Page 48 of Forget & Forgive

Thank God it was Lia who found us like that.

I didn’t even realize someone had walked into the room until Zag gave another of those deep growls. His hackles went up beneath my hands.

“Easy, Zag,” Lia said softly. “I’m not going to hurt him.”

Hurt him? As in, me?

Loosening my embrace and sitting back on my heels, though, I looked at the dog and understood. He’d postured up as if he were ready to protect me.

“It’s okay, buddy.” I scratched his ruff as I wiped my eyes with my other hand. “She’s fine.”

He glanced at me, then relaxed, transforming back into docile-but-enormous house pet. His tail even wagged, and when Lia came over to pet him, he started panting happily.

She touched my shoulder. “You good?”

“Yeah.” I laughed as I pulled myself together. “Figures all it takes is a dog giving me the‘Dad, are you okay?’look, and I lose it.”

“That’s because you’re not okay.” She unhooked Zag’s leash from the place I’d secured it earlier. “Let me take him back to his mom. Anything I need to report?”

“No.” I dusted myself off and rose. “Just a routine senior panel.”

“Okay.” She gave me a look. “I’ll meet you in your office.”

I didn’t protest.

After I’d left the sample to be sent to the lab and Lia had given Zagrag back to his owner, we met in my office, but there really wasn’t much to say that we hadn’t already said last night. I was a mess. I needed time. This sucked. In the end, she gave me a hug that almost had the same effect as Zagrag’s empathetic eyes, but by then, I was probably cried out.

“If you need to bail early,” she told me, “we’ll all understand.”

I shook my head. “No. I need to work. At least this isnormal.”

Her eyes asked if it was normal for me to be brought to tears by my patients like that, but we both let it go. No, it wasn’t normal. No, it wasn’t good. But I wasn’t going to get any better moping in my office or at home. Helping my furry, feathered, and scaled patients at least made me feel like I wasn’t a completely useless fuckup.

Lunch helped. Maybe my blood sugar had been low and that had just made me more raw. That was what I told myself, anyway.

Did I believe my own bullshit? No.

Did it get me through the rest of the day? More or less.

Thanks to being out for a couple of days, I had a mountain of paperwork to catch up on, so I was the last to leave. I made sure my work phone was on, since I was on call tonight for the emergency clinic. Then I steeled myself for another long night alone, shut off all the lights, locked the door, and—

Found Owen leaning against his car in the parking lot.

I fumbled with my keys, but I managed to get them into my pocket. “Uh. Hey.”

“Hey.” He had his thumbs hooked in his pockets and an uncertain expression on his face. “Do you have a minute?”

I have all the time in the world for you.

Clearing my throat, I came a little closer, still keeping a cautious distance between us. “Yeah. Sure. What’s up?”

He chewed his lip and glanced around. “I, um…”

“Do you want to, uh…” I gestured over my shoulder at the clinic. “So we have some privacy?”

He seemed to think about that for a moment, then nodded. “Might be a good idea, yeah.”

Heart thumping hard against my ribs, I pulled my keys back out of my pocket and turned to unlock the door. That got more difficult as Owen’s footsteps closed in. He was still a couple of feet away, but I swore I could feel his body heat.

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