He grimaced, but he slid his long arms into it and pulled it up. “Worrywart,” he muttered.
“You got pneumonia the last time you went out into a cold rain,” she reminded him.
He turned and smiled down at her; actually, it was more of a faint turning up of one side of his mouth. Bentley Rydel never smiled. “Go home,” he said.
She shook her head. “I won’t leave Bailey until I’m sure he’s out from under the anesthesia,” she said, and she didn’t look at Boone. “Besides, you’re sure to have at least one emergency call waiting for you when you get back.”
“I don’t pay you enough for all this overtime,” he pointed out.
She shrugged. “So I’ll never get rich.” She grinned.
He sighed. “Okay. I’m on my cell phone, if you need me.”
“Drive carefully.”
He made a face at her. But his expression was staid and impassive as he nodded to the Sinclairs on his way out.
Boone was glaring at Keely. She averted her eyes and went back to Bailey’s cage to check on him.
“We should go,” Winnie told her brother. “See you later, Keely.”
Keely nodded. She didn’t look at them.
Boone hesitated uncharacteristically, but he didn’t speak. He took Winnie’s arm and led her out the door.
“You couldn’t even say thanks to Keely for saving Bailey’s life?” she chided as they paused beside their respective vehicles.
He looked down at her coldly in the misty rain. “I could sue her for bringing Bailey here without permission.”
Winnie was shocked. “She saved his life!”
He avoided her gaze. “That’s beside the point. Let’s go. We’re getting wet.”
“What about your concert?” Winnie asked, and there was a faint bite in her tone.
“It’s not over. I’m going back.”
She wanted to say that his ex-fiancée wasn’t going to be pleased that he’d deserted her, even for a few minutes. But she didn’t say it. He was obviously out of humor, and it was never wise to push him.
Keely stayed with Bailey until he came to and Bentley returned from his call. There was a new emergency, a woman whose champion English springer spaniel was whelping and one of the puppies wouldn’t emerge. Once again, they had to do an emergency surgery to save mother and child.
It was two in the morning before they finished and Keely cleaned up. “Now go home,” Bentley said gently.
“I’ll have to.” She laughed. “I can’t keep my eyes open.”
“No matter what Boone Sinclair says,” he told her, “you did the right thing.” He glanced at Bailey, who was now sleeping peacefully thanks to a painkiller. “I think he’ll do.”
She smiled. Even though Boone had been a pain in the neck, he did love the old dog. She was glad that he wouldn’t have to give up his companion just yet.
She went home, tiptoeing past her mother’s room, and went to bed.
The next day, she worked until noon and then went home to do all the housework that her mother never bothered with. She finished just in time to start supper. By then, her mother was finishing the second whiskey highball and her best friend, Carly, had shown up for supper. Keely, who’d prepared enough just for her mother and herself, had to add potatoes and carrots to her stew to stretch it out. The grocery budget was meager. It took second place to the liquor budget.
It was the same every Saturday night that she was home, Keely thought miserably, hiding her discomfort while she served up a light supper in the dining room. Her mother, Ella, already drunk, was making fun of Keely’s conservative clothing while her best friend, Carly, added her own sarcastic comments to the mix. Both women were in their forties, and highly unconventional. Carly was no beauty, but Ella was. Ella had a lovely face and a good figure, and she used both to good advantage. A list of her past lovers, despite her substance abuse problem, would fill a small notebook. The mischief she caused was one of her favorite sources of amusement. Next to ridiculing Keely, that was. She and Carly considered virtue obsolete. No man, they emphasized, wanted an innocent woman these days. Virginity was a liability to a single woman.
“All you need is a man, Keely.” Carly Blair giggled, hoisting a potent Turkish cigarette to her too-red lips. “A few nights in the sack with an experienced man would take that prudish pout out of your lips.”
“You need to wear makeup,” her mother added, in between sips of her third whiskey highball. “And buy some clothes that don’t look like they came out of a mission thrift shop.”
Keely would have reminded them that she worked with animals in a veterinary clinic, not in an exclusive boutique, and that men were thin on the ground. But it only amused them more if she fought back. She’d learned to keep her head down when she was under fire.
The beef stew she’d had cooking all day in her Crock-Pot was fragrant and thick. She’d made yeast rolls to go with it, and a simple pound cake for dessert. Her efforts were unappreciated. The women hardly noticed what they were eating as they gossiped about a woman they knew in town who was having an affair. Their comments were earthy and embarrassing to Keely.
They knew that, of course; it was why they did it. What the two women didn’t know was that Keely couldn’t sustain a relationship with a boyfriend, much less a lover. She had a secret that she’d never shared with anyone except the doctor who had treated her. It would keep her alone for the rest of her life. She’d made sure that her mother didn’t know what she was hiding. The older woman was bitter and miserable and she loved making a victim of her daughter. Keely’s secret would have been more fodder for her attacks. So Keely kept a good distance between herself and her coldhearted parent.
She wondered often what had become of her father. She’d loved him very much, and she’d thought that he loved her. But he hadn’t been the same since he’d lost his game park. He’d turned to alcohol and then drugs to numb the pain and disappointment. He’d had no way to support himself, much less an adolescent daughter. He’d had to leave her with her mother. She’d done her best to make him let her stay, offering to get a job after school, anything! But he’d said that she needed security while she was growing up, and he could no longer provide it. Her mother wasn’t such a bad person, he’d said. Keely knew better, but she couldn’t change her father’s mind, so she rationalized that he’d probably forgotten what a cruel woman Ella could be. Besides that, she was terrified of his new friends; especially one of them, who’d slapped her around.
Ella owned land that she’d inherited, along with a sizable amount of money from her late parents. She’d loaned her husband the money for his game park to get him out of her life, Ella said. She’d quickly gone through the money she’d inherited, spending it on luxurious vacations, fancy cars and a mansion while Keely was living in meager circumstances with her father. But her mother’s wealth or lack of it was no concern to Keely. As soon as she was settled comfortably in her job, she was going to get another part-time job so that she could afford to move into a boardinghouse. She’d had all she could take of living here.
Her
