Slammed on the brakes and waved the car with the right-of-way through the intersection, making the “Sorry!” face at the other driver, who flipped her off. She stopped thinking about the kiss for ten seconds and managed to get across the four-way-stop intersection and into the itty-bitty parking lot that scraped alongside the veterinary clinic where she worked.
She bumped the medical bag on her hip up against the metal plate at the back entrance so that the security scanner could read the card in the outside pocket. The door unlocked with a beep. She appreciated the high-tech setup at this clinic, but she would’ve put up with just about anything to get out of her previous clinic, from padlocks on the doors to gas lanterns for light.
She didn’t know what it was, but something about her attracted older married men who were too self-aware to indulge in a midlife crisis by having an affair with a twenty-two-year-old blonde bombshell. It was as if they took one look at her and thought, “Hmm, the calm, quiet brunette in the corner there, what about her? Looks studious but pretty. No one could accuse me of going for flash there. And then maybe I can still get the Porsche.”
She had only fallen for that with her first boss because he hadn’t gotten around to mentioning the fact that he was married until six months into their relationship. She’d needed a new job fast, particularly since things ended so badly. After she “accidentally” dropped a fifty-pound bag of dog kibble on his foot, he threatened to call the cops. She threatened to call his wife. She had avoided even speaking to her second boss whenever possible, only to find herself being chased around the examining table mere months later by another man having a midlife crisis, who promised he could help her “lighten up.”
Blech. Now she worked for a woman, which was the selling point that had brought her on board. That and the off-street parking.
She really did have terrible luck with men. The first man she’d fallen for had broken her heart without even knowing it, and things had gone downhill from there.
Sighing, Sarah headed into the bathroom that doubled as an employee locker room. She spun the dial on her locker with one hand while she started stripping off her winter gear with the other. She grabbed her last clean lab coat, crammed her coat, hat, scarf, gloves, boots and medical bag into the too-small locker and bodychecked the door shut. She wouldn’t need any of it until this afternoon’s house calls.
She spent half of each week making house calls—a stroke of genius on her boss’s part. There were plenty of wealthy pet owners in Chicago’s Gold Coast who were willing to pay top dollar for the convenience of not having to cart a pet off to the vet’s office and spend the morning in a waiting room.
Although the pet owners were asked to have little Fluffy or Killer confined to an easily searchable area like the bathroom, she did spend a fair bit of time on her hands and knees peering under king-size beds and trying to coax out spooked animals. Still, it was a growing part of their business. Soon she might not need to put in any hours at the clinic except to do paperwork or the follow-up on complicated cases.
This afternoon, she even had an appointment in the warehouse district. It would probably wrap up early, so maybe she would drop by J.D.’s to make sure he was following her instructions with the kitty. Give him some pointers on what to do when the kittens started coming. Bring him a bottle of wine to replace the one they’d split the other night.
Maybe jump him where he stood when he opened the door.
He was the one to push you away, she reminded herself. He’d backed off halfway through a kiss that had been seriously blowing her socks off, looking startled, like he hadn’t meant to take things that far.
Yeah, she was ready to show him just how far they could take things.
Down, girl. It was just a kiss. And he’s married, maybe.
“Who am I seeing first?” she called out as she walked down the hall to the front desk. The day’s clients were already tangling and yowling in the small lobby.
“I put them in exam room two. They were freaking out the rest of the clients.” Jackie, their nurse-receptionist, smacked a new patient file into her hand and grimaced.
“Who?” There was little that shook the normally unflappable Jackie after two decades of animal handling. She’d seen, or stepped in, almost everything. “Is someone foaming at the mouth?”
“No, thank god,” Jackie said. “Mr. Thompson and his seven-foot boa constrictor. Apparently the snake doesn’t like cages, so it’s just, you know, crawling all over him. People were practically scooting out the door to keep their distance. Yuck.”
“No snakes for you, Jackie?” She flipped open the file.
“Nothing that moves on dry land without feet. The snake ate Mr. Thompson’s son’s guinea pig, Squeak, this morning.” For the first time that morning, Jackie grinned. “He asked if we could get it back.”
Sarah bit her lips together. Always avoid making fun of the clients, she reminded herself, at least on the premises. “I assume you told him there would be no Squeak retrieval today.”
“I’m not sure he believed me. I did inform him that he was sure to see the guinea pig again, just probably not in a form his kid would want to play with.”
“And?”
“I think he finds my sense of humor lacking.”
“No kidding. So what’s he here for?”
“Aside from a second opinion on the possibility of squeezing Squeak out whole from either end of the snake? Apparently the little fluff ball put up quite a fight.” Jackie didn’t share Sarah’s sense of propriety. Her eyebrows wiggled. “The long and skinny one took a couple of hits to the snout. Needs a little patching up.”
“Ah, the glamour. TGI Friday.” Sarah laughed out loud and shook her head as she stepped into the exam room. Who was she kidding, having a mental flirtation with J.D. Damico? The man spent most of his time with the glitterati of Hollywood, and she would spend most of her morning bandaging a boa.
Besides, J.D. had been nothing but a horrible tease to her when she was a girl. She shouldn’t get her brain all twisted into knots over him. No doubt he’d just been yanking her chain when he kissed her.
Anyway, knowing J.D., he was probably already planning on skipping town. Halfway renovated loft condo or not.
Hours later, Sarah bruised her knuckles for the third time, whacking them against J.D.’s armored tank of a front door. He can’t be gone already, she told herself.
Could he?
Even as a kid, he’d barely waited to turn legal before throwing everything he owned in the back of a rattling gray Chevy Citation and hitting the road for freedom and adventure, aka anything that got him away from his parents. She was pretty sure the only reason he’d stuck around for as long as he did was that he didn’t want to disappoint her mother, who asked about his homework every day when she checked on her own children. If J.D. could have offered himself up for adoption, he’d have done it in a heartbeat. But still, the moment he was legal, he’d made a break for it.
Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Sarah, she scolded herself. Not even shoot-from-the-hip J.D. would throw a pregnant cat out on the street in the middle of winter. Plus, it would be pretty hard to sell that condo in its present “a bomb just exploded” condition. There
