5. Sage
Sage
Keyoni was back with Kaiser.
“His stomach’s fucked up again,” he explained. “I don’t know what’s going on. One minute, he’s fine. The next, he can’t keep nothing down.”
“How long’s it been going on this time?” I freed my stethoscope from around my neck.
“I noticed it when I got up for work. He was fine yesterday. You saw him.”
Keyoni stayed in my apartment for almost an hour. He got a text from his daughter at the same time Lanique and Cauvey decided to return home.
“Yeah, I did.” I patted the exam table. “Come on, Kaiser.”
He didn’t move until Keyoni issued the command. “He only listens to me.”
“And Keturah,” I added, seeing it for myself yesterday.
“Sometimes,” he replied with reluctance. “He’s not supposed to…but she’s around a lot, so?—”
“You don’t have to explain.” I couldn’t care less who Kaiser answered to.
My main objective was to get him feeling better.
“Can you get him to lay on the table for me?” Kaiser struggled with commands.
His noticeable lethargy had me concerned, and when I checked his heart rate, my concern grew stronger.
It was faster than normal. Combined with his gums starting to go pale, I feared Kaiser’s problem had to do with something he ingested. “I wanna do some bloodwork.”
Keyoni agreed for me to do anything I needed, which extended his wait longer than normal. I saw a few more patients before the results of Kaiser’s test came back. When they did, I wasn’t surprised.
“Rat poison?” Keyoni asked, furrowing his brows. “Somebody poisoned my dog?”
“I can’t say that for sure,” I offered honestly.
“I don’t know how or why, but Kaiser definitely has rat poison in his system.
” I looked over at Kaiser lying motionless on the table, his eyes followed every step I took.
“I think we caught it early, but it doesn’t mean Kaiser is out of the woods just yet.
I’d like to keep Kaiser at least overnight.
He needs to be on IV fluids and vitamin K therapy?—”
“Whatever you need to do,” Keyoni agreed. “Whatever it takes to get him back to feeling better, do it.”
I nodded. “Very well, then. I’ll have my assistant bring in the required paperwork and make sure you have the after-hours number to call and check on?—”
“Nah, I want your number.”
I choked on my words, eventually managing to spit out, “Hunh?”
“I want your number,” he said again. “Kaiser ain’t just any dog. He’s an officer.” Keyoni pushed up out of his seat. “And my partner. As his handler, I should be able to call the person in charge of his care directly.”
“My personal number though?”
“Mmhmm. That’s the best way to get a hold of you, right?” He pulled out his phone, rounding the exam table. “Or would it be easier if I just show up?”
Show up!
I recited my number instead. He called me and my phone buzzed in my pocket.
“I don’t make a habit of giving out my number,” I said firmly.
“Me either.” He nodded toward my pocket. “But now you got mine too.”
The way he looked at me sparked a tingle in my core. I broke the gaze, feeling guilty about the thoughts filling my head. His gesture was innocent. He was worried about Kaiser, nothing more. So it was only right for me to shift the conversation back to the important matter at hand.
“Kaiser will be fine. We’ll take good care of him.” I rubbed Kaiser’s lowered head. “The staff is preparing an area for him in the back right now?—”
“I want to see it. Show me.”
“We only allow staff back there?—”
“Make an exception…for an officer.”
I took a deep breath. “Keyoni?—”
“You don’t know me very well, Sage.” A smile lifted the corner of his lips. “If you did, you would know that I’m not going to back down. I don’t care what the rules are. I want to see where Kaiser’s gonna be kept. If you won’t do it, bring somebody in here who will.”
I didn’t know why, but the bass in his voice excited me. He said what he said and I could either oblige or be defiant.
“I can have the head vet come in and talk to you.”
“Or you can save us both some time and just do what I asked.”
I huffed. “Keyoni?—”
“Sage,” he cut me off, daring me with his eyes to propose a counter. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
The only hard thing I knew of were my nipples. I turned away from him, hoping he didn’t notice. Even still, his words had my insides racing.
I stuck my head out the door. “Camryn, will you come here for a minute?”
My assistant raced to the room, listening intently to the directive given.
With a nod, she got to work while I waved for Keyoni to follow me.
Ignoring the stares from the office staff, I showed Keyoni the area dedicated to the animals admitted as inpatient.
There were four being housed: two dogs, a cat, and a bunny. Kaiser would make number five.
“This ain’t gonna work.”
I scoffed at his audacity. “Why not?”
“Kaiser doesn’t do cages.”
“He will while he’s here,” I said with conviction. “We don’t allow animals to just roam around.”
At that moment, our three-legged office cat chose to appear, contradicting what I just said. She hobbled her way across the room, teasing the other animals with her freedom.
“You were saying…”
“Wendy’s technically not a patient,” I said, attempting to explain.
“I doubt she’s an officer either. Kaiser deserves better treatment.”
I rolled my eyes. “And what would you suggest?”
He thought about it briefly. “Kaiser goes home with me,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“You can do whatever tests you need to do here, but he gets to rest in the comfort of his own bed.” I nodded because I couldn’t force Keyoni to do anything he didn’t want to do.
I could only try to talk him into doing what was best. What he had in mind wasn’t the same thing I was thinking.
“And you can come over daily to check on him.”
Say what now?
“Hunh?”
“You,” he began slower, “can come to Kaiser. You make house calls, right?”
Yeah, but… “No, we don’t.”
“Maybe you should get the head vet in here. I think an exception needs to be made.”
“Are you always like this?” My gaze dropped from the ceiling as I blew out a huff of air. “Why are you being so difficult?”
“Because Kaiser deserves better.” He smiled. “And you can do better. At my place.” The insinuation had my mind racing. “Besides, he’ll recover faster at home.”
“Are you a doctor now?”
“Tell me I’m wrong.” I couldn’t and struggled with formulating a valid argument. “Exactly. So…you want the address?”
I took it because Felicia would’ve made me take it anyway.
As the head vet and clinic owner, she was big on retention.
Whatever needed to be done to keep an owner happy was done, handlers included.
It wasn’t worth making a big deal out of something he would get anyway.
If Keyoni wanted a house call, he would get a house call.
And he would pay for a house call.
I created a contact for his number, adding his name and address.
“What time are you coming today?”
“Today?” Was he crazy ? “I’ve already seen Kaiser today.”
“He needs to be seen again…when he gets home…to make sure he’s settling in okay.”
“You can’t do that yourself? It’s not hard to watch over him and call me if there’s a problem.”
“No, I can’t.” He looked appalled. “That’s what you’re for.”
“Fine.” I bent down next to Kaiser on the table. He cut his eyes over to me briefly before ignoring me again. “I’ll do it…for him.” As much shit as I talked, I loved animals. It was the reason I wanted to become a veterinarian in the first place. “I get off at six. I’ll swing by say…seven.”
The quick suck and release he did with his lip had me staring… and turned on.
“Okay,” he agreed. “Is there anything you need?”
“Yeah, dinner,” I offered sarcastically, following up with a chuckle.
“What do you want?”
He was serious.
“I’m just playing.”
“I’m not,” he said firmly. Then he asked again, “What do you want? It’s the least I can do.”
“I don’t want nothing, Keyoni.”
“Well, I’m doing it anyway.”
The gesture was nice and made me feel all giddy inside. Men rarely did things for me. When they did, it was usually because they wanted something in return. Keyoni wanted something too, but with him I felt it was an even exchange.
Food for my time.
“Surprise me.”
“Is there something you don’t like?”
“I like everything.”
As much as I didn’t want to admit it, I liked him too.
“Noted.” He used his strong arms to pick up his eighty-seven-pound partner. “Time to go home, boy.”
Kaiser’s tail twitched.
KEYONI
Sometimes, I couldn’t turn the job off. Even when I was technically off-duty, and taking Kaiser home, the suspicious-looking car in front of me had my attention.
It wasn’t anything fancy, but a make and model I remembered being told to look out for.
The color was right, beige, but the out of state plates stuck out like a sore thumb.
I immediately called it in.
“Hey, it’s Green,” I told the dispatcher. “I need you to run a plate for me.”
When it came back to a totally different car, I turned on the lights and started the chase after the driver decided to floor it around the Diamond Falls streets.
But I didn’t give up. I had nothing but time and a full tank of gas since the idiot wanted to put others at harm with his erratic driving.
Backup was called. Other officers used their knowledge of the area to try to cut the driver off, but he kept going, surprising everyone with his wild detours.
At one point, he cut into a large shopping center parking lot, driving over curbs and grassy areas to avoid being stopped by the parked cars.
The driver outsmarted us, busting through a locked gate not meant to hold back thousands of pounds of steel, jumping right back on the road and heading toward a residential area.