Page 19 of Keyoni & Sage
I took a deep breath. “Keyoni?—”
“You don’t know me very well, Sage.” A smile lifted the corner of his lips. “If you did, you would know that I’m not going to back down. I don’t care what the rules are. I want to see where Kaiser’s gonna be kept. If you won’t do it, bring somebody in here who will.”
I didn’t know why, but the bass in his voice excited me. He said what he said and I could either oblige or be defiant.
“I can have the head vet come in and talk to you.”
“Or you can save us both some time and just do what I asked.”
I huffed. “Keyoni?—”
“Sage,” he cut me off, daring me with his eyes to propose a counter. “You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
The only hard thing I knew of were my nipples. I turned away from him, hoping he didn’t notice. Even still, his words had my insides racing.
I stuck my head out the door. “Camryn, will you come here for a minute?”
My assistant raced to the room, listening intently to the directive given. With a nod, she got to work while I waved for Keyoni to follow me. Ignoring the stares from the office staff, I showed Keyoni the area dedicated to the animals admitted as inpatient. There were four being housed: two dogs, a cat, and a bunny. Kaiser would make number five.
“This ain’t gonna work.”
I scoffed at his audacity. “Why not?”
“Kaiser doesn’t do cages.”
“He will while he’s here,” I said with conviction. “We don’t allow animals to just roam around.”
At that moment, our three-legged office cat chose to appear, contradicting what I just said. She hobbled her way across the room, teasing the other animals with her freedom.
“You were saying…”
“Wendy’s technically not a patient,” I said, attempting to explain.
“I doubt she’s an officer either. Kaiser deserves better treatment.”
I rolled my eyes. “And what would you suggest?”
He thought about it briefly. “Kaiser goes home with me,” he stated matter-of-factly. “You can do whatever tests you need to do here, but he gets to rest in the comfort of his own bed.” I nodded because I couldn’t force Keyoni to do anything he didn’t want to do. I could only try to talk him into doing what was best. What he had in mind wasn’t the same thing I was thinking. “And you can come over daily to check on him.”
Say what now?
“Hunh?”
“You,” he began slower, “can come to Kaiser. You make house calls, right?”
Yeah, but… “No, we don’t.”
“Maybe you should get the head vet in here. I think an exception needs to be made.”
“Are you always like this?” My gaze dropped from the ceiling as I blew out a huff of air. “Why are you being so difficult?”
“Because Kaiser deserves better.” He smiled. “And you can do better. At my place.” The insinuation had my mind racing. “Besides, he’ll recover faster at home.”
“Are you a doctor now?”
“Tell me I’m wrong.” I couldn’t and struggled with formulating a valid argument. “Exactly. So…you want the address?”
I took it because Felicia would’ve made me take it anyway. As the head vet and clinic owner, she was big on retention. Whatever needed to be done to keep an owner happy was done, handlers included. It wasn’t worth making a big deal out of something he would get anyway. If Keyoni wanted a house call, he would get a house call.
