Chapter Six

Tanner was beat. He’d been up kayaking at dawn, had surgeries all morning long, followed by a five-mile run at lunchtime. Then he’d taken Suki on a walk because she was too young to run distances yet. And so far, the afternoon had been one emergency after another, from a bunny that had a cough that wouldn’t stop to a pregnant Saint Bernard who kept throwing up.

He glanced at his watch: forty minutes till he could close up and get out of here, providing no more crises for the day. It was one of those days where you knew summer was here to stay for a while, and he was anxious to hit the rooftop bar at Harry’s, where he could enjoy the view of the Rockies while sipping on a nice, cold IPA, listening to his friend Sully play acoustic guitar, and letting all the pretty girls oooh and ahhh over his puppy while he enjoyed the view of them bent over, their cleavages on display as they petted his pup. It was a win-win for all.

That might have sounded crass, but he didn’t mean it to be. He didn’t want to get caught in a relationship with anyone, so it was far easier to relish the scenery from afar. Plus with tourist season underway, most of the women he’d meet at a bar around here would be out-of-towners, and he sure didn’t want to get himself into some long-distance relationship that would go nowhere fast.

Cindy Hardison, one of his vet techs, entered the exam room as he was washing his hands.

“Dr. Eliasson, you have two more patients scheduled, but I think Dr. Cuoco can take them. I’ve got an emergency that came in and I thought you’d be best with it.”

She handed him a chart with some information on it.

“Cat’s name is Snowball,” he said under his breath, scanning his finger across the notes the tech had handed him. “A two-year-old Persian in a fender bender.” He shrugged. “Fine. Go ahead and send them in.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. Maybe he’d head home after this and chill out in the hot tub instead.

“Dr. Eliasson, this is Zoey Richards.”

Tanner, who’d been busy spraying disinfectant on the exam table, glanced up when he heard the name. Zoey Richards. Impossible. There must be plenty of women named Zoey Richards out there. No way could it be her.

But the woman turned the corner into the room and he’d have to have been deaf, dumb, and blind not to know who she was. The dead giveaway was her eyes: way back when, it seemed they took up half her face. But she’d grown into them. They were still large, but attractively so, with that sort of damp, liquid, endangered baby seal look to them that made you think she’d been crying and needed a hug. Well, a hug sure as hell wasn’t on the agenda. Then he saw her dimples—her broad smile put them on display, making her damned face light up like the night sky.

She was no longer the scrawny tomboy, that’s for sure. She was in shape, but shapely, with a perfect little waistline and tits that filled out her red tee—the one that said “Demon Seed” on it, go figure—perfectly. Then there were those runner’s legs, long and lean and strong. He made a mental note to check out her ass as soon as he could do so discreetly. Not that it mattered.

He was going to find out what the hell she was doing in his exam room and promptly pawn her off on Dr. Cuoco, and he’d take whatever else came his way today, even if it was a surly crocodile with a toothache. He realized the only slight nod to her former tomboy self might have been her brown highlighted hair. Sure, back then it was long and straight, but now it had a sort of boyish cut to it, short and gold-streaked and layered but kind of sexy, like Charlize Theron’s hair. In another universe, were it not the girl who’d ruined his childhood, he wouldn’t have thought twice about entertaining how amazing it would be to strip her naked and learn every inch of that rockin’ body of hers, but no way. Not with Zoey “Slugger” Richards.

Damn, for someone who ruined his life all those years ago, she sure did grow into a beautiful woman.

He shook his head to clear the memories and extended a hand. He was going to presume she didn’t know who he was, which would make it all the easier to ditch her in a few minutes. She’d never know the difference, and Calvin Cuoco would take great care of her cat.

“Nice to meet you Mrs.—” not that he was wondering, but, yeah, maybe he was wondering.

She frowned. “Well, if that’s not complicated, nothing is.”

He knit his brows. “Oh?”

She looked up at a calendar on the wall, one of those with cute kittens in different poses for each month. She pointed at the little squares on the calendar and counted to herself.

“Well, I’ll be,” she said. “If it weren’t for that little ratfink Rodrigo, I would, in fact, be a Mrs. in three days’ time.” She pressed her cat to her chest more tightly.

Tanner squinted at her, not knowing what the fuck she was talking about and having no intention of seeking clarification. “All righty then, not that that’s any of my business. So, who’s this we have here?”

She shook her head. “Oh God, did I actually say those things? I’m so sorry. That was super weird. Um.” She bit her lip. “Look, I was stopped at an intersection. The woman behind me kept going, whacked into my car a bit. Snowball went flying into the front seat.”

“The cat wasn’t secured in a cat carrier?”

“Well, she was, but then she wasn’t.”

“Did it break or something?”

She waved her hand. “It’s a long story. But I left LA like two days ago and, I mean, she’s a cat. They hate being in those things, even to go to the vet—nothing personal. But to be in jail like that all day long for days, well, you can imagine how upset she was.”

Well, no kidding, he thought. No animal likes to be locked in a cage, but sometimes it’s for its own good.

“So was she in a cage or not?”

“She kept meowing. Over and over. She sounded like a dump truck had run over her ovaries, it was that mournful.”

Tanner suppressed a smile. She was a bit of a smart-ass. He liked that in a woman. Except he was never going to like that in this woman. Because he was never going to deal with this woman again. She was persona non grata in his life.

“Not precisely sure what that sound would be, but I’ll take your word for it.”

He nodded to his assistant Cindy to hand him the cat, who shrieked and took a hard swipe at his arm, drawing four even slices down his forearm.

“Oh, shit,” his old nemesis said. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. I’m so sorry.” She rifled through her purse and pulled out a wadded up tissue with which she quickly began to dab the blood that was trickling from his wounds. God only knew what germs were on that tissue, but it sure didn’t look like it was particularly sterile. She probably used it to blow her nose before she’d pressed it to his flesh. Tanner held up his hand.

“That’s quite all right,” he said. My vet tech can get me some antibiotic cream and I’ll be fine. Happens all the time.”

He didn’t want to tell her this was the first cat to scratch him in two years. Figures it’d be her cat to break the streak.

“Let’s get down to business here,” he said as Cindy helped hold the cat so she’d not draw any more blood. He took down Snowball’s vital signs, checked out her overall body condition, and examined her eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and teeth. He checked to see if there was bruising beneath that heavy coat of fur, then listened to her breathing and measured her pulse.

“Okay, let’s see how she’s moving,” he said, assessing the symmetry of the musculature and the cat’s mobility. Then he palpated her abdomen to feel her organs, then her lymph nodes, and eventually tested her neurologic responses.

“By all outward appearances Snowball seems to have fared fine,” he said. “Although I wouldn’t mind keeping her overnight for observation to be sure.”

Zoey pursed her lips.

“Something wrong with that?”

She shook her head. “It’s only that I’m headed up to Banff and I’ve got a lot more driving to do.”

He held up his hands. “I’m not going to make you do it. But I think it’s not a bad idea to be sure there’s nothing happening internally. Especially if you’re traveling with a cat, they get stressed out easily without adding a car accident into the mix. Cats like their routines.”

Zoey frowned. “You sure that’s necessary? I mean maybe I can get back in the car and go find a vet in Banff tomorrow?”

Tanner looked at his watch. “At this rate, you’ll not get there till late. What if there’s something wrong with Snowball? You’re not going to have anyone to help you out at that point. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but I’ll tell you what I’d do if I were you, and that would be to leave her here overnight. I’m sure you can find a hotel in town and get on the road by morning.”

The last thing he wanted was to have her remain in his little town for any longer than possible. But he also couldn’t shirk his responsibilities as a vet to ensure that her cat was treated to the best of his abilities.

She sighed. “Fine,” she said as she buried her nose into the top of Snowball’s head. “But you all better take good care of my kitty. She’s all I’ve got now.”

Tanner gave her a nod. “Smart decision. I’ll pass you off to Cindy, here, who can get Snowball all set up.”

He slipped out of the exam room as fast as possible, wanting to put as much distance as he could between him and the Muhammad Ali of Rodeo Drive. He’d let Dr. Cuoco speak with her in the morning and he’d be completely done with Zoey Richards once and for all.