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after hours on a weekend to save her dog’s life. Few veterinary surgeons could have done the job as neatly and with as little trauma to the animal.

      “Hey, Miz… Um.”

      “Her name’s Kit Lockhart,” Alva Jean said from behind the reception desk, “but I don’t think—”

      “Miz Lockhart, you damn near killed your dog.”

      Still no reaction. Okay. No more Mr. Nice Guy.

      “I said you damn near killed your dog. Don’t you care?”

      The instant he touched her shoulder, she jumped and swung around to face him.

      She had green eyes. Not jade green or leaf green, not even gold green, but the clear green of emeralds. He’d seen maybe one or two sets of eyes that color in his entire thirty-seven years.

      What the hell was the matter with her? Nancy grabbed his arm again, and again he shook her off. “I saved your dog’s life in there. What kind of blockhead ignores a distended stomach, gums that are damn near white, and a dog that’s almost in a coma from the pain?”

      She stared at him for a moment, then raised a hand and cut him off in midsentence. “Please speak slowly and form your words more carefully.”

      “What?”

      “I said, please speak slowly and form your words carefully. I got ‘blockhead’ and ‘coma’ but that’s about all. Since I can’t imagine you think my dog is a blockhead, you must think I am.”

      “Hell, yes, I think you’re a blockhead…”

      Again the hand in front of the chest. “Call me anything you like, but please tell me that Kevlar is going to be all right.”

      “I already did.”

      “Please repeat.”

      “I said, he’s…going…to…be…okay. Can you understand that?”

      She nodded. She relaxed and closed those miraculous eyes for an instant. “Thank God. I was scared to death I’d waited too long to bring him in for treatment. I’ve only had him a couple of weeks. He really seemed fine this morning, just a little listless. I didn’t realize there was anything wrong until this evening. I came as soon as I figured it out.”

      “I removed the distended kidney.”

      “You had to remove his kidney?”

      “He can live forever on one healthy kidney.”

      “Lord, I hope so.” She’d been watching him carefully and nodding throughout his speech. “Can I see him? Please?”

      “He’s still unconscious.”

      “I just need to see he’s okay. Touch him.”

      So she did care. “Okay, you’re not callous, you’re just stupid. Wouldn’t have mattered to the dog. He’d have been dead either way.” He turned. “Yeah. I guess you can see him now.”

      He felt her fingers on his arm. “Say again?”

      He looked over his shoulder at her. She stared hard at him.

      Then it hit him. He was the idiot. And he called himself a doctor. If he hadn’t been so damn mad at her… “You’re deaf.”

      “The politically correct term is hearing impaired, but I prefer deaf. It’s short and ugly.”

      “Nobody told me.” He glared at Nancy.

      “I tried, Mac, so did Alva Jean.”

      “Yeah, yeah.” He ran his hand over his hair. Nancy told him again and again that he never listened. In this particular instance, obviously she was right.

      “You’re good at lipreading.”

      “I’m nearly perfect with people I know well. With strangers, it’s tougher. If you keep looking at me and…”

      “Speak slowly and carefully.”

      She nodded. “Right.”

      “So, is this recent?”

      “Not quite a year yet. I used to be a cop.” This last was said with an offhandedness that didn’t conceal the underlying bitterness.

      “Total loss? No residual hearing at all?”

      “Nearly total. Ninety percent. I can sometimes hear thuds. Kevlar is my hearing ear dog.” She swallowed convulsively. Those emerald eyes filled with tears. “Maybe he whimpered in pain, but I couldn’t hear him. I’d die if I let anything happen to him. I truly didn’t know he was sick. I’m so sorry.”

      Now he felt like a toad. “Didn’t they teach you anything about dogs when you got him?”

      “Teach me anything?”

      He nodded.

      “They taught me how to work with Kevlar, all the things he can do for me. But they didn’t teach me about kidney infections. I brought him in when I first got him and let Dr. Hazard check him out and bring his shots up to date. He was fine. What could have caused this? Why didn’t Dr. Hazard catch it then?”

      Mac took a deep breath and spoke carefully. “He was born with a narrow ureter that finally kinked. Everything backed up, and his kidney became like a water-filled balloon. Sooner or later it would have simply burst. He also had some built-up scar tissue and some stones. Only an ultrasound and X rays would have caught the disease at the chronic stage. The other kidney is fine. He shouldn’t have another occurrence.”

      She kept nodding. Her eyes flickered from his eyes to his mouth. Disconcerting.

      “I got most of that. Will he need a special diet?”

      “Small meals and dog food formulated to handle kidney problems. Nancy will talk to you about that before you leave with him.”

      Now she did look up at him. “How long will he have to stay here? I mean, I’ve only had him two weeks, but I already depend on him.” She dropped her eyes. “And I like him.”

      He touched her arm. “Come on. They’ll have moved him to ICU by now. You can see him.”

      She eyed him with suspicion. “Are you making some kind of exception for me?”

      This time Nancy touched her arm. She said slowly and with a smile, “No special treatment. Dr. Mac is an equal-opportunity offender.”

      Back in the ICU, the little dog lay on his good side on an air mattress in the middle of the floor. Cages holding dogs and cats were stacked almost up to the ceiling, and despite the low light, several animals woke and began to bark or whine when Mac opened the door to let Kit in.

      She went down to her knees on the mattress and began to stroke the dog and croon to him softly. After a moment Mac recognized the melody—an old Scottish folk song, some kind of lullaby. His Highland-born grandmother had sung him songs like that when he was a child.

      “Kev’s such a burly little dog,” she said. “He seems like such a tough little character, and now this.”

      He reached down and squeezed her shoulder to reassure her.

      She looked up at him. “Will there be somebody here with him tonight?”

      “Dr. Liz Carlyle will be here all night. As soon as he starts to wake up, she’ll move him to one of the cages.”

      “Doctor something will put him in a cage? Is that what you said?”

      “Close enough.” He offered her his hand, but she stood up easily without assistance. She was as lithe as a dancer.

      “Thank you for letting me see him. Can your receptionist call me a cab?” She walked out ahead of him, but turned her head to watch his reply.

      “You need a cab?”

      She stopped