Well, that went about as awful as she thought it would go.

Actually, scratch that. It went way worse than she’d thought it would. After Tiffany at the bakery last night and then Adam this morning, she’d had about all she could stand of judgmental Sawyerites. There was a reason she’d moved to Oregon to get her associate’s degree, dammit. She had wanted to be far, far away from this town and its small-mindedness, but then, when the shit hit the fan, where did she go running back to?

Sawyer-freaking-Idaho.

Argh.

The phone rang, and Kylie cleared her throat hurriedly and then answered as cheerfully as she could. “Whitaker’s Vet Clinic, this is Kylie speaking,” she said, working extra hard to add a pleasant lilt to her voice. Just because she was having a shitty day…no, week…no, month…well anyway, it didn’t mean she should take it out on the rest of the world.

Her cheerful greeting did her absolutely no good, unfortunately. She hardly got the word “speaking” out before Mr. Stultz began in on a 25-minute diatribe, angry because he’d received such a large bill in the mail the day before.

Kylie tried to explain a couple of times that Adam had gotten behind on his billing and so when she’d taken over, there was quite a backlog in place, but there was no reasoning with Mr. Stultz. All he took from that information was the idea that this was all her fault.

“So I can thank you for this huge bill?” he demanded angrily.

“I think you can thank your animals – they’re the ones who needed the care,” Kylie retorted and then squeezed her eyes shut. Whoops. She probably shouldn’t have said that. Wasn’t there some awful saying in the customer service world about the customer always being right?

Adam was really going to regret hiring her after he heard about this phone call.

“Listen here, you little twit, it isn’t my fault that Dr. Whitaker couldn’t get his bills out on time for months on end, and I sure as hell ain’t gonna pay this gigantic thing now that he’s finally gotten around to doing his damn job! So, tell him that if he wants any of this money, he’ll call me.”

And with that, Mr. Stultz hung up the phone.

Kylie’s hand was shaking as she put the phone back in the cradle. Did she just get into a shouting match with a customer?

What

a

day

She wandered into the back and opened up the cage for Pugsies, a miniature pug that they were running some tests on, and snuggled his small body against her. “Hi, Pugsies,” she whispered into his fur. “Do you still like me?” He licked her chin. “You might be the only one,” she told him seriously. “You’re adorable, so of course this town likes you, but me? I’m just a stupid girl who doesn’t know how to pick a boyfriend or run a condom.” She smiled, just a bit, at the phrasing, and then her shoulders began to shake as the tears began to run down her face.

Again.

This time, instead of having to wipe them off with the backs of her hands, though, Pugsies just reached up and licked her face, his stumpy little tail wiggling hard as he tried to comfort her.

“Such an idiot,” she whimpered, her voice breaking, and then there were strong arms wrapping around her, pulling her tight up against a muscular chest. Adam reached out and put Pugsies back into the cage and then turned her around in his arms, running his hands up and down her spine as she just gave in and cried, letting the roiling fear and worry that’d been boiling in her guts spill down her face instead.

“Whhyyyy…” she wailed.

“Why what?” Adam whispered.

“Why are you here and not out vaccinating cows?” she blubbered.

She felt his chest shaking against her cheek.

“First off, kudos for having my schedule memorized,” he said, laughter in his voice even as his hands continued their long, rhythmic strokes down her back. She felt a little like a cow getting milked, but instead of milk coming out, all of the stress and worry that she’d been carrying around with her were flowing out instead.

“Second of all, I’m here to apologize. I…it’s better if I show you. Will you forgive me long enough to go on a drive with me?”

She snuffled, pulling back and wiping at her cheeks with the backs of her hands. She missed Pugsies’ kisses just then. Adam disappeared for a moment and then he was back, pushing some Kleenexes into her hands. She took them gratefully, blowing and wiping her nose.

“Will you come with me?” he repeated. “Just let me tell you what’s going on. Then you can decide whether or not to forgive me.”

She nodded as she looked up into his warm, whiskey brown eyes, wrinkles in the corner as he peered down at her, worry etched on his face. “Yes,” she whispered.

He took her hand, plucked the goopy tissues out of them before she could protest – he didn’t want to touch those things! – threw them away for her, and then started tugging her towards the front. He flipped off the lights and the open sign, and then locked the door before leading her over to the passenger side of his truck.

“It’s only 10:42,” she protested automatically, even as he helped her inside. “We can’t close right now.”

He shut the door and walked over to the driver’s side before responding. “Kylie, before you started here, I had all of the office calls forwarded to my cell phone, and I was only in the clinic when I scheduled it with a patient.” He pulled out of the parking lot and began heading towards the foothills outside of Sawyer. “It was inconvenient as hell and people sure love having you there anytime they want to stop by, but you’ve only been working the desk for what two? Three weeks? Anyway, if people want to talk to me, they can call me, just like they always have. One day of closing early won’t kill this community.”

She nodded. She still felt guilty for playing hooky from work, but on the other hand, it was her boss who was insisting that she did, so really, who was she to tell him no.

His comment about phone calls reminded her, though. She grimaced. She really, really didn’t want to talk about Mr. Stultz right now, but on the other hand, he’d hear about it sooner or later. She didn’t want him to think that she’d tried to hide that from him also.

“Ummm…speaking of people calling,” she said hesitantly, “I have a note for you back in the office. Mr. Stultz called and he’s pissed.”

Adam grimaced. “His bill?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the road.

Kylie nodded. “Said that it wasn’t fair for you to wait so long to bill him for all of that work you did.”

The corner of Adam’s mouth twitched up just a little bit, and then he said dryly, “Don’t take that personally. Every single time I send him a bill, he finds something to bitch about. One time, I ran out of black ink and didn’t want to drive all the way to Boise that day for more, so I printed the bills using colored ink, and he called to complain that the color was wrong.” Adam shrugged. “People like him…it just comes with the territory of working with the public. I’ll call him back and listen to him rant and rave, and then he’ll pay his bill. Sometimes, I wonder if he doesn’t just want an excuse to call someone. He’s older, and I think he’s lonely.”

He turned off onto a dirt road and they bounced along for a while, flashes of blue through the pine trees making Kylie think that they were following the path of a river. She wasn’t entirely sure where they were at, other than up in the foothills outside of Sawyer, but she kept her mouth shut and just waited for Adam to tell her why they were taking a nature hike in the middle of the day on a Tuesday, and what on God’s green earth this had to do with her being pregnant.

They rolled to a stop in a little pull-out and Adam turned off the engine, took a deep breath, and turned to look at Kylie.