“I'm not on call.”
Cade grinned. “Maybe I just missed you.”
There was a lengthy pause. “What do you want? And by that, I mean you better be up to your ass in greyhounds needing my cutting expertise. It's almost midnight.”
“Got a yellow lab puppy requiring an amputation. Does that qualify?”
Drake groaned. “Is it stable?”
Cade bit back the string of insults he wanted to let loose. It wasn't as if he wasn't used to being underestimated. “I'm not an idiot, you know. I have a degree and everything. I'm even sure I can spell veterinarian if I try real hard—”
“I'll be there in ten. Prep the room.”
Cade pocketed his phone and rubbed the puppy behind his ears, earning two thumps of a tail.
“Seraph.” He shook his head. “Your owner is really something. Kinda pretty, too. She gave you a great name, even if she did leave you out in the snow, the big meanie.”
Two more tail thumps.
“I have to go prepare the surgery room for my ornery brother, but I'll be right back. You just hang out here for a minute.” He stroked the puppy's back. “I promise we'll get you fixed up. You'll be good as new soon.”
Thump, thump.
Chapter 2
After two anal gland appointments and a lethargic guinea pig rounding out his patients for the morning, Cade walked up to the front desk and eyed his aunt, who was baby talking their clinic dog, Thor. The Great Dane hid under the desk, cowering from She-rah, their evil cat. And evil she was. Charts teetered precariously from the long counter. At least the lobby was empty. It had been a damn crazy morning.
Squawk. “You spin me right round.” Gossip, the cockatoo—yet another abandoned animal—bobbed his head. One of these days, Cade would have to teach him to say something other than song titles or lyrics. As it was, that's all the bird did thanks to his former owner. That, and tease the cat.
Cade scratched his jaw. “Am I good to go for lunch?”
Aunt Rosa sighed dramatically. Everything was dramatic with Rosa from her red spiky hair to her cheetah print shirt. “Will you look at this?” She narrowed her eyes at Thor. “Grow a pair and come out of there. It's just a cat.”
She-rah licked her paw and meowed from the top of the printer, bored by the events. I bet I can get the dog to lose his bladder. Wanna see?
Thor didn't move.
Shaking his head, Cade picked up She-rah, much to her disdain—put me down you insolent peasant—and set her in the back room. Returning to the lobby, he called for Thor. The hundred and ten pound dog commando crawled from under the desk and hid behind Rosa's chair.
Cade lifted his brows. “Now may I go to lunch?”
Not that Rosa was their boss or anything, but he and his brothers knew not to rock the boat. For twenty years, their aunt had managed the clinic and acted as receptionist. Poorly, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Rosa was their mother's sister and one of what Cade liked to refer to as The Battleaxes. Their mother, Gayle, Aunt Rosa, and other sister, Marie—also town mayor—ruled Redwood Ridge with an iron fist and oatmeal cookies. They were crazy, meddling women who he loved and feared. Mostly feared.
“Have you found my replacement yet?”
He bit back a groan. Rosa had announced six weeks ago she wanted to retire to do…whatever it was the Battleaxes did. Eat small children, update Redwood Ridge's Twitter page with town gossip, matchmaking…
He batted his eyelashes. “How could we ever replace you, Aunt Rosa?”
“Can the cuteness. Save it for the ladies.”
Right. “No, we haven't replaced you yet.” He'd have to get an ad in the paper, which would bring out all the crazies or every single woman in a thirty-mile radius. Damn it. He should make Flynn handle the hiring. As the middle brother, he was the most organized. Except he was their traveling vet and wasn't in the office much. “I'll get on it right away.”
She narrowed her hazel eyes and tilted her head, her unnaturally red hair not moving with all the shellac she'd sprayed on it. “You said that more than a month ago.”
Well, how was he to know she was serious? It was hard to tell with her. “I mean it this time. Now can I go to lunch? Pretty please?” There were only three people on earth he'd bust out the “pretty please” for, and one of them was right in front of him.
“Brent's already at lunch. Go ahead.” She smacked his ass and waved him off.
Brent being his vet tech. Why didn't Rosa smack his ass? Brent would enjoy it. “It's really pervy when you do that.”
She feigned innocence. “Love tap your rear end? It's a nice one.”
He bit back a sigh. “You're relation. It's pervy.” He was two steps from freedom when he remembered something. “Can you get a hold of Justine from that clothing store down the way? She came in with a tourist who had the injured lab—”
“You mean Avery Stowe? She's not a tourist. She's Justine's daughter. Just moved to town with her daughter. Bad divorce. They're staying up at one of Justine's rentals until they can find a place.”
Perhaps he should've been nicer to her, but she'd caught him at the tail end of a crappy day and the fact remained, she hadn't taken very good care of her pet. Even without the injury, the puppy was malnourished.
Pulling on his coat, he reached for the door. “Can you get a number for her and let her know Seraph is recuperating nicely?” Not that she seemed to care. She hadn't visited the puppy.
“No need. Avery called three times this morning to say she'd be in after lunch. Apparently, there was a problem with their moving truck getting lost. Poor woman. No good luck. Plus, the daughter, Hailey, was pretty upset over finding the stray, so it took Avery awhile to calm her down after they left here. They slept in.”
Cade locked in on one word in that whole rant. “What do you mean, stray? It's their dog, isn't it?”
She offered him her classical duh look. “It is now, but not when they found it. Can you imagine that poor little girl coming across a scene like that?”
He called to mind the exhaustion edging the woman's chocolate eyes, the way the daughter never spoke, and the way he'd all but jumped down her throat. He'd assumed the worst, which wasn't like him. The woman—Avery?—had rescued Seraph from bleeding out into the snow, alone and scared.
And he'd been curt with her for doing the right thing.
Shit. He was an asshole.
* * * *
Avery wiped her hands on a dish towel and went to answer the incessant knocking. Hoping it was the moving van, she pulled the door open to find Seraph's vet. “Oh.” She took a step back and blinked. “It's you.”
The Jerk, she'd begun to call him in her head.
Looking just as attractive as he had the night before, sans the irritation, his hands framed the doorway as he leaned into them, taking up the whole space. Sandy blond hair, a little on the longish side, curled around his ears and nape. Blue eyes damn near the color of the Pacific in June warily stared at her. A little gray mixed in to keep them from being too potent. His jaw had a day's worth of scruff and the man rocked a set of powder blue scrubs under an open leather coat.
God. He was an eye-gasm if she ever saw one.
When he didn't say anything, her heart started to pound. “Oh, no. Is…Seraph all right?” She turned to peek at Hailey, who was doing a numbers app game