Читать книгу Even the Nights are Better - Margot Dalton - Страница 9

RAIN FELL over the hills of Central Texas during the night, carried by gray brooding clouds that had rolled in with the twilight and massed along the darkening skyline as soft and dense as piles of wood ash.

But it wasn’t one of the torrential downpours that often lash the Hill Country in the spring, dropping two or three inches onto green wooded hillsides and gravelly creek beds in the space of a few hours.

This was a gentle sweet spring rain, pattering and rustling in the new green leaves, dancing on the silvered surface of the river, whispering through gullies and shallow draws in the midnight blackness. The moisture flowed like a blessing across the hills and valleys, and by dawn the world was made new, washed clean and bright as a freshly minted coin.

Just as the rain ended, a silver-gray Camaro came skimming along a country road in the early-morning freshness, its sleek sculptured sides catching and reflecting the rising sun’s dazzling rays that broke into rainbows among the silent dripping trees.

This vehicle belonged to Vernon Trent and was his one wry, half-joking concession to longing for vanished youth. On this glorious spring morning, Vernon Trent had just passed his forty-fifth birthday and was, on the whole, comfortable with himself and his life. He liked the maturity and confidence that came with middle age, enjoyed his friends and daily routines and didn’t really miss the real or imagined crises of youth.

But he did have a stubborn boyish love for his shining, sporty Camaro, and never more than on a morning like this when he was alone at the wheel, the only living being in a world so fresh and lovely that it brought a lump to his throat.

His excuse for this drive was a scouting trip before office hours, a search for likely properties for a wealthy businessman from Dallas who fancied a retirement home here in the Hill Country. But this pretext was pure nonsense, of course, and Vernon was well aware of the fact.

After all, it wasn’t as if he’d be likely to stumble across some new piece of land for sale out here. Vernon Trent knew every inch of these hills as intimately as he knew his own tidy kitchen back in the old stone house in Crystal Creek. There was nothing for sale along this road that he wasn’t aware of already, and few that he hadn’t listed personally.

It couldn’t hurt, though, he reflected as he glanced appreciatively out the window. It couldn’t hurt to drive for a spell out here anyhow. Maybe he’d get some ideas. And, he mused, smiling briefly into the smoky mirror, the morning was just so damned beautiful….

The rain-drenched scrub trees in the pastures, mostly cedar and mesquite, glittered damply in the sunlight as if they were fashioned from crystal and emeralds. Beneath the trees wildflowers were already blooming in shy profusion, bluebonnets and buttercups and Indian paintbrush, fluffy wild poppies and bright Indian blanket that carpeted the fields in vivid color.

Small animals, rabbits and coons and squirrels, frisked and played through the swaying grasses, rejoicing in life and springtime while a thousand trills of birdsong rose straight up to the clear blue heavens. Baby animals were everywhere, wobbly little calves and bony long-legged colts attesting to the enduring cycle of mating and renewal.

Vernon passed the high curved gates of the Double C Ranch, smiling as he thought about mating and renewal. There was a lot of that going on at the Double C these days, so much that the neighboring ranchers and townspeople were having all kinds of fun making jokes about the love affairs in the McKinney family.

They were affectionate jokes, though, because everybody liked and respected the McKinneys. In fact, there wasn’t a soul Vernon knew of who wasn’t tickled about what was going on out here, with J.T. finding himself a pretty young wife from Boston, and then all three of the McKinney youngsters unexpectedly following in their father’s footsteps within a few months. Even that lovable wild man, young Cal McKinney, looked to be on the verge of settling down with a good woman. And that, Vernon thought fervently, was a real blessing for the whole family.

Just yesterday morning, during coffee time down at the Longhorn, Vernon had overheard Bubba Gibson joking loudly that the way everybody was behaving out at the Double C, somebody must have dumped a couple of barrels of love potion into the Claro River and let it drift downstream past the ranch.

At the time Vernon had laughed along with everybody else, but now it didn’t seem so funny. Out here, surrounded by sunrise freshness and the beauty of springtime, it just seemed right and proper somehow that the people at the ranch should be fitting in with the cycle of nature, finding themselves some love and tenderness in a big lonely world.

A lot more fitting, Vernon thought with a sudden tightening of his jaw, than the way Bubba Gibson was acting these days.

No matter how many tons of love potion might be drifting down the Claro, there was no excuse for Bubba’s flagrant affair with Billie Jo Dumont, a girl younger than his own daughter. Bubba didn’t even trouble to hide his infatuation, almost seemed to flaunt it, in fact. People felt sorry for Mary Gibson, who bore this public humiliation with quiet dignity and never said a word against her philandering husband…at least, nothing that anybody heard.

Vernon’s wide pleasant mouth set in a hard line and he frowned again, gripping the wheel and surging around a bend in the road a little faster than was really necessary.

Like many confirmed bachelors, Vernon idealized women, liked them and enjoyed their company and had strong feelings about how they should be treated. Especially good women, wives like Mary Gibson who helped their husbands and stood by them through all the lean years, all the building and struggling and hard work. To Vernon’s way of thinking, a woman like that deserved the very best her man could give.

If I had a wife who’d stood by me like that, Vernon thought, there’d never be a minute that she couldn’t trust me. I’d give her so much….

But just then his thoughts halted abruptly. Even his breathing was suspended for a moment as his car purred toward the gates of the Circle T, the ranch adjoining the McKinney place. Pain stabbed at him, as fresh and powerful as it had been all those years ago.

Briefly, Vernon Trent’s shining cheerful world turned gray and cloudy while he swept past the big stone gates.

He gripped the wheel again, wondering with a touch of desperation if he was ever going to get over those old feelings. Maybe it was all this thinking about love, about J.T.’s marriage and the young people finding partners for themselves, even the animals all happily paired out there in the thickets, playing and mating and nesting in secret places….

Vernon shook his head restlessly, staring down at the ditch beside the road. Something caught his eye and he hesitated, then braked, backed the low-slung powerful car around and drove slowly back toward the gates of the Circle T. He pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped, got out and walked around his car to peer down into the wet grassy ditch.

Vernon Trent was a good-looking man, even in the bright impartial light of the sunrise. He was a little above medium height, with broad shoulders and a stocky muscular frame, though he was probably carrying twenty pounds or so of excess weight these days. Vernon knew well enough that he’d been letting himself go and should be doing something about getting back into shape, but somehow he just never seemed to find the time or the incentive. In the meantime he disguised the extra pounds well enough with casual pleated corduroys and roomy worn tweed sport jackets like the one he wore this morning.

His face was blunt, square and full of good humor, and his brown eyes were shrewd, though they sometimes softened to a thoughtful faraway look that made people suspect that Vernon Trent might still be a bit of a dreamer.

His thick sandy hair was half-gray, but that was nothing recent. The same dusting of silver had been there for more than twenty years, ever since Vernon came home from Vietnam. He’d wandered into the lonely bus depot at Crystal Creek on a hot August morning with his duffel bag on his shoulder and a slight limp that only bothered him occasionally, in damp cold weather. But there’d also been a look in his eyes that even his best friends had never found the courage to inquire about, and that hair gone gray before its time….

Right now, though, none of this ancient history was on Vernon Trent’s mind. His concerns were more immediate, focused on the small crumpled dark mass he’d sighted at the side of the road just where the shoulder straggled into a lush growth of weeds and grass.

He edged forward intently, heedless of the damp foliage brushing against his pant legs and the puddles of water that squelched up around his suede shoes. He knelt beside the little furry object.

“Hi, fella,” he muttered huskily. “How are you? Pretty bad, aren’t you? Poor little guy. Poor little guy.”

His square tanned face was tender with sympathy, his brown eyes full of compassion as he touched the little dog’s matted fur. The suffering animal lay shivering in the weeds, gazing piteously up at Vernon’s face, blue-black liquid eyes glassy with pain. The dog was slick with dampness, one of those comical terrier types that look like brisk self-propelled mops when they’re on their feet and in motion.

But this little dog wasn’t likely to be in motion in the near future, Vernon suspected. There was no doubt that the animal had been hit by a passing car during the rain last night. It lay crumpled and twisted on the grass, its tongue lolling, one hind leg obviously broken, and a long gash in its side crusted with blood.

Vernon gazed down at the animal, then reached out again to touch one of the silky ears. The little dog lifted its jaw, pink tongue wavering painfully in a feeble attempt to lick the big man’s fingers.

Vernon swallowed hard at this and dashed a hand impatiently across his eyes. After a moment’s hesitation he got briskly to his feet and hurried back to his car, opening the trunk and taking out a battered old plaid blanket that had served many strange purposes over the years. Without pausing to think further, he rolled the little broken body into the soft fabric, set it gently on the seat beside him and pulled through the gates of the Circle T and up the long curving entry road.

Usually when Vernon Trent drove up this particular road, his heart was in his mouth and he had a hard time breathing normally, beset by all the crazy adolescent reactions that he never seemed to outgrow no matter how old he got. Today, though, wrung with concern for the pitiful little object on the seat beside him, Vernon wasn’t bothered quite as much by his own emotions.

Still, when a slim woman came out of the barn at his approach and looked curiously over at his car, Vernon’s throat tightened and his heart leaped with excitement, then settled into the old dull ache that had been part of his life for decades now.

“Hi, Carolyn,” he said casually, getting out of the car and approaching the woman. “Nice morning, isn’t it?”

“It surely is,” the woman agreed, coming toward him with a smile. “’Specially after that rain last night, Vern. What’re you doing up and about so early?”

“Just out for a drive, Caro. Scouting property for a client. You know me, I never stop working.”

Vernon’s voice and manner were casual, but his heart was singing, on fire with love for the woman who stood smiling in front of him.

Carolyn Randolph Townsend was almost exactly his own age, just a week younger, in fact, and Vernon Trent couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t loved her. Maybe in the years before grade school when he’d only seen her at birthday parties and community picnics… maybe he hadn’t loved her then. He couldn’t remember. But certainly by the time they were both in first grade he had selected Carolyn Randolph as the woman of his dreams, and in the forty years since he’d never really wavered from that choice.

Carolyn Randolph Townsend, at forty-five, had a figure to put most younger women to shame. Her tall curving body was firm and beautiful and full of promise, even in the old jeans and denim shirt that she wore this morning with her riding boots. Her wide blue-green eyes were vivid, sparkling warmly in her tanned oval face, and her hair, pulled back casually and tied at the nape of her neck with a blue bandanna, was almost the same rich dark gold it had always been. Still, Vernon’s keen loving eyes noticed a few scattered streaks of gray that he’d never seen there before, glistening softly in the early-morning light.

Poor girl, he thought, gazing at those silvery strands, thinking about all this woman had suffered in the past few years. My poor girl….

He fought the familiar desire to take her in his arms, to hold her and protect her and shield her from pain.

Get a grip, fella, he ordered himself sternly. It’s not you she wants to comfort her, and it never has been….

Maybe things would have been different if he’d had more courage when they were young, if he’d ever told her all the things he was feeling. But she and her older sister, Pauline, had been like princesses, growing up out here on this big sprawling ranch that was one the finest places in the area, second only to the McKinneys’ Double C. He, on the other hand, was just young Vernon Trent, the druggist’s son, living with his parents through most of his boyhood in a little apartment above the drugstore in Crystal Creek.

And in later years, just when all that ceased to matter quite as much and he was ready to open his heart to her, Vernon was drafted. He left Crystal Creek before he was twenty, and came back when he was twenty-three. By that time, everything had changed in the Randolph family. Pauline, Carolyn’s sister, and J. T. McKinney had a little girl to go along with their two boys. The Randolph girls’ charming dissolute father, Steven, had run off somewhere and dropped out of sight, leaving his wife, Deborah, to run the ranch with the help of Frank Townsend, her young foreman. Pauline Randolph McKinney had a little girl to go with her two young sons. And Carolyn had been married for more than three years to Frank Townsend and was a mother herself.

“Vern? Is something the matter?”

Vernon pulled himself back to reality with a visible effort, banishing all those painful twenty-year-old memories and turning with an easy smile to the woman in front of him, who was now frowning anxiously.

“Not with me, Caro,” he said. “I’m on top of the world. But I’ve got somebody in my car who isn’t, I’m afraid.”

He opened the passenger door of his car and pointed to the small motionless bundle on the seat.

“I found him out on the road a few minutes ago,” he said. “Just past your gates. Looks like he…”

But Carolyn was already leaning into the car, turning back the blanket with gentle hands and gazing in horror at the pitiful little dog curled within the folds.

Vernon watched as her expressive features registered a whole series of impressions—shock, compassion, tenderness, pain and finally outrage. “God, Vern, this makes me so mad!” Carolyn said, straightening and turning to her old friend, her eyes glittering in the early light.

“What does, Caro?” he asked gently.

“This,” she said, waving her hand at the dog and then reaching down to caress one of its ears. “It’s happening more and more these days. Those damn town people, Vern, they just never give a thought to what they do. This little dog is certainly no ranch dog. He belongs to somebody from the city, somebody who’s moving away or doesn’t want to be bothered with him anymore, so they drive forty miles out into the country and dump him off, figuring he’ll just find a happy home at some ranch.”

She paused for breath, her chest heaving, her delicate features pink with anger. Vernon was silent, watching her.

“And,” Carolyn went on in a lower tone, touching the little dog’s head again, “it’s just so brutal, Vern. What chance does a little fella like this have out in open country that he doesn’t know a thing about? People who treat animals this way should be shot. They really should.”

Vernon grinned. “Well, Caro, I can’t say I disagree. But it might take a few months to get legislation like that passed, even in Texas.”

“Even in Texas,” Carolyn agreed, swallowing her outrage and trying to smile back. “Lift him out, Vern, would you? Be real careful,” she added. “Just carry him into the barn here, and we’ll make him a little nest of straw in one of the mangers.”

“Look, Carolyn,” Vernon began awkwardly, “I didn’t mean for you to have to do all this. I mean, I don’t want to make a lot of work and trouble for you. It’s just that I thought the little guy needed some help and you were closest….”

“Be quiet, Vern,” Carolyn said, laying a gentle hand on his cheek and giving him a smile that made his heart stop, then begin thudding like mad. “Just do as you’re told, okay? Bring the little guy in here.”

Vernon obeyed silently, carrying the dog into the barn and settling it in the upper portion of one of the mangers, a shallow wooden box designed for oats and other grains into which Carolyn was busily arranging a bedding of soft dried alfalfa.

“This should be nice and cozy for him,” she said, leaning in to study the small dog, examining his injuries with competent tanned hands while the animal shivered beneath her touch.

“Do you still have that toy car phone of yours?” she asked over her shoulder without turning around.

“It’s not a toy,” Vernon said with dignity. “It’s a completely viable working tool, Caro. An absolute necessity in the modern business world.”

“Like hell,” his old friend said cheerfully. “It’s just a toy, Vern, and you know it. I can never get over the way you men love your toys. But I’ll allow that it could be handy at times. Call Manny’s office for me, would you, and see if he could drop by and take a look at this little fella?”

“Oh, Caro,” Vernon protested. “Truly, I didn’t mean for you to…”

She turned to him, her face in the dim interior of the barn softly illuminated by dusty rays of light slanting through the big open doors.

“Vernon Trent,” she said with amusement, “if you just don’t beat all. You bring me this pitiful little thing, and then you argue with me when I want to help him.”

Vernon laughed with her, then sobered. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just that this is getting way more complicated than I’d figured. Do you have any idea what veterinarian fees are these days?”

Carolyn stared at him in disbelief. “Do I?” she asked him. “Vern, you know perfectly well I’ve been running this place on my own ever since Frank died. You think those bills just get paid by magic, somehow, without me signing the checks?”

He paused, stung by her words though she hadn’t meant them unkindly. “I know, Caro,” he said again, his voice low and strained. “And God knows, it’s been a miracle, the way you’ve managed things on your own. I just meant…” Vern hesitated. “Caro, girl…I’m not sure he’s going to be bright and perky again no matter what we do. He looks to be in pretty bad shape.”

Carolyn glanced down at the matted body in her manger, touching the animal’s thin heaving side with a gentle hand. As it had with Vernon, the small dog rolled its head feebly and tried to lick her fingers. Carolyn’s face softened and twisted.

“He’s going to get better,” she said, squaring her shoulders and turning to Vernon with sudden decision, her eyes damp and glistening in the misty light. “I don’t intend to let him die, Vern. I’ve seen enough of death these past few years and I’m sick of it, that’s all. I just plain won’t allow him to die.”

Vernon gazed back at her in silent understanding. Within the past ten years, Carolyn had lost both her mother and her beloved sister to breast cancer, and her sturdy vigorous husband to a heart attack. That was a lot of suffering for one woman to endure, even a woman as strong as Carolyn Randolph Townsend.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to bring the dog to her.

But it was too late now. She’d already forgotten about Vernon and was filling a pail with water to wash the dog’s livid cut. Vernon watched her a moment longer, then turned quietly and went out to his car to phone the veterinarian’s office in Crystal Creek.

CAROLYN DABBED tenderly at the long bloody cut on the dog’s shuddering body, trying to be as gentle as she could, wincing as the little animal growled and whimpered with pain.

“Poor little furry guy,” she whispered. “Poor little tenderhearted baby. You don’t even know what’s hit you, do you? You can’t figure out why the world should turn so dark and cruel all of a sudden. Poor sweet little thing…”

The dog’s bony head lolled wearily and its forelegs twitched. Carolyn rubbed it with another cloth, trying to dry the matted fur without jarring any obvious injuries.

“Carolyn, I called Manny’s office,” she heard Vernon saying behind her. “He’s out on a call, but they’ll try to locate him and pass on the message.”

“Thanks, Vern,” Carolyn said in an abstracted tone, reaching for clean burlap sacks to cover and cushion the little body.

“Well, I’d better be pushing off,” he said. “Unless there’s something else I can do for you, Caro, before I go.”

Carolyn turned around then, smiling at his sturdy form and pleasant anxious face as he hesitated in the doorway of the barn. Vernon Trent was not only one of her oldest friends, but just about the nicest man she’d ever met, she thought suddenly. She was a little surprised at the quick flood of warmth she felt for him as he stood there in the slanting early-morning light.

She smiled and gave him a brisk dismissive wave of her hand. “Vern, for God’s sake, quit fussing, all right? You just go on into town and sell the hotel or the hospital or something, and I’ll look after this little floor mop of ours.”

He nodded and turned toward his car, his square features still full of concern. “I’ll call you later, Caro, okay? I’m interested in hearing what Manny has to say about him.”

“Sure, Vern,” Carolyn said, turning back to her small patient. “Not till evening, though, okay? Cynthia and I have a date this afternoon. They roped us into handling one of the tables at the church pie sale.”

Vernon grinned, the old teasing sparkle back in his eyes. “Well, now, that sounds like fun, Caro. Just your cup of tea.”

Her mouth twisted in a wry answering grin. “Go away. Get that ridiculous kiddie car out of my driveway, Vernon Trent,” she said calmly, “before I get my rifle and shoot the damn tires.”

Vernon laughed and strolled out to climb into his car again.

Carolyn wandered to the doorway, watching him disappear around a bend in the road in a bright flash of silver. She felt strangely wistful as she gazed into the distance, but after a few moments of silence she squared her shoulders and walked briskly into the barn again.

“Mama?” a voice called from the other side of the box stalls. “You in here, Mama?”

“Round the other side, dear,” Carolyn replied. “By the tack rooms.”

She looked up and smiled as her daughter, Beverly, rounded the bank of stalls. As always, Carolyn was stunned for a moment by the girl’s beauty, even though she knew Beverly better than anybody and was often less than impressed by certain aspects of her daughter’s personality.

But there was no denying that the girl was lovely.

She glimmered like a spring blossom in the dusty interior of the big barn, in her soft pink jumpsuit of crinkled cotton with a wide braided-hemp belt and matching sandals. Her thick golden hair, brushed and shining, held back by a pink shell-shaped clip, cascaded down her slim back.

“What’s this?” Beverly asked curiously, bending forward to peer into the manger. “Oh!” she added, and drew back hastily. “Where’d he come from, Mama?”

“Vernon Trent brought him in just now,” Carolyn said. “Vern was just driving by, saw this little fella crumpled by the side of the road.”

“He was hit by a car?”

“Obviously,” Carolyn said dryly. “He’s somebody’s abandoned house pet, I’d guess, without a lot of back road smarts.”

Beverly was silent a moment, gazing at the quivering bundle of sacking. Then she gathered herself and turned to her mother. “So he’s what that call was about, I guess.”

“What call, Beverly?”

“Manny’s secretary called the house just now. She said she raised Manny on his mobile phone and he’s somewhere out in this area anyway, so he’ll stop by on his way back to town.”

“Oh, good,” Carolyn said. “I was sure hoping he could come right away, but I didn’t think I’d be quite that lucky.”

“Is Vern still here?” Beverly asked.

“No, he left a few minutes ago. Why?”

“I thought if he hadn’t left yet I could get a ride into town with him. I’m spending the afternoon shopping with Lynn and she can drop me off later, but I still need a way to get in there.”

“What’s wrong with your car?” Carolyn asked, gazing blankly at her daughter.

“It’s in the shop, Mama,” Beverly said patiently. “I told you yesterday, I’m having that dented fender fixed and painted.”

“Oh, that’s right. Sorry, sweetie,” Carolyn added. “If I’d known you wanted a ride, I’d have asked Vern to wait.” She paused, glancing up at her daughter in sudden surprise. “It’s awfully early, isn’t it, Beverly? What are you planning to do in town anyway, before eight o’clock in the morning?”

Beverly turned away, heading for the door. “Oh, it’s just one of the kids on the ward,” she said over her shoulder. “He’s having his surgery this morning, and I promised him I’d be there when he woke up because his mother has to work. It’s okay,” she added. “Lori said I could borrow her car if I’m stuck. Bye, Mama. I hope your little guy’s going to be all right.”

Carolyn nodded and leaned against the manger, watching thoughtfully as her daughter disappeared from her view.

Sometimes she found it so puzzling, this whole business of Beverly and her volunteer work with the children at the hospital. Carolyn wanted very much to believe that Beverly’s motives were sincere, that in those sick little kids at the Crystal Creek Community Hospital the restless beautiful girl had finally found something to hold her interest and release her from her intense preoccupation with herself.

Still Carolyn couldn’t help being a little skeptical, wondering if the kids were just a new audience Beverly was playing to, a whole new group to dazzle with her gorgeous looks and that beauty-queen smile of hers.

Carolyn’s thoughts were interrupted by the sound of another vehicle in the driveway, then the slamming of a door and brisk footsteps.

Dr. Manuel Hernandez, the local veterinarian, appeared in the doorway, white teeth flashing in his dark handsome face.

“Good mornin’, Carolyn,” he drawled cheerfully. “What’s this big urgent problem of yours?”

Carolyn eyed the young man thoughtfully. “You’re awful perky this morning, Manny,” she observed. “Seems like every single soul in Crystal Creek got up with the chickens this morning.”

“Not me. I was up all night,” he said, leaning against one of the box stalls, relaxed and casual in blue jeans and a soft plaid shirt. “Just over at the Double C, in fact. One of J.T.’s mares had trouble foaling, and J.T. and Ken and I worked on her for hours.”

“Oh, no. Is she all right?” Carolyn asked with quick concern.

“Mother and baby doing just fine,” Manny told her with a smile. “It was that new dark sorrel three-year-old, the one Lynn calls Cherokee. Finally dropped a real nice little bay filly, just a half hour ago.”

“Well, that’s good,” Carolyn said with relief.

“But I’m sure one tired cowboy,” Manny said, stretching his lean muscular body and rubbing wearily at his eyes. “I hope y’all don’t have a couple of heifers calving, or something. I want to go home and grab a few hours’ sleep.”

Carolyn gazed critically at the dark-haired young man, shaking her head. “Just look at you,” she commented. “About three times handsomer than any man has a right to be, and you spend all your nights working. It’s time you started thinking about getting married and settling down, Manny.”

“Oh, I think about it, Carolyn,” he said. “I think about it a lot, actually. You just find me the right woman and I’ll be ready in a minute.”

Carolyn grinned. “From what I hear, Manuel Hernandez, you’ve got no problem finding women.”

“That’s true,” he agreed cheerfully. “It’s finding the right one that’s always the problem.”

Carolyn laughed, leading him across the barn to where the terrier lay.

As soon as he saw the dog, Manny’s teasing and laughter vanished and he was all business, examining the little animal with long sensitive fingers.

Finally he straightened and turned to Carolyn, his face grave. “Most of the injuries are quite superficial, really,” he said. “I could put a cast on the leg and stitch up this cut in just a few minutes, but that’s not the main problem, Carolyn. I think you’d better let me put him down.”

“Put him down?” she echoed, staring wide-eyed at the young veterinarian. “Why would you do that, Manny, if his injuries are superficial? I’m willing to pay for the treatment, and I’ll give him whatever care he needs afterward.”

“I said most of the injuries weren’t serious,” Manny said patiently. “The problem, Carolyn, is that his jaw is shattered. Now, this little guy is just a stray from God knows where. I’m sure you don’t want to pay for the kind of delicate and extensive surgery that would be necessary to repair his jaw. I doubt that any of my clients would, no matter how crazy they were about their dogs.”

Carolyn hesitated. She was flooded all at once with deep sorrow, an anguish so hot and intense that she was afraid to analyze it. “Isn’t there any alternative?” she asked in a low strained voice. “Anything else we could do?”

Manny shrugged. “The only alternative,” he said, “is to strap the jaw into position and then feed him liquids by hand until it knits together, if it’s ever going to. Otherwise the rest of his injuries will heal, but he’ll gradually starve to death. He sure can’t chew and swallow, not like this.”

“What kind of liquids?”

“Carolyn,” Manny said gently, “it’s a big job to take on, you know. It would take hours of patience every day to get enough nourishment into him.”

Carolyn knew Manny was probably right. She was being stubborn and unreasonable over this whole thing, but she couldn’t help herself.

“What kind of liquids?” she repeated.

Manny shrugged. “Just about anything that’s protein rich and easy to digest,” he said. “Bread soaked in milk, soft dog food mixed up in a blender with beef stock or soup, that kind of thing. Whatever you’d normally feed him, only liquefied, trickled down his throat one spoonful at a time.”

“Okay,” Carolyn said in a barely audible voice, avoiding the younger man’s eyes. “Maybe I’ll… I’ll give it a try for a while. If you’d just patch him up, Manny, I’ll take it from here.”

The veterinarian nodded, started toward the door and then paused, giving Carolyn a keen thoughtful glance. He seemed about to say something further but apparently thought better of it, turning away and striding out to his van to get his equipment.