The Dating Intervention: Book 1 in the Intervention Series (32 page)

“Who said that?”
 

“Auntie Josie.”
 

Delaney opened her mouth.

“Well,
do
you?” Luke asked before Delaney could respond.
 

“Maybe.”
 

“Then you’re in love,” Sarah said knowingly. “Or, at least, in very deep like.”
 

“So is he … your boyfriend?” Nate asked, making the word “boyfriend” sing-songy.
 

“Fortunately for all of us, we’re almost home,” Delaney said. “Which means the inquisition is nearly over. I’ll be dumping the lot of you on the doorstep and leaving immediately. Thank you for this lovely experience.”
 

She turned the music back up, Sarah went back to reading her book and the boys started punching each other.

The questioning was over. For now.
 

“So this is your desk. Computer, file cabinet, office supplies,” Doctor Rick said.
 

The thing was gargantuan – a huge corner desk with a hutch on one side that nearly reached the ceiling. It was completely empty except for a computer. Delaney wondered what she was going to put on all those shelves. Doctor Rick’s identical desk stood in the opposite corner, and Delaney saw her shelves were stuffed with books like Veterinary Anatomy, Veterinary Dentistry, Dog Psychology. All of Delaney’s veterinary school textbooks were in storage, but she could probably dig them out. She may need them for reference.
 

“I know, it’s like a library, right?” Dr. Rick said. “Don’t worry. Honestly, I rarely look at those books. You can find just about anything on the Internet these days. Anyway, you saw the break room, right? You can eat in there. I usually don’t eat in the office because the bugs are hell during the summer. I try to keep crumbs confined, you know? Anyway, I think that’s it. Your first appointment’s at nine. Janie will work with you until then, getting you up to speed with how the office runs.”
 

“Okay,” Delaney said. “Uh, Doctor Rick?”
 

“Call me Kat.”
 

“Okay, Doctor Kat?”
 

The vet laughed. “Yes?”
 

“Thanks for hiring me. Really. Thanks.”
 

“Thank me this afternoon.” She winked, took a drink of something green in a clear travel cup and walked off.

Janie, a young, perky brunette with bright orange fingernails, tiny freckles across the bridge of her nose, and huge brown eyes, was the most organized person Delaney had ever met. Ruthless. She showed Delaney how to use the digital charts and where to file everything. Then she gave her a quick tour of the building.
 

“The last person Kathryn hired didn’t work out,” Janie loud-whispered as they walked through the surgery suite. “She’s a sink-or-swim boss, and your predecessor barely knew the doggie paddle.”
 

“She knows I don’t have any experience other than what I went through during vet school, right?”
 

“Right.” Janie touched Delaney’s arm in what Delaney figured was supposed to be a reassuring gesture. “But she has a good feeling about you.”
 

“Is that good?”
 

“You tell me.”
 

“Yes!” Delaney said. Then, when she realized how eager she’d sounded, she added, “Of course it is.”
 

Janie winked and handed her the file for her first patient.

The first three appointments were easy. A Persian cat with a bad case of hairballs, a Rottweiler with an ear fungus and a rat with cancer.
 

But when she walked into the exam room for her fourth, she stopped just inside the swinging door, her mouth hanging open in surprise. She looked from the patient, a fluffy, white cat, back to its humans and snapped her mouth shut.
 

“Zachary,” Delaney said. “I thought you were allergic to cats.”
 

He ducked his head and his face flushed crimson, the color splotching on his pale cheeks like it did when he got impassioned during a debate.
 

“Turns out I’m not.” He shrugged. “Delaney, this is Opal. Opal, Delaney.”
 

Zachary had always refused to spend the night at Delaney’s house, citing his cat allergy. He’d never mentioned that allergy was fabricated.
 

Opal had everything Delaney didn’t: huge boobs, long straight black hair and toned arms and legs. Delaney nodded at her and hoped the movement came across as curt. The cat, Theodore, perched on Zachary’s knee. It was ugly and flat-faced, and glared up at her with angry-looking green eyes.
 

“Opal? Is that your porn name?” Delaney blurted out.
 

Opal’s pretty face transformed. She sneered at Delaney.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she said, then as an aside, she said to Zachary, “She’s the one who’s worked at Rowdy’s, for, like, ever, right?”
 

“When Janie told us we’d be seeing Doctor Collins, the new vet, I had no idea it was you,” Zachary said. She cringed at the implication. Although his words hurt, Delaney was somewhat pleased to see a sheen of sweat on his upper lip.
Nerves. Serves him right.

“Yeah. First day,” she said. “Anyway. What’s wrong with Theodore?”

“Nothing’s wrong with him, Delaney,” Zachary said.
 

Of course he’d be the one to mince words.
Obviously something’s wrong with the damned cat or you wouldn’t have brought him in.
 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Delaney said. “I didn’t know I had to use my politically correct vet language with you regarding the cat you’re apparently not allergic to.”
 

Lame, Delaney. Lame
.
 

“Um, well, he seems to have gained weight,” Opal said. “And he’s peeing all the time.”
 

As Opal of the Goddess Body went on to describe Theo’s symptoms, Delaney realized it was a textbook case of diabetes. Open and shut. Unfortunately, none of her classes during vet school had prepared her for a surprise visit from her ex-boyfriend and his new porn star girlfriend – and their cat. She thought she’d handled it fairly well, considering. So what if she’d thrust their prescription bag at Zachary with more force than necessary? So what if she’d glared at him, emphasizing the word
urine
? She’d given Opal the instructions, hadn’t she?
 

By the time Zachary and the goddess Opal walked out of the exam room with fat Theodore on his stupid sparkly leash, Delaney was exhausted. She had forgotten to pack a lunch, but headed to the break room, anyway. Doctor Kat sat at the table, wolfing down a chorizo burrito.
 

“I heard you had an encounter,” she said, still chewing.
 

“Word travels fast,” Delaney replied, slumping into the chair across from her new boss.
 

“Janie heard everything. This place has ears, Doc Collins.” She shrugged. “Said you handled it well.”
 

“For what it was.” Delaney shrugged. “You know, it wasn’t even serious with him, but it still burned to see him with that woman and the damned cat. Theodore.”
 

“Cat allergy sufferer, huh?”
 

Apparently, privacy didn’t exist here. Kind of awkward, she thought, but amused, she answered anyway. “Yep. Real bad, too.”
 

“So what’s your story, Doc Collins?”
 

“What do you mean?”
 

“I mean, why aren’t you married with five kids under five by now, like all the other women your age in Juniper?”
 

“Are you?”
 

“No,” Doctor Kat drawled. “But I’m not from around these parts.” Caught off guard, Delaney wasn’t sure how to answer. Doctor Kat switched gears. “Did you bring lunch?”
 

“I forgot.”
 

Doctor Kat stood up, and Delaney noticed again how tall she was. Tall, broad-shouldered, cowboy-booted. The tip of her long braid just touched the waistband of her Wranglers. She took a knife out of a drawer, set her burrito on a paper towel on the counter and cut it in half.

“I need your help in surgery after this,” she said, handing the burrito to Delaney. “Can’t have you passing out from hunger. Or the sight of blood.”
 

“Thanks.”
 

“No problem. I’ll take it out of your pay.” She winked.

“So what’s your story, Doctor Kat?”
 

“Mine? It’s pretty simple. My husband’s a professional team roper. We have acreage just outside of town, real pretty, with a house and a barn and a corral and all that. It was a whirlwind romance.” She looked happy, reminiscent. “I run a thriving veterinary practice, which I can now expand, thanks to Doc Collins, here. So that’s my story.”
 

She crumpled up the foil she’d used as a plate and stood up again.
 

“Now, I could use your help. Ready to scrub in?”
 

***

It should have been a routine tooth extraction. The patient, a fifteen-year-old Lab mix with a gray muzzle and silky black fur, had stopped eating. When Doctor Kat examined him, she’d found that one of his molars was terribly rotten.
 

Turbo was calm and obedient as they prepped him for surgery. They got him sedated and onto the surgery table without incident and Doctor Kat started drilling into his tooth. Suddenly, the abscess exploded, splattering blood and pus all over Doctor Kat, her goggles, her jacket and every section of exposed skin. Delaney had been suctioning as Doctor Kat drilled, and felt the warm spatters of blood on her face. Her hands and feet began to tingle, her vision went blurry around the edges and her stomach threatened to return the half-burrito she’d eaten only minutes before.
 

Everything went eerily quiet, then Doctor Kat yelled, “Fuck!”

Delaney continued to suction near the tooth, but had an absurd vision of suctioning off Doctor Kat’s goggles so she could see. The room became even blurrier.

“I might need to sit down,” she said, even as the blood continued to pulse out of Turbo’s mouth.
 

“Doc Collins, I need you to snap out of it. You’re not sitting down. I didn’t hire a woman with a weak constitution, did I?”
 

Now she spoke harshly, giving rapid-fire instructions: “Get the bleeding stopped, make sure this dog is stable and get ready to pack the hole I’m about to blow.”
 

Delaney nodded. “Okay. Okay, I’ve got it.”
 

When the abscess had burst, Doctor Kat’s drill had slipped, slicing Turbo’s gum wide open. Delaney packed gauze pads into his lower lip to stop the bleeding, then turned up the IV to get more fluids going. She changed her gloves, then carefully arranged the material she’d need to pack his gums once Doctor Kat extracted the tooth.

It was messy, but within a few minutes, the tooth was out, the hole was filled and Delaney was stitching up the gash in Turbo’s gums.
 

“Well done, Doc Collins,” Doctor Kat murmured as she typed the case summary into her computer. “I owe you a drink.”
 

“I won’t turn you down.”
 

***

That evening, the doorbell rang as Delaney stepped out of the shower.
 

“That’s Mom,” she said to Pixie.
 

She’d done her best to scrub the memory of Turbo’s blood off her skin and out of her mind, but she thought she could still smell it.
 

“Perfect Plumeria body cream doesn’t have anything on Turbo blood,” she said to the cat as she wrapped the towel around her hair, threw on her robe and rushed to answer the door. “But Mom probably won’t notice.”
 

When she looked through the peephole, she was surprised to see a deliveryman peering back at her. He had his arms around a huge box and Delaney could just see his eyes over the top of it. She opened the door.

“Here ya go, Miss,” he said, hefting the box toward her.
 

As she carried it to the dining room table, the doorbell rang again.
 

“Come in, Mom,” she called.
 

“I brought you a coffee,” Camille said as she breezed in. “To celebrate your first day. I want to hear all about it. Ooh, did you get a delivery? What is it?”
 

Delaney couldn’t help but picture a pinball whizzing around a pinball machine.

“Thanks for the coffee. I did get a delivery, but I haven’t opened it yet. Let me get dressed.”
 

“Ooh, it’s from the flower company,” Delaney heard her mom say.
 

She reemerged a few minutes later, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Camille came over to watch as Delaney opened the box. The rich scent of Tiger Lilies floated toward them. The bouquet was a gorgeous blend of the lilies, baby’s breath, some fuzzy-looking greenery and white roses. She lifted it out of the box and set it on the table.

“Ooh,” Camille breathed again. “Beautiful. Is there a card?”
 

“There is.” She opened it: “To Delaney. To celebrate your first day as a veterinarian. Cheers to doing what you love. Jake.”
 

“Oh.” The flowers were from Jake Rhoades. The picturesque, the handsome, the rugged. The rock-star-sexy kisser. She melted into a chair and fanned herself with the tiny card. This was another definite sign he really liked her. A feeling of extreme happiness rose up in her torso like bubbles rising to the top of a glass of champagne.

“Honey, what’s wrong?” Camille said. “You look faint.”
 

“I think I need to sit down. This is the first time anyone has sent me flowers.”
 

“You are sitting down,” Camille said, her smile spreading across her face. Which one is Jake again?”
 

“Oh, Mom. This is a story you won’t believe.”
 

She launched into the story of Jake, starting with the car accident (“He was so dreamy, I just couldn’t believe he’d stopped and helped me. And then he’d thought Summer’s kids were mine.”) and explaining the scene in the bar (“Of course I knew exactly what he’d order and I watched him all night … those jeans.”).