Hitched For The Holidays: Hitched For The Holidays / A Groom In Her Stocking. Barbara Dunlop

      1

      “BABY, YOU ARE SOOO GOOD. We’re nearly there. Steady, sweetheart. Yes, yes, that’s it.”

      Mindy Ryder shook her head to break the hypnotic spell of the melodic voice. For a moment she’d imagined Dr. Eric Kincaid was crooning to her instead of Peaches, her rascally Corgi. No wonder his waiting room was always full. He charmed his patients, and their owners, with his soothing voice. He’d opened his animal clinic less than two years ago, and already he had a reputation as one of the best small-pet vets in the Phoenix area. It made her day when she came to his office, and not just because her dog liked him.

      “I don’t know, Mindy,” he said a trace apologetically, using her first name with casual friendliness. “Peaches seems a hundred percent healthy to me.”

      “She was sneezing…” Mindy began, a little ashamed of using her dog as a ploy to see Dr. Kincaid. Now that she was here, she was losing her nerve anyway. “Sorry I wasted your time.”

      “I’m always glad to see Peaches. She’s the only female Corgi on my patient list. Makes her pretty special.”

      He smiled broadly and rubbed the short-legged dog’s thick white ruff. Peaches basked in his attention, quickly forgetting the indignities of the examination.

      The veterinarian was wearing a sky-blue lab coat that picked up the color of his eyes, and his sandy blond hair was just long enough to look rumpled in a fresh-from-the-pillow way.

      He attached the leash to the dog’s collar and made easy work of setting the thirty-pound pooch on the spotless white-tiled floor of the examining room. Mindy knew this signaled the end of the appointment, but she’d come for a purpose that had nothing to do with imaginary dog sneezes. If she chickened out now, she’d always wonder what his answer would have been.

      The trouble was, she needed a man. What’s more, he had to be a doctor. The vet was the only bachelor she knew who qualified. Fortunately his receptionist, Della Rodriguez, was friendly and liked to chat. She’d leaked enough tidbits of information about her boss to make Mindy sure he was unattached and eligible. In fact, Della had dropped veiled hints that he’d been dumped by a woman and was nursing a broken heart.

      If so, he was good at putting up a cheerful front. The man had a smile as bright as the desert sun and pearly white teeth that made his whole face sparkle with good humor. But even if he had teeth like walrus tusks and a Cyrano schnoz, she’d still need him.

      She hadn’t exactly lied to her father, but this time he’d irritated her so much she’d fudged the truth. The trouble was he was bound and determined to see her happily married like her older brother.

      It was wonderful Dwight had a wife and two adorable kids, but love was a special gift. So far all that had popped out of her annual Christmas stocking were trolls, geeks and ego-freaks like her last boyfriend. Mike Manning had wanted a fan club, not a significant other, and she’d had the pleasure of telling him to take a hike. Dad hadn’t met him, which was just as well. He was one guy who would’ve enjoyed her father’s usual third-degree interrogation. Talking about himself was what Mike liked best.

      Dad had been on a tear lately, sure that Mindy’s biological clock was ticking like a time bomb, never mind that she was still two years short of thirty. He was lonely since her mother, Abby, had died, and he worried because she was alone, too. Unfortunately, he was too obsessed to pay any attention to her protests. He refused to believe she could manage just fine as a single woman.

      When he’d suggested introducing her to a friend’s son a couple of months ago, she’d told him she was already seeing someone. Of course, he’d pressed for details. She’d taken Peaches to the vet for a shot the day he phoned, so she had seen a doctor—an animal doctor. Telling her father she was seeing a doctor had sort of slipped out because she wanted his badgering to stop.

      As long as her widowed, workaholic father stayed in Pittsburgh, she could keep him at bay with her spur-of-the-moment deception. But the unimaginable had happened. He’d decided to retire early and sell his accounting business. Now he was coming to Arizona for a visit and expected to meet her doctor-boyfriend this weekend.

      “Is there something else?” Dr. Kincaid asked, when she didn’t take the leash he was holding out to her.

      “Oh, it’s silly,” she said, taking control of Peaches. “Just a little problem I have.”

      “I’m afraid I’m not licensed to treat people,” he replied, radiating good humor.

      “Oh, I didn’t mean…not a…you know.”

      “It’s not a health problem?”

      His curiosity was encouraging.

      “No, not at all. It’s my father…”

      “Ah.”

      “He’s coming to visit. From Pittsburgh. He lost my mother five years ago in a car accident, and now he’s sold his business. I’m afraid I’m his new project.”

      “I know what that’s like. My mother always has some scheme that involves me.”

      “He’s a fanatic when it comes to my personal life,” she went on, encouraged by his sympathy. “My brother is married and has two kids, but that’s not enough grandchildren for my father. He won’t give up until he walks me down the aisle and gives me away.”

      “My mother’s the same. I came close to tying the knot once, and she was the one who was broken-hearted when it didn’t work out. Her hobby is match-making, and I’m her main project.”

      “Then you understand. Unfortunately my father never, ever liked anyone I used to date, so he wants to mastermind a courtship sweepstake with more grandkids for him as the prize.”

      “Yeah, parents have a different take on things.” He hesitated as though examining the decorative paw prints on the wall. “My mother was crazy about my fiancée. Unfortunately Cassandra loved horses so much there wasn’t much room left for people, me included. Guess she just thought it would be handy to marry a vet who could look after her stable of Arabians.”

      He leaned against the metal-topped examination table and focused on the chart of dog breeds on the wall behind her, maybe regretting saying so much to the owner of one of his patients. Then he met her eyes again and gave her a rueful smile. “I prefer working with smaller animals.”

      Now she was much more interested in his problem than hers, but Dad would be getting off a plane in three days expecting to meet a boyfriend.

      “I did a terrible thing,” she admitted, nervously twisting the leash around her fingers.

      “I find that

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