Page 68 of The Holiday Gift

“What about the leg? Can you save it?”

“I’m going to have to x-ray before I can answer that. How far are you prepared to go for his care?”

It took her a moment to realize what he was asking in his blunt way. A difficult part of life as a vet was the knowledge that, although a vet might have the power to treat an animal successfully, sometimes the owner’s ability—or willingness, for that matter—to pay was the ultimate decision maker.

“Whatever is necessary,” she answered stiffly. “I don’t care about the cost. Just do what you have to do.”

He nodded, his attention still on her dog, and she wanted to think his hard expression thawed slightly, like a tiny crackle of ice on the edge of a much deeper lake.

“Regardless of what the X-ray shows, his treatment is going to take a few hours. You can go. Leave your number with Joni and I’ll have her call you when I know more.”

“No. I’ll wait.”

That surprise in his blue eyes annoyed the heck out of her. Did he think she would just abandon her dog here with a stranger for a couple of hours while she went off to have her hair done?

“Your choice.”

“I can help you back here. I’ve...had some training and I often helped Doc Harris. I actually worked here when I was a teenager.”

If her life had gone a little more according to plan,shemight have been the one taking over Doc Harris’s clinic, though she hoped she wouldn’t be as surly and unlikable as this new veterinarian.

“That won’t be necessary.” Dr. Caldwell dismissed all her hopes and dreams and volunteer work at the clinic as if they meant nothing. “Joni and I can handle it. If you insist on waiting, you can go ahead and have a seat in the waiting room.”

What a jerk. She could push the matter. Shewaspaying for the treatment here, after all. If she wanted to stay with her dog, there was nothing Dr. Ben No-Bedside-Manner Caldwell could do about it. But she didn’t want to waste time and possibly jeopardize Luke’s treatment.

“Fine,” she muttered. She turned and pushed through the doors into the waiting room, seething with frustration.

After quickly sending a message to Ridge updating him on the situation and reminding her brother he would have to pick his daughter, Destry, up from the bus stop, she plopped onto one of the uncomfortable gray benches and grabbed a magazine off the side table.

She was leafing through it, barely even registering the headlines in her worry over her dog, when the bells on the door chimed and a little boy of about five burst through, followed a little more slowly by an older girl.

“Daaad! We’re here!”

“Hush.” A round, cheerful-looking woman who looked to be in her early sixties followed more slowly. “You know better than that, young man. Your father might be in the middle of a procedure.”

“Can I go back and find him?” the girl asked.

“Because Joni isn’t out here either, they must both be busy. He won’t want to be bothered. You two sit down here and I’ll go back to let him know we’re here.”

“I could go,” the girl said a little sulkily, but she plopped onto the bench across from Caidy. Like father, like daughter, she thought. This was obviously the new vet’s family, and his daughter, at least, seemed to share more than blue eyes with her father.

“Sit down,” the girl ordered her brother. The boy didn’t quite stick his tongue out at his sister, but it was a close one. Instead, he ignored her—probably a much worse insult, if Caidy remembered her own childhood with three pesky brothers—and wandered over to stand directly in front of Caidy.

The little boy had a widow’s peak in his brown hair and huge dark-lashed blue eyes. A Caldwell trait, apparently.

“Hi.” He beamed at her. “I’m Jack Caldwell. My sister’s name is Ava. Who are you?”

“My name is Caidy,” she answered.

“My dad’s a dog doctor.”

“Not just dogs,” the girl corrected. “He’s also a cat doctor. And sometimes even horses and cows.”

“I know,” Caidy answered. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Is your dog sick?” Jack asked her.

“In a way. He was hurt on our ranch. Your dad is working on him now.”

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