Between the howling animals and the crying receptionist, Dusty had had enough. He walked over to the woman kneeling beside the cage and offered his hand to bring her to her feet. Mikayla accepted the helping hand, and as she stood she came eye-to-eye with the doctor.
Dusty forgot his train of thought. His staff, the barking dogs, everything fell away. All he could focus on were eyes the color of September’s fall leaves just as they began to turn that rich, deep brown. There was aged knowledge in those eyes that did not go with the beautiful, youthful face in which they were contained. She was what the elders called an old soul. A person wise beyond their years, and he was curious to know what had given such a beautiful young woman such sad eyes.
Feeling her tug, he realized he was still holding her hand and quickly released it.
He cleared his throat and put on his professional voice. “Hello, I’m Dr. Dusty Warren.” He introduced himself to the woman.
“Mikayla Shroeder.” She smiled. “Sorry to cause your staff so much trouble, but I guess you can see why we’re here.” She gestured to the dog. “This is Angel, and as you can see she is in desperate need of some training, and I was told you’re the best.”
Dusty smiled. “You’ve certainly come to the right place. Tim, please put the dog in room three.”
But Tim and Hannah had their heads bent together, talking in whispers. Rather than call him again, Dusty pushed the wheeled case himself. “This way.” He gestured for Mikayla to go ahead of him.
“I apologize again. I don’t know what got into her.” Mikayla was speaking over her shoulder as she moved back into the main hospital.
“Well, let’s go find out, shall we?” Dusty struggled to keep his head up and avoid looking at those form-fitting jeans and how they moved with her body.
“I think you may have accidentally done Tim a good service,” Dusty said, closing the door behind him. “That dress was for Hannah’s date with a new guy.”
“Aaahhh,” Mikayla said. “With Tim being the old guy, I presume?”
“Exactly.”
Dusty parked the case by the table, and Angel was sitting quietly inside, having accepted her temporary fate. Dusty reached over to the wall and took down a leash.
He opened the cage and hooked the leash to her collar before Angel even realized what he was doing. But once the collar was attached she began bouncing around inside. Even with her standing a few feet away, Dusty could feel the tension in Mikayla.
Once the dog was out of the cage and climbing all over Dusty, Mikayla released a breath she’d been holding.
“She likes you.” The slight surprise in Mikayla’s voice indicated that this was not typically the case.
Dusty pushed Angel back down on her bottom and began trying to examine her, while she continued to climb on him, attempting to put her paws over his shoulders. All of a sudden her busy motion stopped and she sat down on her rump, tail wagging, but beyond that she was calm.
Dusty looked at the dog and was surprised to see her just watching him in silence. “She seems in good health.”
After much resistance, he managed to get her mouth open and looked at her teeth. “What is she, about six? Six and a half?”
“I think so.”
He glanced at Mikayla and looked away. What a beauty, he thought, trying to keep his mind on the dog.
He knew about the author and motivational speaker, Mikayla Shroeder. Who didn’t? In fact, he’d read her first book a few years ago. He’d picked it up at the airport, just wanting something to read on the plane while traveling to a veterinarian conference in Portland, Oregon, not realizing at the time that it was Christian inspirational nonfiction. The book, Reclaiming Your Soul, had been a national bestseller within weeks of coming out, and launched the formerly unknown author into instant superstardom. That day in the airport, he had wanted to see what all the fuss was about. In fact, as far as he knew the book was still selling in record volumes.
Surprisingly, he’d enjoyed reading it at the time, but he had given little thought to the author, and what thought he’d given had not come anywhere close to the gorgeous, young woman standing in his office.
She’d only written the one book that he knew of, but nowadays you couldn’t turn on the radio without hearing a promotion for one of her upcoming seminars.
He’d assumed she was older. Much older. Why, he wasn’t sure, just something about the way she wrote spoke of a maturity beyond her years. He thought about the book he’d read and didn’t think there’d been an author photo along with the brief bio.
He was so occupied by his thoughts of Mikayla that what came next took him by surprise. Angel sprang at him in joyful delight, all two hundred pounds of her, and together they hit the floor with Dusty on the bottom.
Before he knew what had happened, Angel was standing on his chest, smiling down at him. She barked once, a loud, happy bark as if to declare she’d won.
“Angel!” Mikayla was pulling on the leash, trying to get the dog off him, but Dusty was more successful in just pushing her to the side and climbing to his feet. Except for a bruised ego, he was none the worse off.
“Bad girl!” Mikayla was scolding her, even as she petted her head. Dusty wondered if she understood how contradictory her actions were.
He dusted himself off. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“You’re disciplining her with words, but rewarding her with action.” He motioned to where her hand was running over the dog’s head. Angel’s tail wagged as she enjoyed the petting.
Mikayla looked down at her hand as if it had taken on a life of it’s own. “I hadn’t even realized it.” She snatched back her hand. “It’s just habit.”
Dusty glanced down at the dog who was once again sitting, this time at her master’s side, her tail still wagging happily.
Dusty thought he better lay down the ground rules now. He’d seen this before. People who could not bear the idea of being apart from their pets for any amount of time. Just watching her behavior with the dog, Dusty thought Mikayla Shroeder might be one of those people.
“Ms. Shroeder—”
“Mikayla.”
“Mikayla, you need to understand that my training methods are different from others. If I accept Angel as a client, she has to stay here with me.”
Her eyes widened. “For how long?”
“Eight weeks.”
“Eight weeks? Why so long?”
He braced his weight against the examination table and folded his arms across his chest. “What I do is less training and more deprogramming. I need to be her complete focus for a while. After two weeks, you can come visit her and then after that I need you to come in once a week for training.”
“What kind of training?” she asked.
“You have to understand that Angel is half the problem. You’re the other half. Your behavior toward her has to change as much as her behavior toward you.”
She glanced down at her dog, who gazed up at her with adoring eyes. “I don’t know about this. Eight weeks is a long time. We haven’t been separated that long, since…I just don’t know.”
Dusty caught the pause, but said nothing. Most people who came to him never went through with the program for this very reason. They did not want to be separated from their pet for such an extended amount of time. But separating them was the only way to get the dog’s complete attention, and getting the dog’s complete attention was the way to retrain them.
“I tell you what.” He