Chapter 6 #2
“Hate is the wrong word. I love that it allows me to ride, I just wish I could get on the horse without two men and a prayer helping me, and that I could actually feel secure enough to ride alone. But thank you, Wade, for all your compliments.”
He smiled. “I mean it.” Then he looked past her toward the buildings.
“Now, I can’t wait to see this bee-yoo-tiful school and the tour better include animals.
Also, coffee. I drove from Park City in my uncle’s rented SUV and was so distracted by nature’s handiwork that I never stopped. Is there caffeine around?”
“In a painfully cute coffee shop called the Canine Café,” she told him, her heart lifting at his utterly wonderful attitude. Classy, positive, easy.
Where did this guy come from?
“Canine Café?” He snorted. “Yes, please.”
“Right on the other side of the quad,” she said, giving her wheels a push.
He kept up with her, giving her no chance to ponder this unexpected turn of events as he peppered her with questions. And he didn’t offer to push, which she loved. There was nothing worse than being wheeled when she could do it herself.
They moved along the main sidewalk that connected the teaching barn to the classroom wing, their breath visible in the frosty air. She pointed out the rehab building—a low, modern structure with glass walls and a pool used for equine hydrotherapy.
“That’s where we do physical therapy and conditioning,” she said. “The horses love it. The goats…not so much.”
“Goats never cooperate,” Wade said with mock solemnity. “I did a rotation once where a goat bit my shoelace and removed my shoe smack in the middle of surgery prep.”
She laughed. “That’s a goat for you.”
“I was washed and ready, so I had to finish the procedure wearing one shoe like a sad pirate.”
She giggled, wheeling alongside him as they reached the Canine Café.
“I highly recommend the caramel latte,” she said.
“Two of those coming right up.”
While he jogged ahead to the window and ordered drinks, she waited, soaking in the quiet of the coffee shop on winter break. A moment later, he returned, holding one cup out to her. “Caramel latte for the future Dr. Hale.”
“Three more years until I get the title,” she said, adding her thanks for the coffee. “But you’re way ahead of me.”
“I feel like I’ve been in school forever,” he said, blowing into the hole in the plastic lid. “I really considered just getting the DVM and starting to work, but the oncology department lured me in.”
“What did they put on that bait? Gold? Oncology is three more years and a residency, right?”
“I lost count,” he joked, holding the door to go back outside. “I’ve now done four years undergrad, four years DVM, the rotating internship, then three years in oncology. I’ll be thirty next year and I haven’t actually held a real job.”
“I haven’t either, and I’m twenty-five. Like I said, way ahead of me.”
“What did you do after you finished school?” he asked. “You must have waited before going to grad school.”
“I got my undergrad degree online,” she explained. “And I lived with my parents out in Heber City, which is not too far from Park City. I didn’t work, because…” She gave her armrests a tap. “Mom and Dad didn’t think that was a good idea. Then I found out about this program and…”
“Bucked the odds,” he said, that Alabama accent even sweeter with his smile. “See? I was right about you. Li’l blond Superwoman.”
“Hardly.” But the compliment tickled her right down to the toes she couldn’t feel.
As they sipped their coffee and continued the tour, he asked about her coursework, the student clinics, the kinds of cases they saw.
He told her about his oncology residency—how he’d stayed up for forty hours once to help a golden retriever through chemo complications, sure they’d lose him in the middle of the night.
“He made it,” Wade said, eyes soft. “His family sent me a Christmas card with his pawprint.”
“That’s so sweet,” she said, genuinely moved.
“I still have it,” he added. “That’s what makes it all worthwhile, right? The dog that lives, the cat that pulls through. I even treated a ferret with bone cancer. I love it, actually.”
The way he said it—matter-of-fact but full of heart—made her pulse skip.
“I do, too,” she admitted. “I haven’t saved any lives yet, but just the fundamentals are satisfying in this business. And there’s so much to learn!”
“That never stops,” he said as they passed a fenced field where about six dogs were running around like controlled chaos in the cold.
“That’s the therapy pack,” Elise explained. “We take them to children’s hospitals and nursing homes. They’re like four-legged antidepressants.”
“I love that,” he said. “What about the Live Nativity? Where will that be?”
“Right here on the quad on Christmas Eve,” she said. “They’re going to start building the stable next week and I have to make sure all the actors—animals and people—are ready.”
“My guess is the animals will be easier than the people,” he said with a laugh.
“No doubt about it, except for maybe the goats. Oh, and the donkey is a little bit arrogant. I mean, for a donkey.”
“Right? Someone tell him he’s not a horse,” Wade joked.
“We also have a new sheep who might steal the show.”
“What an awesome thing to get to do for Christmas,” he said. “Can I help? Or at least meet the four-legged stars?”
Was he always so infectiously enthusiastic? She adored that about him. With each happy observation or upbeat tone, she felt more at ease. How could she not? He made everything seem like an adventure.
“Of course. They’re in the barn. Come on.” She pivoted in a 180-degree turn that she’d executed a million times. But the move had him slowing his step and looking down at her with an unreadable expression. “What is it?” she asked.
“Nothing. You’re just…agile and fearless.”
“Few would call me agile,” she said with a dry laugh. “And fearless? I don’t know about that. I’m afraid of a lot of things.”
“Like what?” he asked.
She looked up at him, catching the sun glinting on his dark hair and the gleam in his green eyes.
“Just the usual things…” But right then, she couldn’t imagine a single thing she was afraid of…except falling so hard for this man she might as well wheel herself off a cliff right now.
He leaned a little closer. “I knew it.”
What did he know? That right then and right there, she was developing a crush the size of the mountains in the distance? That her usual wit and charm just dried up in the face of this handsome creature? That she couldn’t see, think, or roll straight in front of him?
“Knew what?” she asked, her voice tentative as she braced for the response.
“You’re fearless, cowgirl. I love that.”
He loved that? And had a nickname for her?
For once, she was happy to be in this chair, so she didn’t wobble on her weak knees.
“Let’s go to the barn,” she managed to say, thumbing in that general direction. “You can meet my crew.”
As they made their way toward the barn that housed the Nativity animals, Elise realized she’d stopped thinking about her chair entirely. He didn’t slow down for her or speed up. He didn’t hover or overcompensate.
He just…matched her.
And for someone who’d spent half her life feeling like everyone either pitied her or wanted to fix her, that felt like a miracle.
Inside the secondary barn tucked to the side of the campus, Elise and Wade were greeted by a soft chorus of snorts and bleats beneath the hum of heat lamps. Light fell through the high windows in narrow, golden shafts, catching bits of dust and straw that floated like snow.
“These are our Nativity volunteers,” Elise said, rolling down the center aisle.
A donkey lifted his head from a feed bucket and brayed, then meandered out the other door to an outdoor pan. Two goats butted playfully behind a swinging door. In the last stall, a new arrival stood apart from the rest—a white-faced ewe with coarse wool and a tentative, searching look.
“This lovely lady came in yesterday,” Elise said. “A farmer over in Cedar Valley offered to lend some of his flock for the pageant, but he wasn’t sure about this one. Said she seemed… off. Not sick, exactly—just not herself.”
Wade stopped beside the rail, studying the animal. “Mind if I step in?”
“Go ahead. She’s gentle.”
He unlatched the stall door and crouched low, letting the ewe sniff his sleeve. The animal hesitated, then inched forward, trusting.
After a minute, he glanced back at Elise. “You notice her eye?”
“The right one is a little swollen,” she said, wheeling in. She’d noticed the skin around the eye was slightly raised and roughened, like pale coral under the lashes. “I thought it was a scratch. Maybe she bumped something in transport. There’s no discharge, no fever.”
“It’s not an infection,” he murmured. He touched lightly at the wool near her temple, careful not to startle her. “See this plaque here? Almost chalky?”
Elise leaned forward, studying the spot. It wasn’t large, but there was something unsettling about it—the way the light caught the uneven texture, the way the ewe blinked more slowly with that eye.
“I’ve seen something like this before,” Wade said. “But never in a sheep. Cattle, yes, but sheep aren’t common cases.”
“What is it?” she asked.
“Could be nothing, like you said, but it could be ocular squamous cell carcinoma.”
She drew back sharply. “Cancer?”
“Hard to say without a biopsy. But it’s the right shape, the right color.” He ran a hand along the ewe’s neck, his voice gentling. “Poor girl. Maybe that’s why the farmer sent her along—hoping someone here might take a look.”
Elise’s throat tightened. “It would make sense if he can’t afford treatment, but we don’t even have an oncology department.”
“Well, I’m here and happy to give my advice, for what it’s worth.”
Something in the way he said it—steady and sure—made her think it might be worth a lot.
“What’s the treatment if it is carcinoma?” she asked.