vet?” she looked at the puppy that now appeared to be utterly enamored with Alfredo. The chef was scratching Jonathan behind the ears and along his nose, sending the Labrador to seventh heaven. “He doesn’t look sick. Is that really necessary?”
“Absolutely,” Theresa answered without a drop of hesitation. “Just think, if someone is looking for him, how would it look if you handed over a sick dog? If they wanted to, they could turn around and sue you for negligence.”
Lily felt hemmed in. The last thing she wanted was to have to take care of something, to get involved with a living, breathing entity.
Eyeing the puppy uncertainly, Lily sighed. “I should have never opened the door this morning.”
“Oh, how can you say that? Look at this adorable little face,” Theresa urged, cupping the puppy’s chin and turning his head toward Lily.
“I’m trying not to,” Lily answered honestly. But Theresa was right. She didn’t want to chance something happening to the puppy while it was temporarily in her care. Emphasis on the word temporarily, she thought. “Okay, how do I go about finding an animal doctor who’s good, but not expensive? I wouldn’t know where to start,” she admitted, looking to Theresa for guidance since the woman had been the one to bring up the matter of a vet to begin with.
Theresa’s smile bordered on being beatific. “Well, as luck would have it, I happen to know of one who just opened up a new practice a few doors down from one of my best friends. She took her dog to him and told me that he performed nothing short of a miracle on Lazarus.” The fact that Maizie didn’t have a dog named Lazarus, or a dog named anything else for that matter, was an unimportant, minor detail in the grand scheme of things. As a rule, Theresa didn’t lie, but there were times—such as now—when rules were meant to be bent if not altogether broken. “Why don’t I call her to get his phone number for you?” she suggested, looking at Lily.
That sounded like as good a plan as any, she supposed. “Sure, why not?” Lily replied with a vague shrug, resigned to this course of action. “What do I have to lose? It’s only money, right?”
Theresa knew that times were tight for the younger woman. She saw what she was about to propose as an investment in Lily’s future happiness.
“I tell you what. We’ve had a great month. I’ll pay for ‘Jonathan’s’ visit,” she offered, petting the eager puppy on the head. The dog stopped roaming around long enough to absorb the head pat and then went back to sniffing the entire area for a second time. “Consider it my gift to you.”
“How about me?” Alfredo said, pretending to feel left out. “Got any gifts for me, boss?”
“I’ll pay for your visit to the vet, too, if you decide you need to go,” Theresa quipped as she retreated into her office.
Once inside, Theresa carefully closed the door and crossed to her desk. She didn’t care for cell phones. The connection was never as clear as a landline in her opinion. Picking up the receiver, she quickly dialed the number she wanted to reach.
Maizie picked up on the second ring. “Connors’ Realty.”
“Houston, we have liftoff,” Theresa announced in what sounded like a stage whisper to her own ear.
“Theresa?” Maizie asked uncertainly. “Is that you?”
“Of course it’s me. Who else would call you and say that?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea. Theresa, I mean this in the kindest way, but you’ve definitely been watching too many movies, woman. Now, what is it that you’re trying to say?”
Impatience wove through every word. “That Lily is bringing the puppy to Frances’s son.”
“Then why didn’t you just say so?”
“Because it sounds so ordinary that way,” Theresa complained.
“Sometimes, Theresa, ordinary is just fine. Is she bringing the puppy in today?”
“That’s what I urged her to do.”
“Perfect,” Maizie said with heartfelt enthusiasm. “Nothing like being two doors down from young love about to unfold.”
“I don’t see how that’s any different from Houston, we have liftoff,” Theresa protested.
“Maybe it’s not, Theresa,” Maizie conceded, not because she thought she was wrong, but because she knew Theresa liked to be right. “Maybe it’s not.”
The first thing that struck Christopher when he walked into Exam Room 3 was that the woman was standing rather than sitting. She was clearly uneasy in her present situation. The puppy with her appeared to have the upper hand.
Smiling at her, he made a quick assessment before he spoke. “This isn’t your dog, is it?”
Lily looked at the veterinarian, stunned. “How can you tell?” she asked.
All she had given the receptionist out front was her name. The dark-haired woman had immediately nodded and told her that “Mrs. Manetti called to say you’d be coming in.” The young woman at the desk, Erika, had then proceeded to call over one of the veterinary aides, who promptly ushered her and Jonathan into an exam room. As far as she knew, no details about her nonrelationship to the animal she’d brought in had been given.
Maybe she was wrong, Lily realized belatedly.
“Did Theresa tell you that?” she asked.
“Theresa?” Christopher repeated, confused.
Okay, wrong guess, Lily decided. She shook her head. “Never mind,” she told him, then repeated her initial question. “How can you tell he’s not mine?” Was there some sort of look that pet owners had? Some sort of inherent sign that the civilian non–pet owners obviously seemed to lack?
Christopher nodded toward the antsy puppy who looked as if he was ready to race around all four of the exam room’s corners almost simultaneously. “He has a rope around his neck,” Christopher pointed out.
He probably equated that with cruelty to animals, Lily thought. “Necessity is the mother of invention,” she told him, then explained her thinking. “I made a loop and tied a rope to it because I didn’t have any other way to make sure that he would follow me.”
There was a stirring vulnerability about the young woman with the long, chestnut hair. It pulled him in. Christopher looked at her thoughtfully, taking care not to allow his amusement at her action to show. Some people were thin-skinned and would construe that as being laughed at. Nothing could have been further from the truth.
“No leash,” he concluded.
“No leash,” Lily confirmed. Then, because she thought that he needed more information to go on—and she had no idea what was and wasn’t important when it came to assessing the health of a puppy—she went on to tell the good-looking vet, “I found him on my doorstep—I tripped over him, actually.”
The way she said it led Christopher to
