to provide emotional support.
She’d lay out her strategy carefully. It might take a few months, but before she was through, she’d have Mark as passionately committed as she was to Creature Comfort and its clients.
As she finished her soda, Bill came in, got himself a drink, opened it and drank deeply. Then he plopped his body down in the chair opposite Sarah’s.
“So he’s screwed you, too.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Scott. I’ve been out supervising the workmen finishing up my flight cage. He cut back the dimensions. He told me we’ll enlarge it when there’s more money, but I know he’s hiding money that we could use right this minute.” He sounded on the verge of angry tears.
“What makes you think he’s hiding money?”
“He’s noted for it. He’s overcautious, and in this case, he’s not really committed to the clinic.”
“He doesn’t want it to fail, surely.”
“Who knows? Maybe he’s got his own agenda. We go under, he and Buchanan sell this place to a medical group or bulldoze it and put up apartments.”
“Bill, that doesn’t make any sense. I’m just as annoyed about his tightfistedness as you are, but I don’t think he has any deep and sinister plot. He probably thinks he’s doing the right thing. I don’t agree with him, and I intend to change his mind, but he does have a right to his opinion.”
“Oh God. I can’t believe he’s conned you, too.” Bill threw his empty can in the general area of the trash can and stomped out.
She finished her soda, picked up Bill’s can, and tossed both into the trash container. Then she went to find her next appointment.
A monumental woman in a flowered print dress stood behind the examining table with a gigantic black-and-white Maine coon cat, who began to yowl the instant Sarah walked in the door. The cat sounded hoarse. “Mrs. Pulaski, the desk says that Sweetums has a cold.”
BY THE TIME Mark worked through the telephone messages, his stomach was rumbling.
So was the weather, as it turned out. His cubicle was so insulated that he didn’t hear the thunder until he walked into the hall. The yaps and meows seemed to have increased in volume to vie with the cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning—although the waiting room was nearly empty.
Alva Jean on the desk had been replaced by Mabel Halliburton, fiftyish and comfortable. She cocked a motherly eye at Mark and said, “You look like you been rode hard and put away wet.”
“I was hoping it didn’t show.”
“Well, it does. Go home, have a nice glass of wine and a decent dinner. Can you cook?”
“Can but don’t. My idea of a gourmet feast is takeout Chinese.”
“Then take out. You need a good woman, Mark. Somebody to look after you.”
Mark laughed. “My mother gives me a decent dinner most Sundays when she’s not traveling. That’s as close to a good woman as I’m likely to get.”
Mabel shook her head and picked up the ringing telephone. “Creature Comfort Veterinary Clinic,” she trilled as she waved her fingers at Mark.
Damn! He’d forgotten to order that headset. He’d call Beth first thing tomorrow.
He stood for a moment in the doorway of the clinic and watched the rain sluice down. The wind drove it against the building and the cars. He looked at the flapping tarps that covered the remaining piles of building materials and fence posts, and hoped that whatever was underneath stayed dry.
The temperature had dropped about thirty degrees since he’d arrived at the clinic several hours ago. A night for neither man nor beast, as his grandfather would have said.
He took a deep breath and raced toward his car, clicking the button on his remote door lock as he went. As he yanked the door open, he saw a flash of dirty gray that looked like the head of an old mop skitter behind his front wheel.
“What the—”
The mop slid farther forward, flattened under the car. Some damn animal must have gotten loose from its owner. The last thing he needed was to drive over somebody’s pet tabby.
Rain ran down under the collar of his coat and dripped off his eyelashes. He was about as wet as he could possibly get. He hunkered down, and saw only the end of a matted behind. Didn’t look like anybody’s pet anything. But whatever it was, was shivering and soaked, much like Mark, himself.
He moved around to the front of the car and squatted to look under the bumper—and came nose to nose with a small, wet, gray face with shoe-button eyes rimmed in white.
A dog. Something resembling a dog. A terror-stricken little creature. Mark called to it. It stayed flat. He could see the water pouring under its belly. He couldn’t drive off with the thing under his car.
“Come on out of there,” he said.
The button eyes held his. The shivering continued. Damn thing must be half frozen. No way could that matted coat provide any protection.
Lightning flashed, and the dog whimpered, turning its head slightly in the direction of the flash.
It was wearing a collar. Oh God, it was somebody’s lost pet. Long lost, judging from the condition it was in. He’d heard that abandoned dogs tended to go feral, became frightened of human beings. Maybe this one was too cold and too wet and too frightened to run.
But probably not too frightened to bite Mark’s hand if he reached out for it. And it might be rabid.
For a moment he considered going back into the clinic and hunting up Jack Renfro or one of the kennel cleaners to capture the pup. But it might disappear in the meantime. The animal might not be Mark’s problem, but he couldn’t leave the poor thing to suffer.
He took a deep breath and reached out a tentative hand. “Come on, boy,” he whispered. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
He expected the dog to snarl or back away. For a moment nothing happened, then it began to wriggle its body forward toward Mark’s outstretched hand.
Mark ignored the water streaming into his eyes. Suddenly the only thing that mattered was that he win this creature over. He kept talking.
The dog kept inching.
Mark was afraid that if he made a grab for the dog, it would spook, so he kept up his soft patter, kept his hand out there while the rain ran down his arm.
“We’ll both wind up with pneumonia,” he whispered. The rear end of the small body gave an answering wriggle—as though the dog were trying to wag a tail that was no longer there.
The small triangular head had almost touched Mark’s knee. He reached down and touched the wet fur between the ears. The little dog sighed softly and came all the way out to lean against Mark’s leg.
“What the hell am I going to
