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“Of course I’m not going to stop you from leaving, June. But I have to tell you, I don’t think it’s safe, and I’d really rather you not put yourself in any more danger than you already have today.”
Ignoring the fact that this man shouldn’t care about her well-being so much, June ran through all of her options in her head—all zero of them. She sighed. He was right. She was stuck there for the foreseeable future. She’d never in her life experienced such a dangerous storm, and she definitely didn’t know how to safely travel in one. Besides, she had the puppies to think of now. The minute she’d picked them up, they’d become her responsibility, and she couldn’t just abandon them with a doctor who had other patients to care for, especially one who was only temporarily managing his father’s clinic.
She looked up at Dr. Singh, who appeared almost as uneasy as she.
“I hate to break it to you, June, but under the circumstances, the smartest thing for you to do is to spend the night here with me.”
* * *
Peach Leaf, Texas:
Where true love blooms
Puppy Love for the Veterinarian
Amy Woods
AMY WOODS took the scenic route to becoming an author. She’s been a bookkeeper, a high school English teacher and a claims specialist, but now that she makes up stories for a living, she’s never giving it up. She grew up in Austin, Texas, and lives there with her wonderfully goofy, supportive husband and a spoiled rescue dog. Amy can be reached on Facebook, Twitter and her website, www.amywoodsbooks.com.
This one is for the animal rescuers; thank you for the wonderful lives you save. And for my Maggie dog, who has my heart.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
“June, hon, why don’t you go on home now? I can finish closing up here myself, and it looks like things may get worse than they originally predicted.”
June Leavy looked up from her mop bucket and followed the owner of Peach Leaf Pizza’s eyes to the small television behind the counter, tuned in to the evening weather segment. January in west Texas could be unpredictable, but the idea of the twelve to eighteen inches of snow the meteorologist called for actually covering the ground and sticking was just surreal.
She studied her boss’s face, not missing the lines around Margaret’s mouth and the shadowy thumbprints beneath the older woman’s usually lively eyes. It had been a busy day, amid a busy week; they were both exhausted, but the work would be completed much faster with two pairs of hands.
June shook her head, causing a few more strands of hair to escape her ponytail. “Nonsense. I’m almost finished with the floor, and then all that’s left is taking out the garbage.”
Margaret offered a weary smile as her thanks, but June could see the relief in her boss’s face. She would never admit it, but Margaret Daw was getting older. It was time for her to retire and June could feel that the day was coming when her boss would ask her to take over. Margaret had all but asked her about it on more than one occasion—who could blame a new grandma for wanting to spend more time with the adorable twin babies recently born to her pediatrician son and daughter-in-law?—and besides, June was her only full-time employee and comanager. In many ways, it just made sense.
June sighed and sloshed the mop back into the gray water, wondering again how she would respond if and when the day arrived. She could see the pros and cons list she’d pored over so many times in her mind’s eye, her options jotted out clear as day on the yellow pad sitting next to the remote control on her coffee table. But no matter how many times she mulled over the bullet points, the decision wouldn’t be easy.
Margaret was a wonderful boss—kind and fair—and the job provided steady income. There was something comforting in the daily tasks, in kneading the dough each morning, chopping fresh vegetables and taking orders, in the warm, familiar faces of Peach Leaf Pizza’s many regular customers. She would miss the banter, catching up with people she’d known her whole life and the excitement in kids’ faces when they piled into the red leather booths after winning baseball games or performing well in dance recitals.
But she had dreams of her own, too.
And until recently, June had been so close to turning them into reality. So close, in fact, that the bruises from losing everything hadn’t yet healed.
Now her choice was between picking up the pieces and starting over—letting herself believe that she could somehow regain what was lost—or sticking with the safe option, taking over the pizza parlor and borrowing her neighbors’ joy as they lived their lives.
Put that way, it didn’t seem like much of a choice at all, but she reminded herself that starting over wouldn’t exactly guarantee a happy ending, either.
“Back to square one,” she said aloud without meaning to.
“What’s that?” Margaret called from the counter.
“Oh... I was just wondering if it’s really going to get as bad as they’re saying.”
She tilted her chin at the television, where the Austin meteorologist gesticulated animatedly, her arms waving in circles and lines to indicate high and low pressure points across a multicolored map of Texas.
“Beats me.” Margaret shrugged, her shoulders tapping the pizza-slice painted earrings she wore so that they swirled around beneath her silvery curls. “Wouldn’t be the first time, though, you know.”
June finished cleaning a blotch of spilled marinara and pushed the wheeled bucket toward the back of the shop, doing a once-over of the black-and-white checked tiles in case she missed a spot.
Margaret