Laura bent to put away the roasting pan. “Right. No drool on my chin.”
It goes a lot farther than that, Isaiah thought as he surveyed her attractive backside, but he refrained from saying so. He had accomplished what he’d set out to do. Laura had agreed to take the job at the clinic. They had established a friendship of sorts. He didn’t want to mess that up by telling her she was the most attractive woman he’d met in a very long time. It wasn’t an appropriate thing for an employer to say. Hell, it wasn’t even an appropriate thing for an employer to think.
Chapter Three
The following morning, as Laura parked her Mazda behind the clinic, she whispered scolding lectures to herself. “You’re only a kennel keeper—a lady who’ll be hosing dog poop down the drains. If you blow this chance and get fired over a silly crush on your boss, you’ll be sorry.”
And it was a silly crush. Isaiah Coulter was a handsome, accomplished, and very successful man who could have his pick of women. He’d never look twice at someone like her.
Schooling her expression, Laura entered the building and found herself in a room lined from floor to ceiling with boxes of surgical supplies. She traversed the pathway to a gray door and was promptly greeted by a cacophony of mournful wails when she opened it. The kennels, she realized, and from that moment forward she forgot all about Isaiah Coulter.
Dogs. Looking up the center aisle, she saw all different kinds, purebreds and mutts, large ones and small ones. The only things any of them seemed to have in common were their limitless joy at seeing her and their frantic attempts to get her attention.
“Oh, you poor baby,” Laura whispered as she knelt in front of a rottweiler’s cage. A tube protruded from a wide bandage around the canine’s belly, and an IV was taped to its front leg. “What happened to you?” she asked softly, thrusting her fingers through the wire mesh to touch his broad muzzle. The dog nudged her fingers and whined. “Oh, yes, I know. It’s so awful. Here you are, sick and hurting, and your people have left you all alone.”
Laura knew exactly how that felt. After her acci-dent she’d been hospitalized and then eventually transported to a rehab center. Her friends had come to see her at first, but over time they’d shown up less and less, uncomfortable in her presence because she could no longer talk. Her family had visited her as often as they could, of course, but after several weeks, the demands of day-to-day living had kept them away a good deal of the time. Even now Laura could remember her sense of abandonment. Unable to communicate, walk, read, or watch television, she’d been isolated in her misery, the hours of each day stretching endlessly before her. Blocks of painful physical therapy had been her only relief from the boredom and loneliness.
Looking into the rottweiler’s bewildered brown eyes, she remembered her own bewilderment during that time and the helpless rage that had often come over her in waves. Trapped and forgotten, that was how she’d felt, exactly like this dog.
In that moment, a sense of purpose filled her. This is where I belong, she thought. I can help, really help these poor animals, because I understand how they feel in a way no one else can. It was the loveliest sensation, a huge, exhilarating rush. For five long years she’d been searching for her place in a world that had been turned upside down. Now she’d finally found something important that she could do. These animals truly needed her.
Laura moved up the aisle, stopping to pet a spaniel with a cast on its front leg, a poodle with a shaved butt that seemed otherwise fine, and a black Lab with a bandaged paw and what looked like a plastic lamp shade buckled around its neck. She would have visited each and every cage if not for the sudden appearance of a stout blonde at the end of the aisle. As Laura pushed to her feet, she took in the other woman’s shoulder-length hair, kindly blue eyes, and masculine features set in a square face.
“You Laura?” the woman asked, her tone clipped and unfriendly.
“Yes. I was just saying hello to the dogs.”
“You shouldn’t poke your hands through the wire until you’ve been briefed. You looking to get bitten?”
Laura tucked the offending hand into a hip pocket of her jeans. “No, I was just—”
“A couple of these dogs are mean. To clean their cages, you’ll have to use the loop.”
Laura had no idea what a loop was. She glanced into the sad eyes of an Irish setter. She had never been wary of strange dogs, least of all pathetic creatures like these. As she walked up the aisle, she yearned to stop at each gate. Tomorrow, she vowed, she would come thirty minutes early so she could give each animal a little one-on-one.
“I’m not late, am I?” she asked.
“No.” The blonde opened a cage. Drawing a syringe from the front pocket of her blue smock, she petted the collie within the enclosure, and then bent to grab the animal by its scruff. As she gave the injection, she said, “You’re a little early, in fact. I’m Susan Strong. I’ll be training you.”
Laura held out her hand as the other woman straightened. “I’m pleased to meet you, Susan.”
Instead of smiling, Susan merely tightened her mouth. At the right corner a pinpoint dimple popped up, so low that it was almost on her chin. “You like dogs?”
“Oh, yes, very much.”
“Good thing.” She finally shook Laura’s hand and then gestured at the cages. “We have ’em in spades. They come and they go.” She gave Laura a scowling look. “Sort of like kennel keepers. Mucking around in shit and puke gets old real fast. If you don’t have the stomach for it, save me a lot of trouble and quit right now. It’s a lot of work to train someone.”
Laura straightened her shoulders. She couldn’t honestly say she liked the smell of poop, but she did have a strong stomach. She was also convinced that she’d finally found her niche.
“If I can do the work here, I’ll never quit,” she replied.
Susan snorted, a loud, up-both-nostrils snort that made her meaning clear. “Heard it before. And just for the record, any idiot can do the work.”
Laura didn’t normally discuss her affliction with strangers, but in this case it seemed smart on two counts. Susan needed to know about Laura’s handicap. She also had a chip on her shoulder that needed to be knocked off.
“That’s good news. I’m an id-iot.”
Susan gave her a sharp look.
Laura moistened her lips. “Brain damage. I dove off into the river near the falls. Most times it’s safe, but there’d been a drought that year, and I hit my head on a rock.”
“Holy Toledo.” A thoughtful look came into Susan’s eyes. “I remember that. It happened a few years back, didn’t it?”
“Five,” Laura confirmed.
Susan nodded. “For a while they thought you might die. You were in a coma, weren’t you?”
“Yes, for about three weeks. I woke up with aphasia, damage to the left lobe of my brain.”
“Bummer.”
“I had to learn to talk all over again,” Laura went on. “You’ll notice that I speak slowly. I also have trouble keeping up if people talk too fast or use long words.” She gestured at the cages around them. “As for this job, I’m very lucky to get it.” She met Susan’s gaze. “If I can do the work, I won’t be quitting.”
Susan finally smiled, and it transformed her face, making her look more like a plump angel than a Marine Corps drill sergeant. “You’ll be able to handle the work.”
Isaiah leaned his head to one side so the technician-cum-anesthesiologist could dab the sweat from his brow. In the middle of an abdominal surgery he had blood to the top of his surgical gloves, and Belinda, his assistant, was frantically searching for a clamp. Just then a door at the rear of the room swung open. Isaiah glanced up to see Susan Strong entering the chamber. He gave the stocky blonde a “stay put” look, then returned his attention to his patient.
When the artery was clamped, he met Susan’s questioning gaze. “How’s Laura Townsend doing?”
“So far, so good,” Susan replied. “You know the boxer with the attit
ude problem? When she opened the gate to his kennel I about had a heart attack, but all he did was lick her to death.”
Isaiah chuckled. “Has a way with dogs, does she?”
“Big-time. Even that nasty little Pomeranian likes her.”
“We need someone good with animals back there,” Isaiah observed.
“Amen. Her biggest problem will be caring too much,” Susan predicted. “I don’t know how she’ll handle it the first time she gets a ‘dead dog walking’ order.”
Isaiah hated to put down an animal himself, but he had long since come to accept it as a necessary evil. When nothing more could be done to ease an animal’s suffering, euthanasia was the only merciful option.
“You think she’ll be able to handle the work?”
Susan planted her hands on her broad hips. Under the gruff exterior she was a marshmallow, one of the kindest and most caring people Isaiah knew. “My money says she’ll do fine,” she replied. “Been a nasty morning. Puke, shit out the yang, and a hemorrhage to top it all off.”
“A hemorrhage?”
“The little red cocker miscarried.”
“That really old dog?” the anesthesiologist asked.
“That’s the one,” Susan confirmed. “It’s sad that she lost her puppies, but she’ll be better off. Tucker had to spay her. People who keep breeding animals when they get that old are crazy. I just don’t get it.”
“They’re not crazy,” Belinda inserted. “They’re just mercenary. If the cocker had whelped seven pups, they would have sold for four hundred dollars apiece, possibly more.”
“More.” James Masterson, a tall, stocky twenty-year-old with brown hair and baby-blue eyes who’d begun training as a tech assistant a year ago, drew a blanket from the warmer. “My mom paid six hundred for a cocker last month. Run the numbers on that, why don’t you?” He grinned and winked at Belinda. “Two litters a year would put a serious dent in my rent.”
“Mine, too.” Belinda pursed her lips. “Seven puppies. My God, that’d be forty-two hundred dollars! Maybe I’ll move where I can have a dog and become a breeder.”
“I’d never breed an old dog,” James said, “but I can’t see any harm in breeding a young, healthy one. If nothing else, it’d help to cover the vet bills.”
“I’m just glad the little cocker’s whelping days are over,” Susan said. “If her owners want to continue making money on the side selling puppies, they’ll have to buy another bitch.”
“How did Laura handle all the blood?” Isaiah asked.
Susan shrugged. “I think she panicked a little at first.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Angela chimed in. “How’d she do once she calmed down?”
“Better than most trainees. When I needed help, she jumped right in and did what I told her.”
Isaiah was pleased to hear that. “I had her figured for a gutsy lady. Nobody could come through what she has without having plenty of backbone.”
“Who’s this you’re talking about?” Belinda asked as she handed Isaiah the stapler.
“Laura Townsend.” Isaiah quickly closed up. “Susan’s training her for the kennels.”
“Oh. I didn’t know Val hired anybody.” Belinda drew the paper pad closed over the contaminated surgical implements. “That’s good news. We never have enough kennel people.”
“Actually, Val didn’t hire her,” Isaiah corrected. “I did.”
Belinda raised her eyebrows. “You? I thought Val handled all that.”
“Normally she does.” Isaiah stripped off the surgical gloves and deposited them in a waste container. “Laura’s a friend of the family. My mom recommended her.”
“Ah.” Belinda stepped over to the sink to rinse the implements before putting them in the sterilizer. “Have you known her long?”
“No, just met her.” Isaiah recalled Laura’s expressive eyes and smiled slightly. “You’re all going to like her. She’s a sweetheart. Right, Susan?”
Susan shrugged. “So far I like her fine. She talks kind of slow, and every once in a while she looks at me like I’m speaking Greek. But otherwise I can barely tell there’s anything wrong with her.”
Belinda turned from the faucet. “There’s something wrong with her?”
“Aphasia,” Isaiah replied, deciding on the spot that it would be easier for Laura if all her coworkers knew about her disability from the start. “It’s a form of brain damage that affects language and math skills.”
Belinda gave him a wondering look. “You hired someone who can’t talk or do math?”
“It isn’t that bad,” Isaiah countered. “She speaks slowly, like Susan says, and she gets confused if you throw long words at her. But otherwise she does fine. As a favor to me, I’d appreciate it if all of you would make a special effort to help her settle in.”
Belinda lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Sure. I’ll help her out any way I can.”
Her first morning of training was over, and Laura felt as if her bones had turned to water. She had never shied away from work, but this job taxed her mentally as well as physically. There was so much to remember. She’d met at least a half dozen people, Tucker, her other boss, included. Oh, how disconcerting that had been. She’d known that he would resemble Isaiah. They were twins, after all. But she’d never expected them to be so identical at a glance, both tall, dark, muscular, and too handsome for words.
She’d been cleaning a cage, and he had appeared out of nowhere to jot something on the dog’s chart. “Hello!” she’d said. “How are you this morning, Isaiah?”
He’d given her a long look and then smiled. “I’m not Isaiah; I’m Tucker. You must be Laura.”
Laura’s face had gone instantly hot. They were slightly different when you really looked. Tucker was just a little heavier, and there was a sharpness to his gaze that was absent in Isaiah’s, an edge that said, I’m here, I’m paying attention, and nothing gets past me.
“Yes, Laura, I’m Laura,” she’d said.
He had thrust out a big brown hand. “Good to meet you, and welcome to the clinic. Our mother has only good things to say about you.”
In between the lines, Laura had heard, I’ll still be watching you closely. Don’t think I won’t. As far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out.
As unnerving as that had been, Laura respected it. An employer who didn’t demand excellence didn’t get it. Tucker Coulter would be fair. She sensed that in him. But he’d also put her on notice that he wouldn’t overlook anything, either.
“I’ll do my best to do a good job,” she’d said.
He had given her another long look, a straight-into-the-eye look. Then his expression had softened. “I’m sure you will, Laura. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask someone. We’ve got a great team here at the clinic. Everyone is always willing to lend someone else a helping hand.”
Everyone had been the key word in that sentence. There were so many people, all of Tucker’s team as well as Isaiah’s. Just keeping their names straight would be a challenge. In addition to that, she’d had to learn the layout of the clinic and where everything was stored. Her eyes ached from staring at chart instructions, and her head hurt from information overload.
But, oh, it was a wonderful kind of tired. After sinking down to sit on the concrete floor of a kennel stall, Laura closed her eyes, leaned her head against the cement-block wall behind her, and began petting Marcus, a boxer who’d convinced everyone that he was a vicious killer. It felt nice to sit for a moment on the cool, slightly damp cement and stroke his coarse fur.
She was going to be good at this job, she thought with a shiver of delight. She’d had a few bad moments this morning, but overall her first day had gone well. She’d managed to make sense of the charts and follow all the instructions. More important, she’d kept her head and had been able to help save the life of an old cocker spaniel. That had been so rewarding, like working in the ER.
Laura opened her eyes to look down at her blue smock. It was smeare
d with blood and other stuff she preferred not to identify, but she still hated to take it off. A uniform. She didn’t have a name badge yet, but Susan said she would get one tomorrow. Then she’d look just like everyone else. She guessed it was silly, but looking like everyone else was im-portant to her.
“Good grief, what’re you doing?”
Startled, Laura glanced up to see a pretty brunette outside the wire-mesh gate. “I’m just sitting with Marcus for a while.”
The woman rested her shoulder against the wire and smiled. “Susan said you’d made friends with him. That’s amazing. My name is Belinda, by the way.”
“I’m pleased to meet you.”
When Laura started to get up, the tech waved her back down. “Don’t bother.” She hunkered to get on Laura’s eye level. “We aren’t formal around here.”
Laura resumed stroking Marcus’s head where it rested on her thigh. “Have you worked here long?”
“Only about six months. But around here that makes me a veteran. Only two techs have been here longer than I have now, and they work in Tucker’s wing.”
Laura stilled her hand on the boxer’s head. “I have trouble with long words. Your name will be hard for me.”
“Would Lindy work better?”
Laura nodded. “Much better.”
“Just call me Lindy, then. I won’t mind. It’s a family nickname, and I’m used to it.” Belinda stuck a finger through the wire and wiggled it, earning herself a low growl from Marcus. “God, he’s nasty. I’m surprised you’re not missing an arm.”
The tension eased from Laura’s body. Glancing down at the dog, she said, “He isn’t as mean as he acts. All bark and no bite. He’s just afraid, I think.”
“Got him all figured out, do you?” Belinda shook her head. “With those teeth, what does he have to be afraid of?”
Laura could have named several things. Marcus had an infection, requiring twice-daily injections of antibiotic, and because he looked mean, all the techs went to extraordinary lengths to protect themselves from him. A loop, Laura now knew, was a retractable cable noose at the end of a long pole. The user could ensnare a dog’s head, tighten the loop, and hold even a large animal like Marcus immobile while someone else moved in on him. Naturally Marcus was fearful. No one here petted him. Instead they ganged up on him, one person choking him while someone else stuck him with needles.