to be fine. Becky was another matter. She hadn’t stopped crying for the past twenty minutes.
Otherwise, though, it had been a light day. And it promised to be an easy night, too. They had only two boarders—a sleepy Persian cat recovering from a routine neutering and a spoiled lizard whose doting owners were out of town and didn’t trust anyone but Reed to shove lettuce into its terrarium properly.
He appreciated the easy workload, especially today, when Faith Constable and her nephew were set to arrive any minute. It had given him time to make sure the guest bedrooms were presentable—which took longer than he’d expected.
He had opened the windows to banish any mustiness. He’d been too long without a housekeeper, that was for damn sure. He hoped she was a good one.
At four-thirty, Tucker Brady, the teenager who helped him with the heavy work, poked his head in the door.
“Hey, Doc. Things are pretty quiet back here. Any chance I could dip out a little early?”
Reed ought to say no. He had promised Tucker’s older sister, Mary, that he’d keep Tucker so overworked and underpaid that he couldn’t acquire any more tattoos. Tucker already had a fire-breathing dragon trailing down one arm, and he was so proud of it he hadn’t worn a long-sleeved shirt since he got it, not even last week, when the temperature dropped below forty.
But tonight Tucker didn’t look like a boy hot for a tattoo. He had washed his face, slicked back his dark hair and waded into a vat of cologne. He looked—or more accurately smelled—like a boy with a hot date.
“Sure,” Reed said, handing the bandaged rabbit back to Becky, who clutched it to her chest tightly. Actually, Flopsy was in far more danger of dying of suffocation than a cut foot. “Just toss some food out for the ducks before you leave, okay?”
Tucker agreed eagerly and disappeared before Reed could change his mind. Becky’s mom dried the little girl’s tears, paid her bill and departed.
So far so good. And still twenty minutes left before Faith Constable was due to arrive.
But Reed should have known that, the minute he started congratulating himself on having things under control, something would go wrong.
He was washing his hands, waiting for Justine to finish running the computer backup discs so they both could call it a day, when suddenly the room came alive with a raucous honking.
Justine covered her ears and grimaced. But Reed knew that sound. Something was bothering the ducks out by the back pond. They were making such a violent ruckus that, though the clinic was a hundred yards away, the quiet office seemed full of quacking and honking and the flapping of frantic wings.
He met Justine’s bewildered gaze.
“Another fox?” she asked, worried. She picked up Gavin and held him protectively, as if she feared that the fox might decide that the plump, soft baby would make a tastier treat than an old stringy duck.
“It’s a little early for that—they usually show up at dusk. But I’ll see.” Reed went out the back door. God, that fox was a persistent devil, wasn’t he? He thought he’d scared the scavenger away for good last week.
Though he knew that ducks in the wild became dinner for foxes every day, he felt a certain responsibility toward these particular silly birds. Melissa had encouraged them to live on their pond—had named them and generally pampered them into lazy, domesticated guests.
And, as she had always said, laughing, it was very bad manners to let a predator come in and gnaw on your guests.
But, when Reed walked outside, he saw immediately that it wasn’t a fox.
Instead, it was a skinny little boy and a shaggy little dog.
And it was also a beautiful, dark-haired, well-dressed woman who had kicked off her shoes and dropped her purse at the edge of the grass and now seemed to be playing a peculiar game of tag with the other two.
As best Reed could tell, the dog had started it. Just a puppy, really, he was racing up and down the length of the pond, trailing a long, limp leash. He was having the time of his life, his pink tongue flying as he ran, barking incessantly, clearly intoxicated by the power of setting the ducks into a noisy flutter.
The little boy was chasing the dog, making periodic futile attempts to snag the leash. His pinched face was as serious as a judge, and he never took his eyes off the puppy, as if his life depended on catching him.
The woman was chasing the boy, stumbling over clumsy ducks who waddled into her path. “Spencer! Tigger! Stop! Please, sweetheart. Stop.”
At the same instant, Reed observed his friend Parker rounding the corner, his arms full of suitcases, which he promptly dropped when he spied the chaos before him.
“Spencer, don’t,” Parker called out, echoing the woman. Then he noticed Reed standing at the clinic door and gave him a sheepish grin. “This isn’t exactly how the introductions were supposed to go, but that great-looking lady down there is your new housekeeper.”
“So I gathered.”
Parker’s grin deepened. “Well? It’s your pond. Your ducks. And you’re the superhero in this story. You’re the gallant protector.”
“Damn it, Parker, I knew you had a hidden agenda here. I am nobody’s superhero, and you damn well know it.”
“Okay, okay.” Parker looked meek. “But you’re in your work clothes, while I, unfortunately, am wearing Sarah’s favorite overpriced suit. Maybe you should…um…do something?”
With a dark glance at Parker—a glance that reminded him whose idea all this had been in the first place—Reed moved toward the pond, which seemed to be churning with wings and webbed feet.
Suddenly, without warning, the dog took a flying leap into the pond and began to paddle furiously toward the nearest mallard.
Without a moment’s hesitation, the little boy barreled in after him, making a hell of a splash.
And, of course, the woman followed frantically.
She probably thought the boy was in danger. She couldn’t know, of course, that the pond was a mere two feet deep. The puppy was the only one who couldn’t touch the bottom quite easily.
Reed started to lope toward them, but Faith looked over, her lovely mouth pressed tight, her wide gaze embarrassed. She shook her head.
“No, please,” she said. “It’s okay.”
He stopped. Her voice was low and pleasant, a little husky—the kind of voice that drove men wild without even trying. But it was emphatic. She was already embarrassed, and she did not want to be “rescued.”
So he honored that, standing at the edge of the pond, watching in case anyone slipped on the way out.
Now that her clothes were drenched, he couldn’t help noticing that her body was spectacular. He glanced at Parker suspiciously, wondering if his friend had known that Faith Constable was a bona fide beauty when he decided she should hide out at Autumn House. It would be just like him to try a little matchmaking.
But Parker looked
