This time Mark sank back in his chair. “I haven’t looked at the original equipment list lately. Frankly, I’ve been too damn busy putting out fires. The truth is that Coy Buchanan gave Rick and Margot this piece of land. He could have put up several more mansions on it and made a great deal more money. He’s been in on the plans for the building from the beginning, and we’ve given this place every break on construction we could give.”
“But?”
“You’ve met Margot.”
“And?”
“And Margot has continued to make the building more and more elaborate. The changes have cost much more than originally budgeted. Then the weather, the damage we’ve had—it all adds up. We’re at least a month away from a grand opening, when it should have taken place in February. I think Rick—no, make that everybody—I’m as guilty as he is—has been robbing Peter to pay Paul, and now Peter is presenting his bill. I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is—at least for the next six months, maybe longer.”
“You do think you’ll eventually be able to pull things together?”
“I’m dancing as fast as I can. Will you work with me?”
Sarah stood. “I understand your problems, and I’ll try to be as patient as I can. But remember, this is lives we’re talking about, here.”
“Animal lives. Animals can be replaced.” The moment the words left his mouth, he regretted them. He’d done something he seldom did—speak first and think second. She’d gotten to him.
From the look on her face, Sarah wasn’t about to let him get away with it.
“Tell that to the teenage girl who loses her very first pony because we have to take it four and a half hours away to Mississippi State for colic surgery. You might as well say you should avoid an expensive procedure to save your grandmother because she’s old and ill.”
“A grandmother is a human being, and most people don’t have but two. You can’t put a price on human life.”
“You certainly can put a price on animal lives, Mr. Scott. Farmer A knows precisely what his prize Angus bull is worth. If we screw up through negligence, or because we don’t have the right diagnostic and operating equipment, we’ll have to pay that price. You might add that to your two hundred thousand.”
“That’s what we have liability insurance for.”
“Liability insurance won’t cover that teenage girl’s heartbreak. Do you think Mrs. Jepson would prefer to have the value of George and Marian so she could buy a pair of puppies to take their place?”
“No, but she would replace them.”
“Not replace them. She’d bring other dogs into her life, but she’d never forget them or stop grieving for them. And that’s not one bit different from the way you feel about your grandmother.”
“Both my grandmothers are alive and very well, thank you.”
“Dammit!” Sarah snapped. “Don’t play games with me. So long as you don’t see the value of animal lives, you and I will never be able to communicate.” She walked out of his office.
“Hey…” he said, “I didn’t mean…”
The woman always put him on the defensive, made him say stupid things he would never say to anyone else. The problem was, he liked her. He wished he could give her everything she wanted. But there was no way—not if the clinic was to survive. Drat Margot Buchanan, anyway. If she hadn’t been able to wrap Coy around her little finger, if she hadn’t been able to con Rick…Hell, if Mark hadn’t been in Texas building a mall for three months last year, he could have headed her off. Now his job was doubly difficult.
Because Sarah Marsdon stirred his blood.
Even in the loose scrubs he could see the outlines of her body. He liked the way she moved with an easy swing that was more than a little cocky. He grinned. She might have been put on this earth to complicate his life, but at least the complications made him feel more alive than he had for years. Now, if he could only figure out some way to accommodate everybody’s needs without either bankrupting the clinic or giving himself an ulcer, he’d be fine.
Maybe for some lonely people animals did fill an unfillable gap in their lives, but that still didn’t compare with the loss of a grandmother, say, or a father.
Or did it?
Suddenly, his mind flashed back to the only animal he’d ever owned. Okay, so Mickey had been different. But when Mark and his mother had been forced to move into the apartment after his father’s death, he’d done what everyone had told him was the best thing for Mickey—he’d given his dog to Uncle Greg, who had a farm and young children for Mickey to play with. Uncle Greg had told Mark he’d always be welcome to visit the big black Labrador when he was home from school.
He’d only visited once. Seeing Mickey, playing with him, then driving away had been too painful to endure a second time. Mickey—now long dead and buried under the wild dogwoods at Uncle Greg’s farm.
He hadn’t allowed himself to think about the dog for years. Hadn’t trusted himself to think about Mickey. How come he still felt as deep an ache of emptiness as he did when he thought about his father’s wreck? That was stupid. They weren’t the same thing at all. Were they?
Obviously the point was that he must never allow himself to care that deeply about anyone or anything again, whether it was a Mickey or a father. Building the walls to keep out the pain of inevitable loss took too much effort.
He took out his notebook and reached for the spike impaling a half-dozen telephone messages. Both his temples throbbed. How could such a beautiful woman have such a devastating effect on him?
SARAH POPPED the top of a diet soda with so much force that it spewed all down her front. Obviously Mark was one of those people who simply didn’t recognize the relevance of animals in people’s lives. The kind of person she used to despise. Now she simply felt sorry for them. She’d long since learned that animals gave their humans far more than they took.
Mark’s attitude might be fixable. Once she was settled and knew her way around, she would try to convince him to come with her when she went to the local old folks’ home with one of the visitation dogs, or to a Special Cargo class, in which developmentally delayed children rode horses. Simply watching a sheepdog herd sheep wouldn’t do it. He’d be impressed with the dog’s skills, but not with its ability to provide emotional support.
She’d lay out her strategy carefully. It might take a few months, but before she was through, she’d have Mark as passionately committed as she was to Creature Comfort and its clients.
As she finished her soda, Bill came in, got himself a drink, opened it and drank deeply. Then he plopped his body down in the chair opposite Sarah’s.
“So he’s screwed you, too.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Scott. I’ve been out supervising the workmen finishing up my flight cage. He cut back the dimensions. He told me we’ll enlarge it when there’s more money, but I know he’s hiding money that we could use right this minute.” He sounded on the verge of angry tears.
“What makes you think he’s hiding money?”
“He’s noted for it. He’s overcautious, and in this case, he’s not really committed to the clinic.”
“He doesn’t want it to fail, surely.”
“Who knows? Maybe he’s got his own agenda. We go under, he and Buchanan sell this place to a medical group or bulldoze it and put up apartments.”
“Bill, that doesn’t make any sense. I’m just as annoyed about his tightfistedness as you are, but I don’t think he has any deep and sinister plot. He probably thinks he’s