Stray (2 page)

As tempting as it was to get into the shower without checking, I needed to make sure Megan was still here, or at least that she
’d locked the door behind her. I rounded the corner just as she began shouting.

“We’re closed! Come back tomorrow.”

“Megan, what…” I started, and then noticed the guy outside, struggling to hold a dog in his arms and bang on the door at the same time.

“He’s injured,” came the muffled shout. Then another round of banging. I started toward the door.

“We. Are. CLOSED!” Megan shouted, making me jump. I turned to glare at her.

“Megan, this is an emergency. You don’t turn emergencies away.” Heedless of my appearance, I hurried to unlock the door to let them in.

“Don’t you dare open that door!” she screeched. “I want to go home now!”

“Go, then. I’ll take care of it.” The door was opening, finally, and the man shoved his way in, dumping the heavy dog in my arms as he rounded on Megan. For a moment, my skin buzzed as his arms came into contact with my hands during the transfer. I chalked it up to static electricity as I juggled the dog awkwardly.

“What’s wrong with you? This dog needs help,” he said to Megan, his voice crackling with anger.

I could imagine her sulky face, but didn’t bother to look as I had my hands full, literally, with a dog I could barely hold, who was shaking and wheezing. I needed to sort him out immediately. But first, I had to get him away from the stains on my lab coat.

“Take this dog, I need to get on a fresh coat,” I snapped at the guy. Now he was turning to me with a snarl, but when he saw my coat, he held out his arms for the dog.

“Hurry,” he said.

“Come with me.” I was stripping off the soiled lab coat as I walked back toward the examining rooms, hoping Dog A had been properly cleaned. On the way, I yanked open the supply closet and snagged a clean coat.

“Put him on the table and stay with him to make sure he doesn’t fall off,” I directed, expecting him to comply without looking. I needed to wash my hands and get the coat on, stat.

When I turned back, he was standing beside the table, with one big hand resting on the dog’s flank while the other caressed his head. The dog had calmed somewhat, but was still whimpering with pain.

“What’s his name?” I asked, joining the owner at the side of the table.

“I don’t know. My car hit him, he just came running out into the street. Please, help him.” As he spoke, I began to examine the dog and the man was able to take his hands away. He took off his coat, which had been open in the front already, and, casually stripped off the bloody shirt underneath.

That’s when I looked at the man closely for the first time, and had to put my hand on the table to steady myself. If he wasn’t the most gorgeous man on the planet, he had to be in the top ten. Tall, at least six-four, six-five, his messy, dark curly hair invited my fingers to run through it, and the brown eyes flecked with amber under those sculpted brows looked straight into my soul. But the killer was that chest, an intriguing tattoo across his right shoulder and a chest that bespoke hours in the weight room. My eyes traveled downward. Those abs, the V-shaped valley on either side, led to deeper mysteries. The man was a god!

“What’s the matter? Aren’t you going to examine the dog?”

His confused expression as he put his coat back on brought me back to earth, and I shook off the stab of lust that came from nowhere. Clearly six months without sex was beginning to take its toll.

“Of course. Tell me what happened,” I said, as I began the task of evaluating the dog’s condition. I could see that his hind leg was undoubtedly broken. From the look of it, the dog had run from the right-hand side of the road and was caught by the tire on the driver’s side. The fact that he wasn’t even more injured told me that he hadn’t been thrown under the car, that he’d almost made it across the street. If the man had hit him because he dashed out into the street without warning, he had to have been driving too fast on the icy village roads, or he should have been able to stop. His story didn’t add up.

“Like I said, he ran out into the street. I didn’t see him until it was too late.” So, he was sticking to the story, unaware that I could prove it was a lie. I was beginning to dislike this character, gorgeous or not. I asked him to step back and give me room as I began to work on the dog.

The patient was a Golden retriever that seemed to be purebred but neglected. Even being hit by a car didn’t explain the matted fur everywhere on his body, or the emaciated body under it. I could easily feel his ribs through the mats, and a quick look at his toenails revealed he hadn’t seen a groomer in a long time. I spoke softly to him as I quickly palpated his belly and then turned my attention to his leg. Closer examination told me the leg was not only broken, but that the fracture was compound. I’d have to get the matted fur off before I could tell whether the leg could be saved. I asked the man to steady the dog on the table while I prepared a sedative.

“This dog is a stray. You have a choice. You brought him in, so you can either take responsibility for the bill, or I’ll have to put him down. His leg has a compound fracture.”

I turned with the syringe in hand just as I mentioned putting him down, to find a pair of stricken brown eyes staring at me.

“Put him down? For a broken leg? Absolutely not! Fix it, or amputate it if you must. I’ll pay.”

I felt a little better about the guy at that point. Yes, he’d been reckless and speeding when he hit the dog, but at least he didn’t want a lovely animal like this Golden to be put to death as a result of his carelessness. Unfortunately for him, I intended to save the leg if I could. It was going to be expensive for him. “All right, then. I’m going to call him Max,” I said, “just for convenience.

Normally I would have asked an owner to step outside while I worked on an injury like this. The process was a little grisly for a layperson to witness. But, I wanted to punish this man for his carelessness. The best way to do it was to make him watch what it was going to make the dog endure.

I put my left hand on Max’s face, both to comfort him and to hide the syringe. With my right, I plunged the sedative into his left flank, causing him to yelp. That he didn’t try to snap at me told me his spirit was still that of a well-socialized Golden. Of all the breeds, I especially loved Goldens, though to tell the truth I loved all animals, even cats, to which I was allergic.

Max’s body gradually relaxed as the sedative kicked in. I grabbed the electric clippers and removed the fur that covered the injured back leg, careful to work around the ends of the shattered bone that had pierced his skin and were poking out.

With the field of injury clear, it was obvious that surgery would be extensive and would take quite some time. Now I didn’t want the distraction of the man in the clinic, so I told him this was going to take a while and that he should go.

I expected him to skedaddle out of there as fast as those long legs would take him, but he hesitated. I had no time for this.

Shooing him out of the room, I checked to be sure Max was unconscious, then followed to take a deposit, which I figured would be the last money we
’d see from him. After all, he wasn’t linked to the dog in any paperwork, so how would I find him again if he gave a false name, or refused to give one at all? To my surprise, Megan was still there.

“Megan, this er, gentleman needs to leave a deposit of $1000 dollars for the care of the dog he brought in.” I watched his face as I named the figure, but he revealed no distress or surprise. Instead, he took out his wallet and handed over ten $100 bills, which he counted as he laid each on Megan’s counter.

I didn’t know whether to let my mouth continue to hang open in astonishment that he carried that much cash with him, or laugh at Megan, who seemed similarly conflicted. She’d started to object when I told her he was leaving a deposit. I suspected it was because she’d already closed out the register for the day, and now it would have to be redone. But, as he counted out each bill, her eyes grew wider. I couldn’t imagine that she would embezzle from her own father, but with that much cash on the counter, I’d definitely be checking the day-end report.

Meanwhile, I had surgery to do. Just as I was about to tell Megan to be sure to give him a receipt, the jarring sound of “Sexy and I Know It” in tinny tones split the silence. How cheesy was that? His hand went to his pocket and he took out an iPhone, then turned away from us as he took the call. I started to tell Megan that if he had any questions, he could come back tomorrow, but as soon as he heard my voice, he held up one finger, as if to keep me from leaving. Then, he turned back to the phone.

“I know, Babe, but it’s taking a little longer than I thought. They were closed and…” he stopped talking and listened a moment. “No, I’m coming right now. There’s nothing more I can do here. I need to stop at an ATM and then I’ll be right there. I’m sure they’ll hold our table for us. Okay, love you, too.”

He turned back to me. While he’d been talking to ‘Babe’, I had taken the opportunity to observe the way he was dressed, and the manicured hand that I only now noticed though he’d had it on the dog only a few minutes before.

“Is there anything else Mr., uh,”

“Jon. I just wanted to know if I should come back for him tonight, or what?”

“No, he won’t be ready to leave for several days at least. Since he isn’t yours, you may want us to board him until he’s ready to find a home. If you’d like to see him, we’re open from nine to noon tomorrow.”

I didn’t know why I was so angry with him. Even though he’d been reckless and hit Max in the first place, at least he brought him in. And the $1000 deposit, though it wouldn’t cover everything, would go a long way toward Max’s care until he was recovered enough that we could try to find him a home. All in all, this Jon seemed to be a pretty decent guy. And, did I mention, the guy was seriously, awesomely, unbelievably hot? So my anger was unjustified and even more puzzling because it wouldn’t go away.

Without saying goodbye, I turned and went back to the OR to get ready for Max’s surgery. There had been enough delay that I was going to have to give him more sedative, but carefully regulate it. This was going to be tricky. There was no way I was going to get Megan to come and help, so I didn’t even try. I heard the jingle of the bells on the door as someone left.

A few minutes later, Megan appeared, wearing a lab coat. “Do you need any help?” she asked.

I was so surprised that I almost dropped the tweezers. “Sure, if you’re willing,” I said. “I know it’s long past the time you should have been out of here. Didn’t you have plans?”

“Yeah, I did, but he called me an hour ago and yelled at me for being late, so I told him to fuck off. I might as well earn some overtime,” she said. I was grateful enough for the help that I didn’t even take offense at her inappropriate language.

After carefully cleaning the road debris from Max’s wounds, I x-rayed the leg. Both the tibia and fibula were broken in two places, and the femur had a greenstick fracture.

I reduced the large bone fracture first, then went about piecing and pinning the smaller bones together, making as small an incision as I could. After applying more antibiotic and closing the incisions, I applied a cast that he was going to hate, and told Megan she could go home any time she wanted now.

All I had left to do was get Max comfortably crated and monitor him until the anesthesia wore off, then I could go home, too. I had all but forgotten about my condition under my lab coat. Probably, rather than go home, I’d shower and grab a few hours sleep on the cot in my office. That way I could sleep a little later before Saturday morning hours.

Megan left, and I took the time to check the day-end report before getting my shower, since there were no blinds in the tinted plate glass windows that fronted the clinic. I had a change of clothes, but no pajamas to sleep in, and I wanted to just hit the sack as soon as I was done. Making a mental note to bring in pjs as well as a fresh change of clothes after my next trip to my apartment, I approved the report and went to the bathroom for my long-delayed shower.