Chapter 8 #2
“You’re licensed. That’s one thing your dad made sure of every year. I’m assuming your license up north is in good standing. For the time being, you work here. I’m your boss.”
I crossed my arms.
The insecure way his eyes darted told me he knew he’d overstepped. I shouldn’t do the surgery. Okay, maybe I had already planned it out in my head.
“Please, Erika.” He held up his hands in prayer position. “Do it for Petey. His person died of bone cancer last year. He was only fifteen. Smart kid. Well liked in the community.” He scrunched up his face into a skeptical pose. “Maybe this is too hard for you. I get it. You’re scared.”
I rubbed at my right eye, which for some reason itched today.
“I don’t fall for reverse psychology crap.
The procedure doesn’t scare me. What I fear is that we don’t have the tools or the staff to make sure it’s done right.
What’s best for that dog is to send him to the local ER or over to the vet school in Raleigh. ”
“I doubt he’d survive the drive. He sure as hell will die at the local emergency place. They’ll euthanize him without even trying the surgery.”
“Then that’s a bad option. This needs a team of trained people helping me.
I need someone monitoring the dog. I might need someone scrubbed in to assist in surgery.
I probably need supplies you don’t have here.
” I need Sarah. I can’t do this without her.
I put my purse and jacket on the exam room table.
“Why didn’t your techs put in a catheter and start fluids the second the dog came in?
Did he already have lab work? I need blood gasses. ”
“Bonnie was on break.”
I cocked my head as the unsaid question in my head pinged in the air between us: Why didn’t you do it?
“We don’t see emergencies like this often. We don’t have blood gasses.” He took off his lab coat and threw it on the table next to my stuff. “You’re the expert with special training.”
“No blood gasses,” I muttered. “No preparation for emergencies. I don’t do half-assed medicine, Doctor Hurst. If the patient dies after you force me to cut corners, I’ll dismember your body and feed the pieces to the bears that live at the far edge of town.”
He craned away from me. “That was disturbingly specific and graphic for a random threat.”
“Oh, please. Before I left this place, I spent months dreaming of different ways to end you and not get caught. Back in vet school during my first neuter, I imagined your balls—”
“Got it. No cutting corners. You can use whatever you need that we have here or on one of the farm trucks.”
“Every castration I performed during my shelter rotation was deeply cathartic. Truly therapeutic.” I shrugged. “And then I moved on. I found guys who kissed better than you and actually wanted to sleep with me.”
Okay, maybe that was a stretch, but I sold it with confidence.
Because the truth? No one kissed like Josh.
For all the things I couldn’t stand about him, the man inhaled oxygen and exhaled pure sexual masculinity.
It was in everything he did—from the way he walked like he owned gravity, to how he filled out a pair of tight baseball pants like a public service announcement, to the way he stared at my chest with zero shame and even less remorse.
And he kissed like he could teach a master class on the subject.
He scowled and stepped closer. “I never said I didn’t want to. We just never got around to it.”
“Oh please,” I shot back. “Whose fault was that? Because clearly ‘no’ isn’t a word you’re familiar with, at least not when it comes to women who aren’t me.
Every woman in this town has made sure to enlighten me on your…
services.” I crossed my arms. “Apparently, two girls in high school were just your warm-up act. Now you’re some kind of small-town Lothario with a punch card system: flirt with twelve women, get the thirteenth free. ”
His gave me a pinched look. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. My sex life has nothing to do with this. This is about Petey.”
“First…” I held up a finger. “I agree. Who you sleep with is none of my business. Truly. But the women in this town—excluding Marty, bless her sanity—have gone out of their way to personally inform me that they’re either already in your bed or aggressively waiting for their turn.
” I lifted a second finger. “Second: Petey is not my problem. He is yours.”
He let loose a frustrated grunt. My chin was suddenly between his thumb and finger to force me to look up at him.
I refused to savor the waft of familiar deodorant I knew was his favorite “sports” formula. Apparently, that hadn’t changed. I didn’t acknowledge the cramping up of my middle nor the sizzle of awareness that tingled from my face down to my shoulders.
He growled out in that low, sexy voice of his, “This is now. Not back then. That’s all either of us need to remember. This isn’t a game. It isn’t war, not inside the clinic. This is about the animals. That dog out there needs the skills you have.”
“Let. Me. Go.”
He stepped away and crossed his arms, giving me a tempting view of an exquisite set of biceps. On his left forearm, I spied an intricate image and wondered why he got the tattoo.
He said, “I’ll make you a deal. No fighting inside the walls of this building. No trying to hurt each other. Not when pets might suffer. In here, it’s about the animals.”
“You think I’d forget that they come first?” I asked.
“Good.” He extended a hand. “Let’s swear no war inside this building.”
I swallowed, then forced through my teeth, “I won’t do anything to endanger a patient.” I pointed at his hand. “I’m not ready to swear anything to you.”
“Fair enough.” He snapped his hand back to tuck both hands beneath his armpits. “Let’s go try to get this arrow out.”
“You mean, let’s go have me deal with it?”
He sighed dramatically and pushed out of the room.
The tech had hooked him up to a fluid bag, thank goodness.
I wheeled over the anesthetic machine to provide the dog flow-by oxygen. My breaths came in choppy spurts. I grabbed my phone and dialed Sarah.
She answered on the second ring and sounded agitated.
“I need help,” I said rapidly.
“What kind of help? The kind where I drive six hundred miles and bring a shovel?”
“That sounds nice, but no. Put that promise on hold for the moment. I might need it. Dog has an arrow through its chest. Moderately shocky. Not started on appropriate stabilization. That guy…Josh just twisted my arm into doing the surgery. I’ve got Josh and one tech whose skills are unclear.
” I glared at the tech who shot me an evil glare of her own. “Help.”
“Stop freaking out,” Sarah ordered. “Is the surgery possible? I need stats on if you think you can do it.”
My choppy breaths stopped. “He’s got a fifty percent chance. Looks like it passed clean through both sides. Could use a blood transfusion, but that’s probably not an option.”
“Go find materials to scrub in. Find the supplies to do the surgery and place a chest tube. Do your breathing exercises. Hand the phone to this Josh guy. What’s his last name?”
“Hurst.”
“Hand me over to Mr. Hotass Hurst.” She giggled after she said it.
“I did not call him that. It’s Dr. Hurst.”
“Hand me over.” She laughed hard.