professional. “I found the dog,” he said finally, keeping his gaze on Eleanor, “a few days ago on the drive up here. She was taking a stroll along the I-5 Highway. No collar. And no sense of direction.”
Eleanor reached out to touch a grouping of small scars on the boxer’s left flank. “Abandoned, probably,” she murmured.
“And abused by the look of things.” Cole’s tone hardened, but his hand moved absently, gently over the dog’s spine. “I found you in the phone book, by the way.” He arched a brow. “Eleanor Lippert, D.V.M. Is this your own practice?”
“Yes.”
“Very impressive,” he commended, nodding slowly, his voice low and tinged with approval.
A frisson of pleasure skittered up Eleanor’s spine. She squashed it ruthlessly.
“I can spay Sadie this afternoon,” she said, forcing herself to stick to the business at hand. “We use a general anaesthetic. Has she eaten?”
“Not since last night. Your receptionist gave me the drill when I called.”
Eleanor nodded and penned the information on the chart, noting as she did that Cole had listed Los Angeles as his permanent place of residence. Was that where he’d been all these years?
“So, is this going to hurt?”
She glanced up. The hand smoothing Sadie’s back had stilled on top of her sturdy head and the dog had lifted her muzzle as if to fit herself into Cole’s palm.
“No,” she said, smiling when he looked relieved. “Spaying is a very safe procedure. Not as simple as neutering a male, of course, but—”
Cole’s eyes widened, and Eleanor felt her smile falter.
“What I mean is, castration is very straightforward.” He winced.
Heat suffused her neck and cheeks. She’d explained this unhesitantly dozens of times in spay and neuter clinics.
Raising her chin, she stated with forced calm, “We’ll keep Sadie overnight—”
“Is that what you do with the easily neutered males?”
Closing Sadie’s chart with a snap, Eleanor tucked it under her arm. As matter-of-factly as she could, she replied, “Males don’t need to be kept overnight.”
“Hmm. I never did know as much about biology as you—” his voiced rolled toward her like a slow rippling tide “—but I’d say that all depends on the male, Teach. It all depends on the male.”
The bottom half of her glasses fogged. Wrapping the examination up while she still had a modicum of composure, she said, “You can pick Sadie up tomorrow.”
“What time do you close?”
“Six. So if you can’t get here earlier, we can keep her until closing. She’ll be very comfortable.”
“Are you married, Eleanor?”
“I— Am I— Uh, no. Mmm. No.”
“Living with anyone?”
Returning her pen to her breast pocket—three jabs before she got it in—she raised her brows, a study in forced nonchalance. “Why? What do you mean?”
“Just a friendly question. If we grab dinner, catch up on old times, is there anyone whose feathers could get ruffled?”
Slowly Eleanor shook her head.
“Good.” He nodded. “I’ll pick you and Sadie up tomorrow evening.”
“Well, I…”
“Be good for the doctor, Sadie.” Reaching over, he gave the big puppy a solid pat.
Moving past Eleanor, Cole grasped the doorknob, then turned. “I realize you’ll be working, but try not to be late.” He gave her a long, steady look. “I may be ‘straightforward,’ but I’m a devil when I’m hungry.”
Chapter Two
Eleanor, who in a dozen years of driving had never had a ticket, managed to run a stop sign on her way home from work.
Inside her apartment she tossed keys, coat and purse onto a bar stool, deposited a paper sack of take-out Chinese on the kitchen counter and atypically ignored her cat, Gus, who yowled in complaint while she made a beeline for the hall closet.
Sliding open the closet door, Eleanor stood on her toes to extract hats, mittens and other winter gear, sending items sailing to the floor until her hands closed on a box shoved all the way to the back of the shelf. Lugging the heavy carton to the floor, she rummaged through the contents until she found what she was looking for.
Oakdale High 1990. Her senior yearbook.
The broad flat album smelled musty. Sitting on her heels, Eleanor wiped a finger across dusty gold lettering while her heart beat with anticipation. She opened the stiff maroon cover, turning pages without pause until she came to the senior high students whose last names began with S, then scanned the page until she reached “Sullivan, Colvin Orson.”
From a black-and-white photo the size of a tea bag, Cole stared up at her, looking exactly the way she remembered.
“Cole,” she murmured, letting the name linger in her mouth again after all these years. She shook her head. No wonder she hadn’t recognized him.
Long necked with a lean jaw and defined cheekbones, in high school Cole had worn his hair in a military-style buzz cut that gave no clue to the ebony Samson’s locks he sported now. He’d been quite thin then, too, with a teenager’s sinewy vitality, not the blatant power and muscular grace of the body he had grown into.
He had come to her for tutoring in their senior year of high school. Working nights at the same meat-packing plant that employed his father, Cole had faced challenges the other, more affluent students at Oakdale had known nothing about. There had been mornings when he was so tired he had barely stayed awake in class. By first-semester midterms, he’d realized he was in danger of failing his math and science classes, and that was when he approached Eleanor one day at the school lunch tables.
She had been sitting with her usual lunch mates, a small group of girls who, like her, excelled more scholastically than socially.
“I need a scholarship to college.” Cole had seemed brusque and straightforward.
Gazing up at him while he stood over their table, Eleanor had nearly choked on her tuna sandwich. He’d never spoken to her before. Few boys had. It wasn’t that she’d been unpopular, exactly. More like…invisible.
Blinking behind her glasses, Eleanor forgot to chew the bite of sandwich she’d taken. One of her friends elbowed her in the ribs, and she managed a dazed, “Huh?”
Cole stood with his hands in his pockets, blue workshirt open to reveal a white T that had been bleached one time too many.
“I need a scholarship,”
