Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70566 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
When I finally peeled my eyes open and admitted defeat around five, I decided that there was only one option.
Sugar.
I got up, took a shower, and headed to the coffee shop in town.
I wasn’t the first to arrive, but I was early enough that all of the good pastries were still available.
“Hi, Reyelle.” I smiled at her tiredly.
She took one look at me and started to make me a coffee.
I watched as she put not one, not two, not three, but four shots of coffee into my iced latte before adding the vanilla.
I sighed. “It’s like you know me.”
“I know you,” she agreed with a smile. “But I also can see. You look like crap.”
I felt like crap, too.
“Ma,” Shade, Reyelle’s son, called from the kitchen. “Do you want me to take these pastries out?”
“Yeah, son,” Reyelle called as she looked down at her feet. “Poncho, do you want to go say hi to your second-favorite person?”
Poncho didn’t rise, but I leaned over the counter to get a look at her dog.
He was an Alaskan Malamute and old as time. He was also curious as hell, and got himself into pickles when he should be enjoying himself sunning on the porch. Not getting poked by a porcupine.
Something he’d done last week.
Poncho looked up with a doggy smile.
“Hey there.”
His tongue lolled.
“Lookin’ good there, Ponch.”
“His wounds are healing nicely,” Shade said as he came into the room. “Pain in the ass.”
I smiled.
I liked Shade.
I also loved Reyelle.
They were two of my best clients and had been seeing me for months with their curious Poncho.
Someone should tell the old man that curiosity killed the cat.
“What kind of pastries do you want today?” Reyelle asked.
“Anything that has copious amounts of sugar and will make me happy,” I teased.
She loaded me up, then added a few extra for Boone.
“See you this afternoon.” She smiled.
I was a regular at Reyelle’s, and usually stopped in before work and after.
“Thank you!” I waved at Shade who’d gone to put the chairs down off the tables.
He gave me a chin lift and kept working.
I headed out the door, then navigated the quiet streets of Sawtooth while quietly sipping on my coffee.
I kept my eyes peeled, because I may be in a quiet town that was pretty good about crime, but I was still a woman walking alone in the dark.
As I got to Windsor Animal Hospital—WAH as I dubbed it in my head sometimes—I used my key on the back door and headed to the back where the kennels were.
I greeted all of our boarders with smiles and coos, but stopped at one cage in particular.
“Hey there, Froto.” I smiled.
Froto was the runt of a Pomeranian litter that was in here a couple of weeks ago.
Froto’s family had gone home, but we’d taken possession of the runt when he’d been abandoned by his mother.
Froto was a cute little thing and had all the love in the world to share.
If I had a better home-life/work-life ratio, I’d take him home.
Sadly, I didn’t.
And I wasn’t going to adopt a dog that wouldn’t have my undivided attention.
Between Boone’s wife, Nettie, and me, we gave this little bugger all the love.
I was loving and kissing on him while getting the clinic up and running when there was a pounding on the front door.
My heart hammering, I walked to the office where the video feed was located and saw a man wearing jeans, a weathered Carhartt jacket, and a cowboy hat at the front door.
He was holding a large animal in his hands.
I put Froto back and headed to the front door.
Opening it wide, I blinked when I came face to face with Denver.
“Oh.” I blinked, trying to calm my pounding hard as well as mild annoyance that it was him on the other side of the door. “What’s going on?”
“My livestock guardians were attacked by the same wolves that got my cows yesterday,” he growled, anger in his voice. “Had to put my older one down. But Greta looks like she’s going to make it.”
I gestured for him to come inside.
He followed me into the back and laid Greta on the stainless-steel table.
I groaned when I saw all the damage to her face and front legs.
“Poor girl,” I said as I went to work.
Denver stayed at my side for a while, until Froto’s pathetic whining had him turning toward him.
“What’s wrong with him?” Denver asked.
“He’s starving,” I admitted. “He’s fed every couple of hours, but I hadn’t gotten a chance to get him fed before you got here.”
I kept working, my eyes on the work I was doing.
Greta was going to make it.
That I knew.
But she’d be sore and stiff for a while yet.
I don’t know when Boone finally got there, but when I got done with Greta, I had an extra set of hands to get her put into a kennel where she could rouse herself from the sedation.