by Betina Krahn
Sometimes the magnitude of the career she had chosen seemed overwhelming. Whenever she confronted the heartbreaking ways human failings and animal vulnerability could collide, she found herself making the decision all over again to stand on the front line of decency and compassion. It was her job to treat and care for patients who could not speak for themselves, and whose trust of humans was unequivocal and often undeserved.
She was unaware of her grandmother standing behind her until Nance hooked Kate’s arm through hers and tugged. When she turned, Gran’s sun-weathered face was soft with understanding. Her gran had always seemed to know what was happening with her before she knew herself.
“Come on.” Gran led her back to the main office. “I know just the cure for that look.”
Minutes later, they were on the puppy-room floor, ensconced with eight rambunctious balls of fur, tossing toys, stroking fuzzy new coats and avoiding sharp little milk teeth. It was impossible to dwell on human irresponsibility in the face of such a contagious love of life. The pups threw themselves wholeheartedly into learning and exploring, seeking out Kate and her grandmother and Isabelle. They chewed and licked and tumbled. They investigated toys and the room’s boundaries, tracked through the water bowl and barked at the humans sitting in their play area. They attacked each other and teased their caretakers; it was enough to melt the most jaded heart.
Kate picked up one of them in her arms and cuddled him, inhaling his sweet puppy breath and laughing with delight at the way his little pink tongue licked her face.
“They’re almost eight weeks old.” Nance turned to Kate as if an idea had just occurred. “Hey, why don’t you take one of them home with you?”
Kate rubbed noses with one of the pups, feeling her gut tighten. “Don’t have time, Gran. My life is hectic enough with the practice and the new house—I haven’t even finished unpacking.”
“You’ve been unpacking for six danged months,” Nance said.
“Exactly. I’m too busy. And, of course, there’s the shelter.” She shot a narrow look at Nance. “The one my grandmother keeps roping me into giving away my hard-won professional expertise to.”
“Excuses, excuses.” Nance gave a huff. “You can’t postpone life forever, Kate. Just because he turned out to be a jackass—”
“Gran.” Kate raised a hand to prevent a familiar argument.
“I’m just saying. You need to find someone to share your life with.”
“I have more than a someone, I have a partner and a grandmother and a bunch of friends and this shelter and another whole farm full of rescues and strays.”
“That’s my farm. My animals,” Nance said.
“Yeah? How many times have I heard you say that no one ever owns an animal? That they are all God’s creatures and they’re just given into our care for whatever time they’re here on earth?”
“Fine. They’re in my care. It’s time you got your own to care for.”
“Once again—” Kate grinned, knowing she had won “—not enough hours in the day.” She nuzzled another puppy nose. “Right, Pee Wee?”
Moments later the sound of the shelter door creaking open drifted into the puppy room, followed by heavy footsteps. She looked over to find a large pair of boots—big and well polished—settling in the doorway. She followed khaki-clad legs up to a broad pair of shoulders bearing a badge, and on up to a serious pair of aviator shades. The officer stood with his hands propped on a heavy service belt, looking at them.
“Got an injured dog in the cruiser,” came a deep, authoritative voice. “Hit by a car and lost a lot of blood. I don’t want to move her.”
“I’ll take a look.” Kate was on her feet in a flash and hurrying for the makeshift surgery. Behind her she could hear Isabelle say that they didn’t usually take in injured animals, but he was in luck—one of their volunteer vets was on premises.
A minute later, she emerged with her stethoscope draped around her neck, snapping on a pair of gloves. The officer, Nance, and Isabelle were already out the door, so she dashed after them. A black-and-cream highway patrol cruiser sat in the gravel drive, its engine running and light bar flashing, sweeping the area with red and blue.
The big officer opened the rear passenger-side door and hesitated a moment before waving Kate toward a blanket-wrapped form lying on the back seat. Before she could completely duck through the door, a growl set her back outside. A shepherd rose out of the shadows onto the seat beside the injured dog, ears up, every muscle taut with warning.
“Come on, you stubborn—She’s going to look at your friend.” The officer was around the car in a flash and opening the far door, dragging the shepherd back to clear the way for her. “He was with her when I found her,” he explained as Kate took a deep breath, slid into the foot well and got busy with her stethoscope and penlight.
“Pupils reactive. Heart is slow but steady—good so far.” She carefully felt the golden’s prominent ribs and rear quarters and ran her hands gently over the injured leg. The scrape of bone against bone said it all. “She’s got at least one fracture. I need X-rays to see how bad it is, and she needs fluids right away. I may have to do some surgery.” She glanced over her shoulder at the shelter and frowned.
“I don’t have all of the equipment I need here.” She looked at the officer, who was half in, half out of the cruiser, restraining the unhappy shepherd. He seemed to have the big, rangy dog in hand, and the fleeting thought occurred to her that having things under control was probably his norm. At that moment, she envied him. “She’ll have to go to my office,” she said, popping off the gloves. “I hate to ask, but can you drive her over there? She shouldn’t be moved more than necessary.”
“Just tell me how to get there,” he said, his voice full of certainty.
Kate inhaled sharply as if she’d been holding her breath.
“Why don’t you ride with the dog?” Gran said as Kate emerged from the back seat. “I’ll bring your Jeep over later, and Isabelle can pick me up.”
It sounded reasonable. She nodded and handed her keys to Gran. As she slid back into the rear seat, she was aware of the officer releasing the shepherd into the front seat with a warning and then closing the rear door. The shepherd climbed over the hardware in the front—computer, radio, scanner, racked gun—not the least bit intimidated. He turned and put paws on the seat back to watch what was happening behind him. The officer slid behind the steering wheel and managed to click his seat belt and crank the wheel with the palm of his hand at the same time.
“You’ll want to hang on,” he called over his shoulder.
She scrambled for room beside the injured dog and found a seat belt just as they took off, gravel flying. She jerked against the restraint as the cruiser’s tires grabbed the asphalt of the county road.
Lights and sirens for an injured dog; this was a first for her. She glanced up at the officer in the front seat and caught a few more details: strong jaw with a hint of a scar beneath a Florida tan. Dark hair cut high and tight—military, for sure. Judging by his erect bearing and contained physicality, he could handle himself—probably had handled himself.
She gave directions, then stroked her patient and murmured quiet reassurances. When she looked up, wary eyes in a brooding shepherd face were watching her. Distrust. She’d seen that look a thousand times in animals and sensed that she’d need the officer’s help at the end of this mad dash. Turning back to her patient, she carried in her mind’s eye the image of the shepherd anxiously nosing her patient’s head.
“Thanks for doing this, Officer...”
“Trooper. Stanton. Nick Stanton.”
“Kate Everly. DVM.”
“I gathered.” He seemed to glance at her in the rearview mirror; it was hard to tell where he was looking behind those shades. “Lucky you were there.”
“My grandmother is on the shelter�
��s board. She ropes me into helping regularly.”
He nodded and said nothing more.
Clearly a man of few words.
CHAPTER TWO
“SO, THIS IS YOURS,” Trooper Stanton said, killing the siren as they pulled into the parking lot outside the darkened Lakeview Animal Clinic. The building was a stucco-covered one-story with a dozen indoor runs, two surgeries and half a dozen exam rooms; perfect for a two-vet operation.
“And the bank’s,” she said as she pointed to the drive at the side. “Around the back—we can take her straight into the surgery.”
The minute the cruiser stopped, she jumped out and headed for the steel security door to punch in the lock code. Then she stepped inside and turn off the alarm. Seconds later, the trooper lifted the injured golden from the cruiser and carried her to the rear entrance. Kate went ahead of them, turning on lights and making sure one of the surgery tables was clear.
“We’ll start a line first—get some fluids going in her—then we’ll do an X-ray or two.” She grabbed clippers, a bag of saline and an IV needle.
He settled the golden gently on the table and watched as Kate made a more thorough examination, then shaved one of the golden’s front legs.
“I got this.” He grabbed the needle pack as she reached for it, and he ripped it open. “I don’t know anything about X-rays, though. That’s your department.”
But he did know about starting IVs in dogs? She was halfway around the table to protest when a growl startled her. The shepherd braced himself in a warning stance near the table, his nose up and twitching as he read the surgery’s mix of urgency, animal scents and medicinal smells.
“Can it, tough guy.” The trooper straightened as the dog ignored him. He barked an order to sit. When the dog defied that order, he made a fist and did a biceps curl, snapping the fist to his shoulder. After a tense moment, the dog lowered its rear to the floor. He stared at the dog for a minute, seeming a little surprised it had worked, then went back to starting the IV.
His take-charge attitude in her surgery rankled, but something stopped her from setting him straight. Maybe it was the knowledgeable way his fingers swabbed the shaved area, felt for a vein and carefully inserted the needle. Maybe it was the shepherd’s obedience. Still, she didn’t move until the line was established and he raised the bag, looking for a place to hang it. In the midst of starting the IV, he’d taken off his sunglasses; they were hanging from a shirt pocket.
“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked. His eyes suited his face—big and bold—an arresting light hazel color.
“Iraq.” When she crossed her arms and waited for more, he looked less comfortable. “We had dogs...and...sometimes they got dehydrated.”
“Interesting,” she said after a moment, sensing there was a lot of story behind that terse description. His rescue of these dogs made sense in light of his military experience. Soldiers in combat got close to their canine comrades, and that experience often carried over to civilian life.
Still, this dog was a stray, and whatever time and effort she expended would never show a positive on the practice’s balance sheets. The odds of a favorable outcome were probably just south of fifty-fifty, but she had to do whatever she could to treat the dog.
Annoyed—with him or her own soft-hearted impulses?—she pulled over a pole for the IV and went for the portable X-ray.
Thankfully, this didn’t take much time. Because it was just as she feared: the X-rays showed a hairline in the pelvis and a major compound fracture in the leg. She called her partner, Jess, to come in to help, but the call went straight to voice mail. It was Jess’s night off, and she was probably out with her man-of-the-month.
“I’m afraid if we wait until tomorrow to do the surgery she’ll be in even worse shape,” she said, mostly to herself, while running a hand gently over the golden’s head.
“I can help,” Trooper Stanton said over his shoulder as he washed his hands in the scrub sink. When he turned and propped his hands on his service belt, spreading his elbows enough that his chest strained his shirt. She frowned, wishing he wouldn’t do that and that she wasn’t drawn to watch him do it. Her frown deepened.
“You ever helped with a surgery?”
“Field stuff. Stitching sometimes. Mostly wrap and run.” He cocked his head, watching her decide. “I’m not a fainter.”
“I would guess not,” she said under her breath. Decision made, she turned to the shelves along the far wall to pull surgical supplies. Halfway there, she stopped dead, confronted by a shepherd braced for action. “Um, we may have a problem here.”
Trooper Stanton scowled and then ordered the shepherd to the table where his injured companion lay. The dog approached cautiously, rose with one paw against the table and sniffed his friend.
“She’s going be okay, tough guy, but you have to give the doc here room to work.” He strode to a nearby door, flipped on a light inside the exam room, then shoved the shepherd in. The instant the door closed between them, there were thumps against the door and barks of protest. Stanton drew a deep breath. “It’s for the best.”
Jess, Kate’s partner, was a big gal, but even the large gloves she used were a tight fit on the trooper. To his credit, he didn’t complain, and he held the anesthetic mask properly and paid scrupulous attention to Kate’s directions.
She described the damage and the basis for her decision-making at each step as they went in. There wasn’t much to do with the cracked pelvis; nature would have to take care of that. But the broken leg had to be held in position while she pinned the bones, and he supplied the necessary muscle without a twitch. Twice she paused to listen to the golden’s heart and pronounced it within safe limits.
More than an hour later, they finished cleaning and closing the last cuts on the dog’s hindquarters. She injected antibiotics and pain meds into the IV and watched for any reaction. As she hoped, there was none.
“Well, that’s it,” she declared, ripping off her gloves and stuffing them, along with the bloody drapes and used instrument packs, into the garbage can. “It’s up to her now. You want to help me move her?”
They picked up the blanket she lay on by the corners and transferred the dog onto a low shelf where she could be monitored while being out of the way. “Our version of the recovery room,” she explained with a wry smile.
She checked the dog’s heart and lungs again, then rose to find Trooper Nick Stanton staring through the window, his expression as dark as the night outside.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He seemed oddly subdued as he gestured to the door of the nearby exam room where a thud and some growls reminded them there was still another problem to solve. “What about him?”
She chewed her lip as she studied the door and then looked back at her patient. “Maybe we should let him see she’s all right. Then we could put him in a run for the night. I’ll take him back to the shelter tomorrow.”
The shepherd shot out into the surgery and followed the trooper’s direction to where the golden lay recovering. He sniffed her head to toe, seemed to understand her condition was grave and began to pace. Kate snagged a leash from the rack by the waiting-room door and approached the dog in a calm manner. She managed to get the leash over his head before he bolted.
Stanton reached for the lead and ended up dragging the animal into the kennels, where they were bombarded with barking from dogs overnighting at the office. As the door to the run closed, the shepherd clawed at the leash and shook his head to remove the loop from his neck.
“I’d say he has trust issues,” Kate said as she watched the dog.
“From the scars on his face, he’s got reason,” Trooper Stanton said, working to recover his breath.
“Could be he had a run-in with another dog.” She retreated down the alley to the back room, f
lipping off the lights in the noisy kennel. Stanton followed, retucking his shirt and resettling his service belt.
“Could be that humans sponsored that run-in.”
Out in the surgery again, she busied herself wiping down the table and equipment. He paused across the room, watched her for a minute and then looked around.
“Nice place,” he said. “You and a partner?”
“And the bank,” she said, pausing with a towel in one hand and disinfectant spray in the other. “Can’t forget the bank.” A moment later she stowed the cleaner and washed her hands. As she knelt beside her newest patient, she heard him come around the table and stop nearby.
“How is she doing?”
“Sleeping it off. I’ll give her another dose of pain meds in the morning. If we can keep her comfortable, she’ll heal better.” Overwhelmed by his presence, she rose and stepped back.
“Okay, then. I guess I’m done here,” he said, staring at her.
“I guess so.” A foot or two wasn’t enough space to escape awareness of his size, his body heat and the aura of control that radiated from him. Warmth slid down the back of her throat; she felt a little conspicuous as she cleared it. “Thanks for the help. You’re kind of good at this, Trooper Stanton.”
“Nick,” he said, his voice a little deeper than moments ago.
“Nick,” she said, and offered her hand. “I remember. And I’m—”
“Kate. Nice working with you, Kate.” He shook her hand, careful not to look directly at her. She knew because she was being careful to avoid eye contact herself.
“You okay here? By yourself?” He glanced around the surgery.
“Yeah. I’ll call Gran. She’s going to drop off my car.” She realized now that she could probably have driven herself over to the office. Odd that Gran insisted she ride along with the trooper and that she would bring Kate’s Jeep over, but hadn’t.
“Okay, then.” He seemed a little uncertain, then backed toward the door. “I’ll take off. Have a good night, Doc.”
