Chapter 1 #2
I didn’t sleep well for the rest of the night.
A lot of that was the fact that I kept waking up and going downstairs to check on the dog.
He slept a hell of a lot better than I did—and snored like a little chainsaw.
In between trips downstairs, I lay in my bed and stared at the ceiling and felt like a fucking chump for not getting the guy’s credit card details before I even took a goddamn look at the dog, but hey, it wasn’t like I’d been running on all cylinders at two in the morning.
My vet training might be second nature even when I was still half-asleep, but apparently my business sense had yet to develop to the point where it was instinctual.
I got up at first light and took the dog out into the backyard so he could pee.
Then I put him back in his cage despite his whining and promised him breakfast after surgery.
I made a mental note to give him a bath and some flea and parasite treatment once he was sedated because he was pretty grimy and our early morning scritches showed up some flea dirt.
After getting the dog settled, I went upstairs and showered, hoping that would wake me up.
It didn’t.
I needed a coffee, and I thought of the place on Main Street that Kayla was always telling me had the best coffee and pastries for miles around.
I hadn’t been there yet because small towns meant small talk—I’d already learned that from my pet owners—and getting sidelined into lengthy conversations with Mr. and Mrs. Nosy Neighbor didn’t seem worth the cost of a coffee, however good it was.
But I checked my phone and it wasn’t quite seven yet, so maybe I’d skip whatever passed for rush hour at the coffee place.
Uncle Jim’s house was a couple blocks back from Main Street.
The summer morning was cool, with just a little bit of bite in the air, so I put a jacket on over my T-shirt before I set out. The day looked like it was going to be bright and sunny. I set off down the sidewalk, which was dotted with flowering magnolias and dogwoods, heading for Main Street.
Goose Run was a pretty little town, at least this small section of it close to Main Street.
Once you got away from the center of town, things got a little rough around the edges, with fewer flowering dogwoods and more rusted-out Dodges, but the view on my short walk to Main Street was pleasant in an almost nostalgic way.
Not personally nostalgic—I’d never lived anywhere that looked like Norman Rockwell might have painted it during one of his overly saccharine phases—but culturally.
It was neat and pretty and wholesome. I thought fleetingly of Uncle Jim’s offer to sell me the practice if I liked it here.
And then I stepped in dog shit.
There was probably a lesson in there somewhere.
I vigorously and repeatedly scraped the sole of my shoe on the nearest section of lawn, like a dog scuffing the grass, and continued on in a much worse mood.
I was mostly pissed about the dog. What I should do was take him to the nearest shelter and leave him there, but I wasn’t going to do that.
No, first I was going to stitch his ear and give him a bath and a parasite treatment, and his vaccinations since I clearly couldn’t trust that the asshole who’d abandoned him had given two shits about those in the past and none of this was the dog’s fault.
And then, after taking that financial hit, I’d drive him to the nearest shelter, wherever that was.
Because, as the asshole who’d dumped him on me had correctly assumed, I was a soft fucking touch.
A soft fucking touch with two hundred and forty thousand of student debt who was currently on leave from his boss’s practice in Cincinnati so he could work in Goose Fucking Run at below the going rate of pay for a relief vet.
But please, every client who’d ever fucking screamed at me in an exam room, tell me again how I was just a greedy piece of shit who didn’t care about animals and was only in this for the money.
Fuck them, fuck that guy, and fuck my life most of all, I guessed.
I wished I could say I’d walked off the worst of my mood by the time I hit Main Street, but I hadn’t. It was still clinging persistently, just like it had before I’d even come to Goose Run, and just like it would once I was back home and back at work in Cincinnati.
I stopped in front of the bakery.
Gobble de Goose? Who would do that?
Maybe it was supposed to be quirky or something, the sort of name that would make someone give a wry chuckle every time they thought about it. The shitty mood I was in, it seemed worse than unfunny. It deeply annoyed me on a cellular level.
Jesus, I thought as I pushed open the door and the bells jingled merrily, I really need a coffee.
There was nobody behind the counter, and for a moment I wondered if they were even open yet, but someone called out, “I’ll be with you in just a second!
” so I figured I hadn’t just blundered in when I wasn’t meant to.
I didn’t actually mind the wait because it gave me a chance to check out the display case on the long counter that ran the length of the back wall.
Apparently, it wasn’t just a coffee I needed.
It was also a Danish, a cookie, a brownie, a cupcake, and possibly an apple turnover.
Okay, so I wasn’t going to buy all of those, just one, but which one?
Narrowing down my choice was going to be tricky, but it sure was a nice problem to have, compared to all my others.
I was debating between the Danish and the apple turnover—they both had fruit in them, so that meant they were breakfast foods, right?
—when a guy came out from the back. He was carrying a tray stacked with Danishes, so I didn’t see much of him before he ducked down behind the display case and began to unload them.
“Hey, sorry about the wait,” he said, his face still obscured. “Did you want a coffee?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Can I get a regular Americano with cream and a shot of vanilla?”
The guy straightened up.
He was young. Messy brown hair. Fair skin. Cute, although I told myself I didn’t notice that this morning. It was the same fucking guy from last night, and the asshole had the audacity to look like he’d gotten a decent night’s sleep.
“You,” I said.
He narrowed his eyes. “Me, what?”
“You ran out on me last night!”
His eyes widened. “What the hell are you—”
“It was five hours ago,” I said. “You really think I’ve forgotten already?”
The guy glared at me. “Listen, asshole—”
“You’re the asshole!” I said, raising my voice.
“You’re the asshole who dumped your injured dog on me in the middle of the night, then bolted before you could even give me your name!
” I forced my volume down and tried to remember I was a professional.
“So let’s talk about how you’re going to pay the bill, shall we? ”
Apparently, I didn’t get my volume down as quickly as I should have.
Two guys emerged from the back, both wearing aprons. They were around my height and had the broad shoulders and upper body strength that came from hauling sacks of flour around all day.
“Problem?” the darker one asked.
“A customer is yelling at me,” the guy said, eyes narrowed. “And for once, it’s not even my fault.” I opened my mouth, and he held up his hand. “Hold up a second. Did you say something about a dog? Wait, are you Dr. Ross’s replacement?”
“Temporary,” I said. “And you know exactly who—”
“Dr. Ross is the vet,” the guy said to the others.
“He’s like on a cruise or something? Or dead?
I don’t care.” He turned back to me. “Anyway, asshole, I’ve never met you before in my life.
” His murderous glare wavered, and then he let out a breath and said, “But I do have an identical twin brother.”
I blinked at him.
He had a what now?