up short. No matter how he snapped and snarled occasionally, he was doing the thing God had put him on this earth for, and doing it well.

Nancy, on the other hand, had been an up-and-coming professional Grand Prix show jumper on the verge of the big time—long-listed for the Olympics. Then the degeneration in her cervical vertebrae progressed so far and so fast that riding became agony for her.

Three operations had relieved most of the pain, but she could never ride again. She seldom talked about her neck, and when she did, she joked about it. But every time a horse came into the clinic, whether it was a small pony or that Percheron mare with the foal, she would go back to the stalls on her lunch hour to pet and hug it. Her eyes were always suspiciously red afterward.

Mac and Nancy worked steadily, and as usual, once he was immersed in surgery, he lost track of everything except the creature in front of him.

He didn’t hear the door to the surgery swing open behind him. “Thought you said ten o’clock,” Mark Scott said.

“Damn!” Mac looked over his shoulder. “Give me five minutes.”

“Go on, Doctor,” Nancy said. “I can close for you.”

He nodded and stripped off his gloves and mask as he followed Mark into his office.

“Okay, what do you want money for?”

“Marriage has made you suspicious,” Mac said as he slumped into the chair across from Mark. “How’s the kid, by the way?”

“Since Sarah’s been bringing her to work, you probably see more of her than I do.” Mark’s lean face split into a smile that could only be described as beatific. “Smartest child ever born, and the prettiest, which you’d know if you ever bothered to play with her.”

“Can we change the subject? I have a proposition for you.”

Mark rubbed his hand over his hair. “What is it?”

“I want to hire two more vet techs—one surgical and one nonsurgical.”

“We have Nancy for small animals and Jack for large animals.”

“They take vacations and get the flu. They are human, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Sure, but I never imagined you did. We job out when we need extra help. There are plenty of people out there looking to work with animals for zilch money, which is what we pay.”

“I’m aware of that,” Mac said. “I want somebody I can train from the ground up to do what I want done in the way I want it. Nancy reads my mind. I need someone else who can do the same thing.”

“The woman’s tougher than I thought if she can stand to probe into that mind of yours.”

“I want to start advertising today, put the word out among the other clinics for somebody who has some experience and wants more—somebody willing to do the scut work.”

Mark sighed. “Okay, let me run the numbers. If they work out, you got it.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that. I’d appreciate your starting with a part-timer until I’m certain the practice can bear the freight of a full-time surgical trainee. Maybe Alva Jean or Nancy knows somebody who’d be interested.”

Mac stood up. “I’ll ask. Now, Nancy needs me back to remove a steel pin from a Labrador’s hip. It’s starting to push through the skin and cause an abscess.”

“Thank you for that pretty picture. Come see us sometime. I’ll tell Sarah to bug you.”

“Yeah, right.”

He worked straight through lunch, which meant Nancy did too. At four o’clock she watched him finish off the final suture in the ear of a Border collie that had misjudged the distance between his ear and the horn of the ram he was herding. The ear had been nearly torn off and was bleeding profusely when the farmer carried him in.

Now the owner came out of the waiting room twisting his John Deere cap in his hands. “He gonna be all right?”

“Fine,” Mac said. “He’s groggy, but you can take him home. He’s had antibiotics and I’ll give you some more. The sutures should dissolve in ten days or so.”

“Poor old Ben.”

“He’s not old—I’d say under two,” Mac said.

“Little over a year. No, I meant this might set him back a tad when he faces down his next ram. You have never seen a more embarrassed dog than ole Ben was when that ram tossed him ass over teakettle down the pasture.”

“Well, we saved the ear, so he won’t bear the scars of his encounter.”

“Thanks, Doc. Wouldn’t think of running livestock without my dogs. I’m too old, too lame, and they’re a damn sight smarter than I am.”

As Mac turned to go back to his office he came face-to-face with Kit Lockhart. The wind had tossed her hair, and the sunlight from the west-facing window turned her eyes to emeralds.

Coming this close to her had a visceral impact on him that unnerved him.

“Can I take Kev home?” she asked.

He stepped back from her and composed his face. “Haven’t had a chance to check him out today, but I would have heard if there was a problem,” he said, speaking slowly and letting the sun fall on his face. “Come on back.”

He noticed she held a harness with a bright orange pad that said Working Dog on it. A much smaller version of the gear he’d seen used on Seeing Eye and helper dogs.

She caught his eye. “Kevlar’s on duty all the time,” she said. “The harness is for his protection so people don’t distract him in public.”

“Does it work?”

She grinned. “Almost never. Everybody still wants to pet him.”

As he started back toward the kennel, Mabel Halliburton called out to him, “Dr. Mac? When you have a minute I need to ask you something.”

He nodded.

Kevlar had been moved from ICU to the regular recovery kennel area in the next room. He opened Kevlar’s cage and picked him up, carefully avoiding the incision along his flank. He set him down on the examining table in the center of the room, and reached for a thermometer.

Kit stood silently while he checked the dog over. Kevlar whimpered a little when Mac touched his incision, but the chart indicated that all Kevlar’s kidney tests were normal.

“No fever,” Mac said. He had raised his head to look at Kit when he spoke. “He needs to stay quiet for a while, and he probably won’t feel like doing much running around for some time.”

“When should I bring him back here?”

He wanted to tell her tomorrow—just so he could see her again. But that was stupid and juvenile. Besides, she’d never fall for it. He heard himself saying, “You’re on my way home. I’ll be happy to check him out in two or three days. I’ll give you a call…” He felt his face flame.

She laughed. “Just come by. If the Jeep’s in the driveway, I’m home. What symptoms should I worry about with Kev?”

“Worry about a sudden rise in temperature, inability to urinate, whimpering…never mind that one—Emma can tell you if he cries. If he does, get in touch with me immediately.”

“Can I use a regular thermometer?”

“Right. But tie a string around the end of it before you insert it. You don’t want it to get lost. Normal for a dog is about a hundred and one. You should worry about general malaise. I’ll send you home with a bag of special dog food, but you can get it cheaper at your local pet store.”

“One thing, Doctor. I know this is going to cost a fortune. I really hate to ask, but is there any way I can space out the payments over time? Or even do some work here at the clinic to help pay my bill? I’m strong as an ox and I’m not afraid of hard work. And I’m really good with computers.”

Now her face was the one that was flaming. He could tell she hated asking him. The Saturday surgery and the aftercare would add up to a hefty sum. She was probably on disability if her accident was work-related. Maybe she was hanging on with welfare and ADC.

He realized he had no idea what she did or how she had been hurt.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll work something out.”

Nancy came toward them. “Little guy going home with you? Big’s going to hate that. He’s fond of him.”

“Big’s fond of everything that walks, flies or swims.”

Nancy touched Kit’s arm so that Kit looked at her. “I overheard what you two were saying.”

Kit sighed. “Money’s pretty tight. I’ll pay my bill, I promise, but sometimes I can’t pay all at once. I wish I could get a part-time job, but I really don’t even know where to look. I have to pick Emma up at school unless I make arrangements. It’s not easy finding a job where I don’t have to hear. I can’t clerk in a convenience store or anything.”

“What do you do all day now?” Nancy asked.

Kit’s blush intensified. She had that clear, pure redheaded skin that showed the movement of every corpuscle. “I…get my daughter off to school, and pick her up, do housewifely things and exercise and shop.”

“You’re probably getting bored.”

“Getting bored? I’ve been bored out of my mind for the last three months. I can only take so much daytime television, even with closed captioning. And I never did learn to knit.”

Mac realized he’d been cut out of the conversation completely. Kit could concentrate on only one person at a time. He felt annoyed that Nancy had butted in until he heard what Nancy had to say next.

“You said you could use a computer?” she asked.

“I type about a hundred words a minute, actually. You have no idea how much paperwork I had to fill out before my accident.”

“Impressive speed.”

“But anybody can use a computer.”

“Not Dr. Mac,” Nancy said. “He’s a dinosaur.”

Both women looked at him with pity. He made a face at them and pulled Kevlar closer.

“So how would you feel about scrubbing cages and mopping floors?” Nancy continued.

“Since when have you been the Creature Comfort human resources manager?” Mac asked.

“You’ve been muttering about hiring a part-timer. And Mabel’s been telling everybody for a month that if she doesn’t get somebody to take the computer work off her hands she’s going to quit.”

“When did she say that?”

“Oh, about every day. But you veterinary types never listen to us peons.” She turned to Kit again. “You could come in after you take your daughter to school, and leave in the afternoons in time to pick her up. You’ll probably start by scrubbing cages or taking the animals for walks. We never know from one day to the next what we’ll be doing. Are you physically all right? Except for the hearing, I mean?”

“Absolutely.” Kit’s face lit. “But could I bring Kev?”

“Don’t see why not. He doesn’t fight with other dogs, does he?”

“No, and he loves cats. He lives with one.”

Nancy turned to Mac. “Well, how about it, Doctor?”

“We’ll have to discuss it at the staff meeting tomorrow morning,” he said, although he knew in his heart he would press to have Kit hired. It had nothing to do with the fact that she stirred his blood. She was a woman who needed a hand up. Maybe it was time to be Mr. Nice Guy. It would certainly make a change.

“Well, peachy,” Nancy said, lifting her eyes to heaven. “You do that.” She took Kit’s arm. “In the meantime, Dr. Mac’s got one more cat to spay.”

Kit gathered up Kevlar, put his harness on him gently and lowered him to the floor. He sat at once and looked up at her expectantly. “Home,” she said.

He stood and walked off at her heel.

“Now that’s the kind of dog to have,” Nancy said.

“Pretty high-handed, aren’t you?” Mac jabbed.

“Absolutely. You know how she went deaf?”

“No idea.”

“Me neither. But I’ll sure find out.”

Mac pressed his palms against his eyes. “Okay, where’s this cat?”

“There isn’t one. I just said that because if you don’t have at least some peanut butter crackers and potato chips out of the machine, you’re going to pass out facedown in somebody’s intestines.”

“What about you?”

“I brought myself a healthy lunch. Turkey sandwich and an apple. I just finished. You might consider packing yourself a lunch. Or don’t you do that sort of thing?”

“Even I, Miss Mayfield, can make a turkey sandwich,” he said and headed for the conference room.

As he munched his peanut butter crackers, he remembered that he’d promised to drop by Kit’s house in a couple of days to check on Kevlar. In the meantime, he could consult with his partners about trying her out on a part-time basis. The scrubbing and cleaning part of the job required no special skills. She said she had the computer skills already. Why not give her a chance?

MAC HAD PROMISED to check on Kevlar. Tonight— Wednesday—was the night. He nearly lost his nerve when he saw a dark-green van parked behind Kit’s Jeep. Then he told himself that since this was a purely professional call, and since he couldn’t have telephoned ahead to let Kit know he was coming, he’d simply ring the bell and assume she wasn’t having a party.

The instant the bell sounded, he heard Kevlar’s bark from inside the door, and a moment later, Kit opened it.

“Dr. Thorn?” She sounded surprised.

He felt tongue-tied and dry-mouthed. Ridiculous. He drew himself up to his six feet four. “I’m checking to see that you’re looking after Kevlar properly.”

“Oh, really. See for yourself.”

“I don’t want to intrude. You have company.”

“Hey, Doc,” a male voice called from the living room. A stocky young man with a buzz cut stuck his head around the corner of the door. “It’s me, Vince Calandruccio. Adam’s daddy.”

A moment later the largest black German shepherd Mac knew—and he knew plenty—stuck his head around the door as well.

Mac grinned and said, “Hey, Adam, how’s the arthritis?”

At a hand signal from Vince, Adam came forward, carefully sidestepping Kevlar, who stood quietly beside Kit. Mac dropped to one knee and began to ruffle the shepherd’s ears.

“Adam moves a whole lot better, Doc, since you put him on that new stuff. You should have seen him do the police obstacle course last Friday. Fast as he was when he was a pup, weren’t you, boy?”

Mac looked up and saw that Kit was getting only a few words of their conversation because Vince was behind her and Mac had bent his head over Adam. He stood, looked at Kit and spoke slowly. “Since Kevlar seems to be doing well, I’ll be on my way.”

“How would you know?” Kit said. “You’ve barely looked at him.”

“Hey, no, Doc,” Vince said. “Stay long enough to have a beer.”

“I don’t want to interrupt.”

“Interrupt, hell. Me’n Kit been friends since police academy. She worked the Dog Squad for a while until they found out what a great sniper she was.”

“A sniper?” He turned to stare at her. “A police sniper?”

“First woman in the T.A.C.T. squad. First woman sniper,” Vince said proudly. “Best in the business. Take out a gnat’s eye at a thousand yards. You ever get into a hostage situation, Doc, you better pray they send our gal Kit out to save you.”

“Not any longer.” Kit sat in a wing chair beside the fireplace. Kevlar immediately jumped into her lap, turned in a circle and settled down. “Men are supposed to be better snipers than women because their pulse and heart rate are slower, but mine used to be so low that every time they took it they wondered if I was actually alive.”

She shrugged her shoulders as though it didn’t matter, but Mac could tell it mattered terribly. “I could probably train hard enough to get it down again, but my depth perception’s all screwed up.” She touched the scar that bisected her eyebrow. “Besides, who needs a sniper who can’t hear the order to fire?”

Mac had never registered that Kit’s sardonic look came from the thin scar that raised her left eyebrow slightly. “The scar is barely visible. Good stitching.”

“As good as yours?” She raised that eyebrow at him.

He lifted his shoulders. “Close.”

“So how ’bout that beer?” Vince headed for the kitchen with easy familiarity.

Adam followed his master with his eyes, but didn’t rise from his place beside the couch.

When Vince came back with the drink, Mac took the beer, which he really didn’t want, and sat opposite Kit so that she could see both his face and Vince’s. “Where is your daughter?” he asked.

“Upstairs doing homework.”

Vince stretched out his thick legs in front of him and leaned his head on the back of the sofa. “Doc, as long as you’re here, how about some advice.”

Mac nodded.

“See, you’re keeping Adam here going fine, but he’s seven years old now and close to retiring as a police dog. The canine unit likes younger dogs.” Vince reached down and scratched behind the dog’s ears. “He’ll be going home with me for good when he does. See, right now we either get dogs from Germany—that’s where Adam came from—or from a guy in Ohio who breeds German shepherds specifically for police departments.”

“I know that.”

“He assesses the pups and does basic training for the first two years, then if he thinks a dog’s a good candidate, he recommends we buy it. So far he’s been a hundred percent on the nose. We’re paying upward of ten thousand bucks a pup, then we have to complete the training and train the handlers ourselves.”

“Ten thousand dollars?” Mac said. “Isn’t that a bit steep even for a good shepherd?”

“Not for these guys,” Vince said. “The imported Belgian Malinois cost even more. Thing is, I think with the right female, I could breed some pretty good pups from old Adam here.”

“Possibly.”

“I got my eye on a great big old girl from outside Leipzig in what used to be East Germany—that’s where Adam came from. I’ve got permission to breed her to him if I can get her over here. I could undercut the guy from Ohio and still make one heck of a profit, even if I only sold one pup a litter to a police department and the rest for pets.”

“So what do you want from me?”

“Think Kit here could manage a kennel?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I want to set up a kennel on some land I’ve got over in Hardeman County. If I can persuade Kit, we could go in together on the female and split the profits. I could keep working while she looked after the kennel.”

“It would certainly be worth investigating,” Mac said, trying to keep the dismay out of his voice. He wanted to keep Kit in his sight, not fifty miles away. “Since Kit will be working at Creature Comfort now, she should certainly be getting some excellent training.” He spoke to her. “Do you have any experience running a kennel?”

“Of course not. The whole idea is crazy, Vince. Where would Em go to school? What about Jimmy’s visitation rights? This house?” She turned to Mac. “Who said for sure I’ll be working for Creature Comfort? Did I miss something?”

“We talked it over at the staff meeting. Nancy put in a good word for you and they agreed to hire you part-time. It’s all settled. I thought we might discuss salary tonight.” He glanced at Vince. He liked Vince but he wished he’d take the hint and leave.

“Hey, it’s okay if you don’t want to go in with me. Maybe it’s too soon,” Vince said. “I’m still going to try to buy that female, though. I can raise a litter of puppies in my backyard, see how it goes. I’m glad you’re going to be getting out of the house more, Kit. When are you going to come down to the gym and start working out with the boys in blue again?”

“Don’t forget I’m not in blue any longer.”

“That doesn’t matter. You’ll always be one of us. You know that. Well, old Adam and me have to get home.”

Vince stood and Adam came to attention beside him, eyes on his face. Vince gave him a hand signal, and he fell in beside his master.

Kit walked into the front hall with Vince.

Vince hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. “Bye, sweet thing. Come on down and see us, y’ hear?”

Mac felt a jolt of adrenaline when Vince hugged Kit. Were they really just friends? He didn’t want there to be anything between them—between Kit and anybody.

As Kit stood in the door and waved goodbye to Vince and Adam, the telephone on the hall table rang. He could see the red light blinking, but Kit was facing away from it.

Instantly Kevlar jumped up and bumped her hand. She turned, saw the light and picked up the telephone. “Just a minute, whoever you are. This is the wrong phone. Hang on.” She said to Mac, “The phone I use is upstairs in my bedroom. Excuse me.”

He started to tell her goodbye, but she turned and took the steps two at a time before he could. Incredible legs. Great rear end too. He’d never much liked muscles in a woman, but the thought of those legs locked around him started a chain reaction that he’d prefer Kit not see when she came downstairs. He went back to the living room to wait for her.

It was a comfortable room with bookshelves packed with current fiction on either side of the fireplace. A few pieces of furniture that his mother would probably approve of, but mostly an accumulation selected with taste but without much money. He had picked up a picture of a much younger Emma, when he heard Kit coming downstairs.

“Sorry. Jimmy wanted to change his night to have Emma sleep over. One of these days I am going to kill him.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Jimmy Lockhart, Emma’s father, my ex-husband. He rides a patrol car. He makes me so mad. He thinks having Emma sleep over is something he does when one of his bimbos cancels.” She sank into the recliner. “God, I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear my problems.”

“At Creature Comfort we all interact like family.” He felt his face flaming. Of all the stuffy, stupid things to say! “Now, I really must go. Thanks for the beer.”

“When do you want me to show up at Creature Comfort?”

“Would next Monday be too soon?”

“Not at all. We can talk about how much I can pay toward my bill out of my salary.”

“Don’t worry about your bill.”

She put her hand on his arm to turn him to face her. “Can’t lip-read your back, Doctor.”

“Sorry. I said, don’t worry about your bill.” God, he loved the way she watched him, the way her lips parted and almost spoke the words as he did.

If he didn’t look out, he was going to grab her and kiss her.

And probably wind up flat on his back with a karate chop to the throat.

“Uh, see you Monday.”

He practically fled from the house. As he jumped into his car, he saw the curtains behind one of the upstairs windows flutter. Emma. He started the car and burned rubber getting away.