up a picture of a much younger Emma, when he heard Kit coming downstairs.
“Sorry. Jimmy wanted to change his night to have Emma sleep over. One of these days I am going to kill him.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Jimmy Lockhart, Emma’s father, my ex-husband. He rides a patrol car. He makes me so mad. He thinks having Emma sleep over is something he does when one of his bimbos cancels.” She sank into the recliner. “God, I’m sorry. You don’t need to hear my problems.”
“At Creature Comfort we all interact like family.” He felt his face flaming. Of all the stuffy, stupid things to say! “Now, I really must go. Thanks for the beer.”
“When do you want me to show up at Creature Comfort?”
“Would next Monday be too soon?”
“Not at all. We can talk about how much I can pay toward my bill out of my salary.”
“Don’t worry about your bill.”
She put her hand on his arm to turn him to face her. “Can’t lip-read your back, Doctor.”
“Sorry. I said, don’t worry about your bill.” God, he loved the way she watched him, the way her lips parted and almost spoke the words as he did.
If he didn’t look out, he was going to grab her and kiss her.
And probably wind up flat on his back with a karate chop to the throat.
“Uh, see you Monday.”
He practically fled from the house. As he jumped into his car, he saw the curtains behind one of the upstairs windows flutter. Emma. He started the car and burned rubber getting away.
CHAPTER FOUR
WHEN KIT OPENED the door to the Creature Comfort conference room early the following Monday morning, Nancy looked up from the comics section of the morning paper. “I wasn’t sure you’d show up.”
“Neither was I,” Kit replied, taking her outstretched hand. “I nearly lost my nerve. I’m not sure I can do this job without a good set of ears.”
The early-morning mist still hadn’t lifted from the Creature Comfort parking lot, although the weather was supposed to clear later in the day. About time. Everybody was sick of the unending late-February rain. Even the jonquils beside the roads looked dispirited.
Kit had dropped Emma at school, then had driven straight to Creature Comfort. Until the accident, she’d loved being surrounded by people. Now she realized that for eight months she’d seen almost no one except her doctors, the audio-clinic staff and her immediate family—if she could still consider Jimmy Lockhart family. She felt shy and out of place. These people knew one another well, worked together all the time. Could she possibly fit in? Would she see conversations around her that she couldn’t interpret? The speech pathology people had warned her against becoming paranoid. It was easy to imagine others were gossiping about her.
Nancy bent to ruffle Kevlar’s ears, then tilted her face up so that Kit could read her lips. “Around here you may find it a plus not being able to hear. All the barking and yapping gets to you after a while. Come on, I’ll show you around and introduce you to the staff that’s here. Later I can fill you in on them over lunch. Did you bring your lunch?”
“You’re going to have to speak more slowly,” Kit said. “I only got about half of that.”
“Oops. Sorry. Did–you–bring–your–lunch?”
Kit laughed. “Not that slowly! The way it works is that I catch some of the words and fill in the blanks from what seems logical. B’s and P’s and M’s look almost alike, but if somebody says, ‘How about you blank me after work?’ the chances are she’s saying ‘meet’ me after work, not ‘beat’ me after work. Not unless you’re talking to somebody deeply weird.”
“As the Mad Hatter told Alice in Wonderland, we’re all mad here,” Nancy said as she shoved through the doors to the kennel. “And overworked, as you’re about to see.”
With Kev trotting at her heels, Kit followed Nancy to the large-animal area.
Nancy knocked on the first door on her left, waited a moment, then opened it and stood back for Kit to follow.
A pretty woman in a lab coat sat behind a desk piled high with reports. A happy baby toddled around the edges of a large playpen beside her desk.
Nancy pointedly looked back so that she was facing Kit. “Dr. Sarah Scott, this is Kit Lockhart. She’s going to be working part-time with us in the small-animal area. Kit, this is Dr. Sarah Scott, head of our large-animal section.”
The baby bounced up and down. “And this,” Nancy said, “is Nell, known to all and sundry as Muggs.”
At the mention of her nickname, the baby opened her mouth and began to make what must be crows of delight. Kit stiffened. She’d never be able to hear her own grandchild’s voice—assuming she ever had a grandchild!
Sarah came around her desk with her hand outstretched. “Hi. Welcome to the nuthouse.”
“Thanks. Can’t be any nuttier than what I’m used to.”
“Keep that thought.”
Nancy took Kit’s arm and led her down the hall. At the far end a wizened elf of a man was giving the Percheron mare a shot in her neck.
“Jack Renfro. He does for Sarah and Eleanor Chadwick, our other large-animal vet, what I do for Mac.” She paused. “But not half as well.”
He pointed a crooked finger at her. “None of that now, missy.” He took Sarah’s hand. His felt like old leather and twisted twigs. “Happy to meet you, lass. Nancy told me already we’re to have you with us part of the day.”
“We also have Kenny Nichols part-time,” Nancy told Kit. “He comes in after school three days a week. He’s off to Mississippi State to do pre-vet as soon as he graduates. You’ll meet him and Dr. Chadwick later.”
Kit learned that Bill Chumney—the veterinarian who handled exotic animals—was on assignment in the Black Hills and wouldn’t be back for several weeks. And Dr. Weinstock was off in Kentucky doing something with horses for the next month.
As she followed Nancy back through the door that separated the small-animal area from the large, she hoped she’d run into Dr. Thorn. Nancy had made a few comments about his bearish reputation, but so far Kit had seen nothing from him but kindness. He might be a little gruff, but he had been charming to Emma and had taken the trouble to make a house call on Kevlar on Wednesday evening. She wanted to thank him for giving her the chance to work again. Besides, he was the first man she’d met since her divorce who attracted her. Big, competent men always had. She’d actually thought Jimmy was competent.
She felt certain Dr. Thorn was the genuine article.
“I THOUGHT YOU WANTED to train another surgical assistant,” Rick Hazard said as he poured himself a third cup of coffee and took it back to the conference table.
“Kit’s bright,” Mac said. “She could learn.”
“That’s about the only job she can’t do around here. She can’t hear you and she won’t be able to read your lips through your face mask.”
Mac flushed. “So Nancy will train her to take over the other duties—dispensing meds, draining wounds, aftercare, checking on ICU patients. Big still gets confused sometimes and doesn’t want the responsibility. Except for the occasional parrot, our clients don’t generally communicate in words. I think Nancy can bring her along fast.”
“I just wish you’d let me at least interview the woman before you brought her on board.”
“Mark approved the expenditure. You agreed to try her at the staff meeting. Don’t go back on your word now.”
Rick