Page 102 of The Vet from Snowy River
Vera shook her head but Marigold opened her eyes wide, gave her a look that couldn’t be ignored. She pressed the phone to her ear. ‘Josh, I—’
‘Vera, thank god. I’m on my way to the café to see you, but I just wanted to call and warn you … did you see the paper today?’
‘No, I haven—’
‘Shit. I don’t know how that woman found out or what idiocy prompted them to print it, but you might want to take a moment to read a copy before people start asking questions.’
Vera struggled to get a thought straight in her head. ‘I’m not at work. I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean. Now’s not really …’
The tears were welling again and she was all out of tissues. The phone slipped through her fingers and she let it lie on her lap, Josh’s voice just a faint rumble from far away.
‘Vera, honey.’
Marigold was still with her, but for how long? Everybody left her in the end. Everybody. And the more she loved them, the more it hurt.
Loving people didn’t work. Not for her.
She reached down and ended the call.
CHAPTER
32
‘Josh.’
He looked up from the microscope, where a flatworm the size of a pinhead was busy invading the red blood cells of a champion sow named Iron Lady. The flatworm would explain why the pig had been out of sorts. If only it would be so easy to explain his own malaise.
‘What’s up, Sandy?’
Their receptionist had worked like a trooper since the fire, washing everything that hadn’t been dragged out to the skip bin, and moving the air filter from room to room to encourage the smoky smell to get itself gone. The back office was the only undamaged room on the downstairs level, and when he wasn’t working on the community hall ceiling for Marigold or measuring and sawing wood for the clinic’s front room rebuild, he hid himself away in the office to brood and work on his backup of pathology testing. Who said males couldn’t multitask?
‘You’ve got a visitor.’
Finally. He knew she’d come see him after avoiding his calls, he’d just had to give her time. He’d knocked on her door, he’d sent flowers, he’d visited the café only for Graeme to send him home again with a consolation brownie, because Vera wasn’t at work.
Or answering his calls.
She’d closed him out like he meant nothing and it had damn near torn his heart out.
‘There’s a kid out front, he’s been knocking on the plywood sheeting covering the front windows. Says, and I’m quoting here, he needs to see the vet real bad about his dog.’
Not Vera, then. A thought struck him. ‘Is the kid’s name Parker?’
‘I didn’t get a chance to ask, because when he saw me he scooted in through the gap and spied the jellybean jar I was holding, and that was it for conversation.’
Had to be the same kid. ‘I’ll be right out.’
He’d known this moment was coming, so there was no point putting it off any longer. Parker was wearing the scruffiest pair of jeans Josh had seen in about two decades. Rips covered one knee, oil stains that he’d bet were from a bike chain coated the hems at the ankles, but the razor-sharp ironing crease riding down the front of them told him someone was looking out for this kid. ‘Hey, Parker,’ he said.
The boy’s eyes widened. ‘Are you Mister Vet? Have you got my dog?’
Josh nodded. ‘I reckon I might. You got a parent with you, son?’
‘My mum. She’s looking for a park that isn’t gonna get her in trouble.’
Josh looked through the smashed windows to where half a dozen vacant car parks adorned the street. ‘These ones out front no good, Parker?’
‘She’s in the big truck, on account of her little car shat itself, and she’s not so hot at squeezing the big truck in between those little white lines. Last time she drove it into town, the cop chick said she’d give her a parking ticket next time.’
