Emma hated feeling guilty when she took advantage of her mother’s deafness. She hated having to find her mother and look at her to tell her something instead of just yelling from upstairs or the back yard. It made every word they said to each other too important. Why couldn’t they just go back the way they were before the stupid accident?
CHAPTER TWO
MAC SLEPT LATE on Sunday morning. He deserved a little extra time after having worked on that corgi until nearly ten o’clock on Saturday night.
His first thoughts on waking were of Kit Lockhart. Mrs.? He hadn’t asked her last night, but he definitely wanted to know whether she had a husband.
Not that he was likely to see her again once Kevlar was fully recovered. His life was entirely too busy to complicate with women, and definitely not with women who unnerved him.
Even though it was a Sunday on which he was not officially on call, he dressed, grabbed a doughnut and an espresso from the drive-through and drove to the clinic to check on his patients.
He went straight to the small-animal ICU. Bigelow Little, the kennel man and general clinic help, was on his knees in front of the corgi’s cage.
“Hey, Dr. Mac,” Big said. “He come in last night?” Big stood up.
At six foot four Mac was used to being the tallest person in the room, but when Big was around, Mac knew how Chihuahuas must feel around Irish wolf-hounds. Big was immense—nearly seven feet tall, and half as broad. Not an ounce of fat on him. He looked capable of breaking Mac in two, but was in fact the gentlest soul on earth.
“Removed a kidney. We had any bodily functions this morning?”
Big grinned and ran his huge hand over his cropped white-blond hair. “Yes, sir. Downright apologetic about it, though. Acted like he’d done dirtied in the churn.”
“You had him out?”
“Cleaned up after him is all. Didn’t know what you wanted me to do.”
“If you have time, you might try walking him around in here. He’s pretty sore, but he needs to use those legs. Don’t want him throwing a blood clot.”
“I’ll do it.”
And he would. Big Little had been the greatest find the clinic had made since it opened. An inmate at the local penal farm, Big had been one of the members of the first team to work the new beef-cattle herd at the farm. Dr. Eleanor Grayson, now Eleanor Chadwick, had been the veterinarian in charge of that program, and had picked Big out immediately as having a special rapport with animals.
When Big was pardoned, Creature Comfort had hired him at once. Now he had a small apartment on the grounds behind Dr. Weinstock’s laboratory, and acted as night watchman as well as a jack-of-all-trades in the clinic. If anyone could coax Kevlar to walk, Big could.
Mac checked his other patients, then went to look over his schedule for Monday. He wondered when Kit Lockhart would come to visit Kevlar today, and realized he hadn’t told Big she was deaf. He started to go back, but Rick Hazard stuck his head out of his office door and called him.
“You keeping banker’s hours?” Rick said.
“It’s Sunday, dammit.” Mac bristled. “And I was here late last night removing a kidney.”
Rick raised his hands. “Whoa! I’m just kidding. How come you didn’t let Liz Carlyle handle it? She was on call for small animals last night.”
Liz Carlyle was an excellent vet. At the moment she was working on an advanced degree in veterinary ophthalmology and her surgical skills were top-notch.
“I trust her, but I trust me more.” Besides, Kevlar’s kidney problem was an interesting and delicate case and a welcome change from neutering dogs and spaying cats. “I didn’t have anything better to do.”
Rick nodded. “Like you don’t have anything better to do this morning. Hey, podner, you ought to get a life.”
Mac forced a smile. “I have a life. And I have patients in ICU. Where else would I be? You’re the one who’s usually on the golf course by now.”
“That’s where I would be if I weren’t on call here. Eighteen holes, then a late brunch with Margot at Brennan’s, a long post-brunch snooze in front of the television set and a late supper.”
“And you think I should get a life?”
“Actually, I think you should get a wife.”
“You sound like my mother. Don’t.” Mac pivoted on his heel and walked back to his office, then stopped and turned. “Look, since I’m here already, I’ll handle the calls, if any, until Liz gets in. Will that give you time for your golf game?”
“Heck, nine holes, at least. Forget what I said about getting a life. You just go right on being a lonely workaholic as long as you want.”
After Rick dashed for the parking lot and his golf clubs, Mac propped his feet on his desk and picked up the copy of the Sunday paper he’d brought with him. He might take in a matinee this afternoon, maybe try a new restaurant tonight. Or he could work out at the gym. He had plenty of friends at the gym.
Except they seldom showed up on Sunday.
More annoyed by Rick’s gibes than he was willing to admit, he pulled open his desk drawer and took out a dog-eared black leather address book. He’d take someone to dinner tonight, maybe wind up spending the night.
He wasn’t quite certain when he’d given up sex. It hadn’t been intentional. Recently he hadn’t been seriously involved with any woman. He never had been able to master the bed-hopping techniques of some of his bachelor colleagues. Sex should entail real emotional attachment.
Talk about getting old!
He ran his eye down the names in his address book. Cindy was married—pregnant, he thought. Marilyn had moved away to Seattle or someplace. Jennifer would probably be free, but her endless prattle about social functions would give him a migraine. Claire would hang up on him.
Sarah Scott and Eleanor Chadwick, the two large-animal vets, were both happily married, and Sarah had a baby. Mac couldn’t barge in on either of them on a Sunday. Bill Chumney, the exotics vet, was out in the Dakotas somewhere building a census of black-footed ferrets, and Sol Weinstock was at the international equine clinic in Lexington, Kentucky, working on his experiments with EIA vaccine.
Mac wandered back to the kennels. The cages were cleaned and all the animals had fresh water and food.
“You about done, Big?” Mac asked.
“Uh-huh. Got the little guy out and walked him around some. He’s a real happy fellow, isn’t he?”
Mac nodded. “You doing anything this afternoon?”
Big turned his seraphic smile on Mac. “Me’n Alva Jean are taking her kids to the zoo.” He looked hard at Mac. “Hey, why don’t you come along? They got that new baby gorilla out. Ain’t nothin’ cuter than a baby gorilla.”
Mac shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but no. I’m here until two. Then I’ll probably take in a movie.”
“You ought to come with us. Alva Jean wouldn’t mind.”
Alva Jean had recently been through a nasty divorce. The last person Mac might have expected her to take up with was Big Little. Well, maybe not the last. She’d walked out on her husband because he had smacked her and the two children around. It took a great deal to rile Big Little, and he would as soon raise a hand to a woman or child or animal as he would take up brain surgery. At least with Big she’d be physically safe from her husband.
Unfortunately, if the husband tried to hurt either his ex-wife or