Page 14 of The Vet from Snowy River
Boy, could she catch the eye. His eye, that was for sure. Her face was pale, like an antique cameo, and he rather thought her eyes might be grey. She was lean—almost too thin—like an athlete who’d run herself too hard for a season, and her hair was a deep, chestnut brown.
As she turned, her eyes met his, just briefly, for one long breathless pause of looking, before she returned her attention to her neat, neat rows of cake.
‘Good morning, welcome to The Billy Button Café. Would you like a table?’
Josh dragged his eyes off the woman placing food in the glass-fronted cabinet and settled them on the waiter by their side.
‘Umm,’ he said.
Mrs LaBrooy answered for him. ‘A table for two. This handsome young man’s invited me out on a date.’
The waiter grinned. ‘In that case,’ he said with a flourish of the white napkin in his hand, ‘allow me to place you at our honeymoon table in the window. I’m Graeme. I’m the café manager.’
Whipping two menus from his catering apron as though he was performing a magic trick, he set them down on the starched tablecloth and whisked away a fallen petal from the table’s vase of flowers. He held Mrs Labrooy’s chair for her while she took a seat. ‘I’ll give you a minute to choose what you’d—’
‘We’re having the donuts,’ said Mrs LaBrooy. ‘And a latte for me, young man.’
‘Well, aren’t you a lamb. It’s been a decade or two since anyone called me a young man. You come back again. Something for you, mate?’
Josh craned his head past the waiter, but the dark-haired woman had disappeared through swinging doors into what he presumed was a kitchen.
‘Coffee? Tea? Table water?’
He felt the not-so-subtle point of Mrs LaBrooy’s shoe jabbing him in the ankle and snapped his attention back to the waiter. ‘I’ll have the same.’
‘Lattes and donuts coming up, Dr Cody.’
Josh tilted his head, took the time to look properly at the man serving them. Somewhere between his age and Mrs LaBrooy’s, who had to be pushing seventy if she was a day. Fit, tanned, bald, neat. ‘Do I know you?’ Maybe the bald head was throwing him—he’d been gone for sixteen years, after all; a lot could happen to a guy’s hairline in that time.
‘Graeme Sharpe,’ said the waiter, holding out his hand to shake Josh’s. ‘I’ve lived here in the district about a year. We’ve not met before, I just read your name tag: DRCODY, VETERINARIAN.’
Josh touched the badge buttoned to his work shirt. ‘Call me Josh,’ he said, shaking the manager’s hand. ‘And this is Mrs LaBrooy, housekeeper out at the Ironbark Station. She’s also the town flirt, so guard your heart, Graeme. She’s left a string of broken men from here to the coast.’
Mrs LaBrooy batted his arm, clearly enjoying the attention.
‘You can flirt with me any day, love, I promise. I’ll have those coffees and donuts with you in a tick,’ said Graeme.
Half an hour later, as Josh wandered back into the vet clinic to see his first scheduled appointment for the day, he was still thinking about the dark-haired woman behind the counter. Mrs LaBrooy hadn’t overstated the case about the new café owner’s baking skills—he should have brought a batch of those sugary donuts back to the clinic for later—but it was the woman’s face that had stayed with him. Not grey, but green, he thought. Her eyes had been the quiet green of alpine grass.
Too bad he didn’t have time for romance. He’d have liked those eyes to rest on him a while longer.
He let himself in the door and there was his sister, hands on her hips, looking like a patient had just sprayed a hefty dose of cat pee on her top lip.
‘Well?’
He frowned. ‘Well what?’
‘Where the hell’s my coffee, Joshua Cody?’
Crap.Andhe’d forgotten to deliver the lost dog notices.
CHAPTER
5
‘Hot vet alert.’
Vera was running a wire cutter through a plum and crème anglaise tart when Graeme sauntered behind her.
