The Place I Belong (13 page)

She’d underestimated Adam’s powers of observation because he said, “There’s something more to the story.”

She shook her head. “It’s just residual anger.” She yanked out another paper towel and blew her nose. “Your poor dog has been so patient. It’s his turn now.”

She could see Adam forming another question, so she turned to Trace and unwound the bandage to forestall any further discussion. “The wound is healing beautifully,” she said, putting another pad in place and winding a fresh length of elastic around it. “I don’t think it will even leave a scar.”

Adam ran a hand over Trace’s glossy head. “You hear that, boy, no scars to scare off the ladies. You owe Dr. Linden for that.” He stroked Trace’s flank before he looked up at her. “I owe you too. On the way home after Matt’s riding lesson, he talked to me about Satchmo. It’s the first real conversation I’ve had with him.”

“Animals have a way of opening people up,” Hannah said, leaning forward to let Trace give her a wet kiss.

Adam sent her a slanting smile. “
You
have a way of opening people up.”

“Didn’t I just spill my guts to
you
?” she said ruefully, as she pushed the button to lower the examination table to floor level.

“I caught you at a bad moment.”

Embarrassed by her meltdown, she moved to the computer terminal to start typing notes on Trace’s condition.

She felt his nearness before he touched her, cupping her shoulders lightly. “Come to The Aerie for dinner,” he said by
her ear
.

Her fingers went still on the keyboard as she felt his breath stir her hair. She closed her eyes and fought the urge to lean back against him. She could imagine his arms coming around her so she was enveloped by his strength and the delicious, spicy scent he carried.

For a minute she thought he was asking her on a date, and the prospect sent her heartbeat into overdrive. Then she realized she was fooling herself the same way she had with Ward. The sexy, famous chef didn’t want to spend the evening with his veterinarian. Supermodels and movie stars were probably more
his ty
pe.

He was only repeating his previous offer of a free dinner at his restaurant. She forced her eyes open and started typing as though he hadn’t set every one of her nerve endings dancing. “You need a date for a dinner like that, and I haven’t been in town long enough to have one. So I’ll take a rain check for now.”

He continued to hold her. “Come on Tuesday. It’s my day off, so I’ll keep you company.”

She wanted to move away from him, but he had her trapped between the counter and his body. There was no graceful way to extricate herself unless he released her. She saved Trace’s computer record and laid her hands on either side of the keyboard. “You don’t want to go to the restaurant on your day off.”

He laughed and let go. She scooted sideways before she turned around. He stood about two feet away, his thumbs tucked into the pockets of his black jeans.

“I’m at the restaurant every day,” he said. “I just don’t supervise on Tuesdays. It’s good to give the staff a day on their own. Let them stretch their wings. I’ll pick you up at 6:30.”

She opened her mouth to refuse.

He raised a hand to stop her. “Food is what I’m good at. Let me do this.”

“I haven’t got anything to wear,” she said, grasping at straws.

“A clean lab coat meets the dress code,” he said with a glint of a smile.

She managed a smile in return. “I guess I can swing that.”

He picked up the end of Trace’s leash and stood jiggling it for a moment. “There has to be a way to clear your name,” he said. “I have political connections because of the restaurant. I can—”

She shook her head. “I appreciate the offer, but I don’t want to stir it all up again. Tim will come back Monday, and Mrs. Shanks will let him treat Willie. I just didn’t expect the story to follow me here.”

“For what it’s worth,” he said, reaching out to gently squeeze her shoulder, “I believe you made the right decision.”

She touched the back of his hand. The feel of his skin turned the comfort to something deeper and hotter. “It’s worth a lot.”

He let his hand drop from her shoulder, and led the dog out the door.

As she slipped the intake form into Trace’s medical folder, she felt a curious sense of lightness.

Adam pulled into a parking space in front of Paul Taggart’s law office and unbuckled the re-bandaged Trace from his seat harness. Coming around to the passenger door, he signaled the dog out of the car. “Paul says you can come in.”

Trace fell in beside him as he jogged up the front steps of the gingerbread-trimmed Victorian house Paul worked in. It was too frou-frou for Adam’s minimalist taste, but much of Sanctuary was built before the Civil War and the residents liked their historic curlicues.

Paul stood and came around his big, oak desk as his receptionist ushered Adam and the dog into the office. The lawyer bent and gave Trace a scratch under the chin. “Have a seat,” he said, waving to the sofa under the window and dropping into an armchair. “What can I do you for?”

Adam sat and Trace lay down at his feet, his head on his paws, his ears pointed up. “Do you know the new veterinarian who works with Tim? Hannah Linden?”

Paul looked surprised. “Sure do. She had dinner with Julia and me a couple of nights ago. Nice lady.”

“She and Matt get along well,” Adam said, groping for a way to bring up a matter that was not, in fact, his concern. “She’s gotten him interested in horseback riding.”

“That’s a positive step.”

“She told me a story today,” Adam said. “About why she left Chicago and came here. Has Tim mentioned anything about it?”

Paul nodded. “He thinks she got railroaded.”

“I’d like to help her straighten things out. What can we do?”

Now Paul shook his head. “I offered to look into it, and she turned me down.” He scanned Adam’s face. “She turned you down too.”

Adam shifted on the cushions. “She did the right thing, and it ruined her career. Someone should go to bat for her.”

Paul gave him a questioning look. “And you’re that person?”

“I owe her for what she’s done for Matt.”

“It’s tough to start anything without Hannah’s participation. We’d need to track down the people who were working in her office at the time of the incident and get their statements and any documentation they might have.”

“She said the admission form disappeared right after she euthanized the dog. Conveniently, for Senator Sawyer’s story.”

“Yeah, I heard that, which makes it even more difficult to prove
libel.” Paul shook his head. “You know, maybe she’s right. Maybe it’s better to let it alone. She’s doing fine in the practice with Tim.”

“Not anymore. This morning she got blindsided by an old grouch named Bertha Shanks who announced to everyone sitting in the hospital’s reception room that Hannah killed a dog without its owner’s permission.”

Paul looked disgusted, then thoughtful. He sat forward. “We’d have to keep our investigation behind the scenes. And whatever information we collect, we share with the doc before making a move.”

“That’s fair. So you’ll do it?”

Paul nodded and scooped up a legal pad from the table.

Adam reached down to touch Trace’s bandage. “I’m not a poster child for facing up to the past,” he said, “but I want to help Hannah lay hers to rest.”

Chapter 9

A
S SHE DROVE
her pickup truck slowly between the pristine, white fencing that lined the road to Healing Springs Stables, Hannah admitted she’d been fooling herself about outrunning the scandal in Chicago. She’d thought Tim was the only person in Sanctuary who knew or had any reason to care about her past. Now it turned out Julia and Paul had known about it from the beginning. Even Mrs. Shanks had found out somehow—and broadcast it to the entire reception room. Then Hannah herself had told Adam.

There was no chance it would remain a secret now. She smacked her hand on the steering wheel in frustration. She could face the consequences to herself, now that she was forewarned, but she didn’t want it to affect Tim’s practice. She’d have to
monitor
how many appointments were made and cancelled for the next few days. If she saw a decline in one and an increase in the other, she’d resign. What she would do after that she refused to consider.

Her decision made, Hannah stepped on the accelerator. She was still concerned about Satchmo’s health. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe a pony could be grief-stricken over the loss of his stall mate. However, something about him seemed off to her. She looked forward to consulting with Tim when he returned from his trip. In the meantime, she decided to run a couple of more tests. Satchmo’s balance issue suggested a neurological disease, in which case, the sooner she started treating the pony, the more likely he was to recover fully.

Arriving in the stable parking lot, she swung the truck
around to park beside the sleekest automobile she’d ever seen. Careful not to bang her door into the dark gray paint, she jumped down from the truck’s cab and walked a circuit around the car, admiring its beautiful curves and elegant, wood-accented interior. She wasn’t a car fanatic, preferring usefulness to aesthetics, but she could appreciate a work of art when she saw one.

“Like it?”

She jerked around to see Adam standing a few feet away with his hands in his trouser pockets and an inquiring look on his face. He was sporting a tailored black suit, shirt, and tie nearly identical to the ones he’d worn Saturday afternoon, and his hair was tamed into dark, gleaming waves.

“What?” she asked.

“Do you like the Maserati?” he asked, strolling forward.

“It’s yours?” She couldn’t put a coherent thought together when he looked like that.

He nodded as he came to stand beside her. “An indulgence for driving the curves of these mountain roads.”

“But it’s not black.” She clapped her hand over her mouth in dismay.

He frowned. “Why would you—?” Then he glanced down at his clothes and said, “I see.”

“You have a black dog too,” Hannah said to explain herself.

He looked torn between irritation and amusement. Fortunately, the latter won out and self-mockery lit his face. “So you think I consider Trace a fashion accessory?”

“I know you love him, but you do seem to like black.” She waved a hand in a gesture of futile defense as she gave him a wry smile. “Some people choose dogs that look like themselves.”

“My affectations have caught up with me,” he said. “I started wearing black years ago and it’s become a reflex.”

“Did you have a reason, or was it just because you lived in New York City?” Hannah asked, daring to tease him.

He skimmed a finger against her cheek. Her breath hitched at the tiny contact between them. “Both,” he said. “I’ll tell you about it at dinner on Tuesday.”

“Are you bringing the Maserati?”

“If it persuades you to come.”

“I already said I’d come.”

“Yes, but I could see the excuses forming in your brain,” he said. Casting a glance at his watch, he grimaced. “I have to go. Matt’s in there with Satchmo.”

“I’ll give him a ride home.”

He shook his head. “Thanks, but my housekeeper is picking him up in a couple of hours. You’ve got other things to do.”

The little blip of disappointment surprised her. She wanted the chance to talk with Matt. Now she’d have to get him alone in the barn.

Adam opened the door and folded himself into the exquisite car, giving her a wave as he brought the engine purring to life. As he pulled out of the parking lot, she stood in a daze staring at his taillights as they disappeared down the drive.

He moved like a panther and his car sounded like a tiger. No wonder she found him fascinating.

Hannah walked up to the railing of the indoor arena and spotted Sharon immediately. The horsewoman stood in the middle of the ring watching Matt work Satchmo on a longe line. Surprised that Matt wasn’t riding the pony, Hannah waited while Sharon adjusted Matt’s grip on the long whip used to signal the pony as he circled the boy at the end of the thirty-foot line.

Sharon said something to the boy before she strode across to Hannah, her boots kicking up spurts of fine dust from the ring’s thick bed of sand and sawdust.

“You’re teaching Matt to longe?” Hannah said.

“That what I told him,” Sharon said, her expression grim. “I didn’t want him to ride Satchmo. The pony’s not moving right today.”

“Lame or stiff?”

“Off-balance,” Sharon said. “Come and take a look. Just don’t mention it to the boy.”

From Sharon’s description and her own research, Hannah knew that Sharon feared Satchmo had equine protozoal myeloencephalits, a parasite that attacked the horse’s central nervous system. Depending on how long Satchmo had been infected, there might be permanent damage.

Anxiety squeezed her chest as she jogged along beside Sharon’s long-legged stride.

“Stop here and watch him,” Sharon said, halting outside the circle Satchmo was inscribing.

Hannah waved to Matt, who grinned and nodded a greeting as both his hands were occupied. Then she turned her attention to the
chestnut pony walking obediently around his young master. For
a fe
w moments she didn’t see anything wrong. Then she caught it: Satchmo stepped slightly outward with his hind foot. He adjusted for his misstep almost imperceptibly, but it was there.
The shif
t was so subtle she would have missed it if Sharon hadn’t cued her
to watch
for something. It was one of the telltale signs of EPM.

“You have an amazing eye,” she said to the tall woman
b
eside her
.

“Hon, I’ve been around horses since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I can practically hear ’em thinking.”

Hannah caught several more tiny but awkward movements as the pony circled. She nodded. “I need to do a spinal tap.” She really wished Tim were here; she hadn’t done a spinal tap on a horse since her summer internship during vet school.

“His blood test didn’t show anything?” Sharon asked.

“It showed what half of all equine blood tests show. He’s been exposed to the EPM parasite. I could start treating him without the spinal tap, but if it’s not EPM we’d be wasting valuable time and money.”

Sharon heaved a sigh. “I guess you’d better get your needle, Doc. And put it on my bill.”

“But I thought—” Hannah stopped. It was none of her business who paid for Satchmo’s treatment. For all she knew Adam had changed his mind about buying the pony for Matt. She’d let Tim sort that out. Sharon looked at her. “Never mind,” Hannah said hastily.

“Matt, let’s get Satchmo back to his stall so Doc Linden can suck out some more of his body fluids,” Sharon called before she murmured to Hannah, “If Satch has EPM, he needs rest, not exercise. Have you got your bag of tricks with you?”

“In the truck,” Hannah said, watching the pony’s ears tip forward in anticipation as Matt began to walk toward him, coiling up the longe line as he went. When Matt reached Satchmo, the pony butted his head against the boy’s chest, rubbing it up and down and making Matt stagger backwards. Satchmo followed him and did it again, and Hannah realized it was a familiar game they were playing.

Maybe she should call in another vet with more l
arge-animal
experience to do the tap. In theory she knew where the
lumbosacral
cistern
was, but in practice she was—well, out
of practice. She could practically hear Mrs. Shanks’s voice
an
nouncin
g that she’d crippled Matt McNally’s pony. Her palms
began to sweat and she rubbed them against her khaki slacks.

She’d done spinal taps on kittens; the spinal column of a pony was huge by comparison, giving her a larger, easier target. She swiped her hands one more time and turned toward the gate, saying to Sharon, “I’ll meet you in his stall. Ask Matt to stay. He can keep Satchmo calm while I do the procedure.”

Hannah jogged out to the truck and grabbed the animal hospital’s computer tablet, swiping away at the screen to get to the detailed description of executing a spinal tap on a conscious horse. As she skimmed through the instructions and diagrams, memories from vet school bubbled to the surface and she nodded to herself.

Going to the back of the truck, she rummaged through the large-animal kit she kept stowed in case of emergency calls. Everything she needed was there, including the Styrofoam packaging to send the samples to the lab.

“I wish Adam were here to carry this,” she grumbled, dragging the heavy bag out of the truck bed.

She staggered into the barn, where a stable hand took the duffel from her despite her protests. “You need your strength for fixing horses,” he said, hefting it over his shoulder.

This was one of the reasons she didn’t want to resign from Sanctuary Animal Hospital. People valued her profession here in a way they didn’t in Chicago. In many cases, the animals she treated were an important part of their livelihood. Not just
t
he cow
s and sheep and horses, but the working dogs and even the
barn cats who kept down the rodent population. It was a
different
relationship between the animals and their owners, one in which the animal was respected as more than just a
companion
.

The man brought her bag into Satchmo’s stall and waved off her thanks. She found an anxious-looking Matt standing beside the pony while Sharon slipped a halter over Satchmo’s head.

She went over to the boy. “Hey, don’t look so worried. This is just a test. No big deal.”

“I thought you said you hadn’t found anything wrong with him,” Matt said, stroking the pony’s neck.

“There’s only so much you can tell from the usual blood tests,” Hannah said, resting her hand on Satchmo’s back. “If there’s something medically wrong with him and we don’t treat it, he could get really sick. But if I find it now, before it gets worse, we’ll be able to cure him.” She crossed her fingers behind her back. If the pony had EPM, the nerve damage could have been done already.

“I’ve got a stock if you want to use it,” Sharon said, fastening a chain lead to Satchmo’s halter and winding it across his nose. The chain kept the horse’s attention on his nose and gave the person holding the halter a little extra control.

Hannah looked at the placid pony and the worried boy and shook her head. “I trust you and Matt to keep him still.” Putting the pony in a stock—a sort of cage to confine him—would upset both Satchmo and Matt. “I’ll take a stool, though. And ice to pack the fluid in until I get back to the clinic.”