Tennessee Rescue. Carolyn McSparren

sign on her back that said “outsider.”

      “Nice to see somebody fixing up that place,” a man in a business suit said from the next table. “Welcome to Williamston.” He swung his chair around and held out his hand. “Doug Eldridge.”

      “How do you do?”

      “He’s the local doctor,” Barbara said.

      “Yeah. Barbara heals the animals. I try to heal the humans. She’s better at her job than I am at mine. At least to hear her tell it. But if you need me, I’m in the book. And unless you want to drive to Memphis, I’m your best bet.”

      “More like your only bet,” Velma said and walked behind the counter to hang the order for Emma’s breakfast on one of the clips by the kitchen.

      “How are the you-know-whos?” Barbara asked Emma.

      “Fine, I guess. Lively, at any rate. Seth says I need an outside cage for them. We came into town to get stuff to build it. He says he’s going to help, but I don’t see how he has the time. What does he actually do at his job? I don’t know a thing about him.”

      Barbara held out her mug. Velma filled it on her way by the table.

      “The first thing you want to know is whether or not he’s married. He’s divorced, and just as well. No children. Married to his job. Great guy as long as you stay on his good side.”

      “And if you don’t?”

      “He’ll make you wish you had.”

      “How come it’s better that he’s divorced?”

      “Clare was a rip-snorting spoiled brat who absolutely hated living in the country, where she had to drive thirty miles for a mani-pedi up to her high standards.” Barbara glanced down at Emma’s disintegrating fingernails. “She used to drive into Memphis to get her hair cut.”

      Emma reddened. “I know my hands look awful. I need to at least take the polish off. I just haven’t had time what with the you-know-whos to find my polish remover. If Seth does build the cage, how do I pay him?”

      “Don’t you dare! Talk about getting on his bad side! Fix him a good dinner. That’s assuming you can cook. This is the first time since Clare divorced him, moved to Nashville and remarried that he’s shown any interest in doing anything other than his job. He’s developing a reputation as a real hardnose. His dog, Rambler, died six months ago and he still doesn’t have another. I haven’t found the perfect one for him yet, but I will. Anyway, he’ll probably ask Earl—that’s his partner—and maybe a couple of the other guys to help him. So you’re really interested in this fostering animals thing?”

      “I have no idea. I’m stuck with it now, but I don’t know how it works. Obviously I screwed up with my first attempt by picking the you-know-whos instead of a baby rabbit.”

      “You had the right instincts. We don’t judge on a cuteness quotient. I’ve fostered baby turkey buzzards. Cute they are not, except to a mother turkey buzzard. But we need them. We’d be up to our ears in roadkill otherwise. I call ’em God’s garbagemen.”

      Velma set Emma’s breakfast plate down just a little harder than necessary. Emma assumed she didn’t approve of poached eggs, although these looked perfect.

      “You want to find out what fostering animal work is like,” Barbara said, “you go home, feed the you-knows and drive on down to my clinic. I’ve got a menagerie to oversee and no one to work with me, so I need to get back. You know where my clinic is? Just down the road a couple of miles past your house. Can’t miss it. There’s a big parking lot in front and one behind it, and four horse trailers on the side.”

      Emma’s day was imploding fast. She’d intended to set up her workspace, start sending out résumés and make some telephone calls to friends and former colleagues. Networking always worked better than cold calls. At this point she wasn’t looking for a position that paid as well or carried as much prestige as her job with Nathan. Just some way to pay the bills without borrowing money from her dad.

      Barbara slid out of the banquette, dropped a couple of dollars on the table for Velma and went off to pay her bill at the front.

      Seeing Barbara’s clinic and her animals sounded like a bunch more fun than résumés. She’d work on those this afternoon while the babies were napping.

      Several people nodded to her as they walked up to the cash register, but no one actually spoke. They obviously knew who she was...heck, they probably knew her shoe size. She didn’t dawdle over her breakfast. The babies were waiting for their breakfast, too.

      At home, she was astonished by how fast they were gaining control of their legs. They marched around their playpen like animated stuffed toys and squeaked at her for not meeting their needs earlier. She fed them, cleaned them and their playpen, then went out to call on Barbara with a couple of pats on the head for each one before she left. Peony stood on her hind legs and begged to be picked up, but Emma hardened her heart. “Later, little child. I promise I’ll love on you.”

      She’d been aware of the vet clinic, but she’d never had a reason to stop there.

      The clinic building looked as though it had started life as a fancy pole barn and been converted to a business with real walls sometime later. Emma was surprised that the waiting room was empty, without even a receptionist behind the desk. Barbara had said she had no help at the moment, but Emma hadn’t realized that no help meant exactly that. Maybe her receptionist was off for some reason or worked only part-time. From down the hall Barbara’s voice called, “Emma, come on back, unless you faint at the sight of blood.”

      Lovely. Just what she needed after a big breakfast. Still, she followed Barbara’s voice through an open door halfway down the hall.

      Inside, in her signature electric-blue scrubs, Barbara stood over an unconscious tricolored hound with a four-inch gash along its flank. The flank had been shaved, and bits of hair stuck to the globs of blood that had run from the wound onto the table.