The woman had been pretty nice to look at. Lauren, she’d said her name was. A little tall, with long, straight brown hair, a fringe of bangs across her forehead, and a dusting of freckles across her nose. Pretty smile. And, okay, he’d noticed her figure, too. After his recent and very messy divorce, it was nice to know that part of him hadn’t died along with his belief in happily ever after.
She’d been so comfortable in the space that he figured she worked there or was at least a regular, so maybe he’d run into her again.
In the meantime, though, he had to cope with his first day at the new job. Caleb strolled all ten feet from the café door to the main entrance of the Whitman Street Veterinary Clinic. A little bell rang over the door, catching the attention of the cat perched on the lap of a woman sitting in the waiting area.
“Dr. Fitch!” said the vet tech at the reception desk as Caleb approached. He couldn’t remember her name at first, but then noticed she had a name tag on her scrubs identifying her as Rachel. Olivia’s weird insistence on name tags would pay off after all, because Caleb was terrible with names.
Although he’d remember Lauren.
No, not the time. He smiled at Rachel. “Good morning.”
“I see you got coffee from the Cat Café,” she said, pointing to his cup. “The Star Café made better lattes, but they’re closed now.”
Caleb took a sip of his coffee. It was pretty standard drip coffee, stronger than the stuff those dumb little pods at his old job made, so he was happy enough with it.
“Welcome to Whitman Street,” Rachel said. “Olivia’s in her office. She told me to send you there when you came in.”
“Right. And that is…”
“Oh!” Rachel hopped up and led Caleb to a swinging door that he remembered led to the exam rooms and administrative offices. She held the door open and said, “Go left here, then right at the end of the hall, and Olivia’s office is right there.”
“Thanks.”
Olivia Ling was indeed in her office when Caleb found it. She seemed absorbed in something on her computer screen, so Caleb knocked on the doorframe. She looked up and seemed confused for a moment, but then recognition dawned. “Caleb! Please come in.”
He’d already taken care of the new-hire paperwork, so the main thing would be to work out scheduling and procedures. Caleb would be the fifth veterinarian on staff at a fairly busy clinic, but he was happy to work in a big office. The clinic he’d come from had been run by two people and constantly felt short-staffed.
“I see you got coffee from the Cat Café.”
“Oh. Yeah, you said it was the best coffee on the block.” Also the only coffee on the block, from what he could tell.
“Did you talk to the manager?”
“No. I got coffee.”
Olivia smiled. “Well, just so you know, we have a partnership. We’re the official vet of the Cat Café, and they help us find forever homes for any cats who end up here.”
That made sense. “Do they do pet adoptions?”
“Yeah, that’s the Cat Café’s secret mission. They lure people in with coffee and pastries in hopes the customers fall in love with one of the cats and take it home.”
“Sneaky.”
“Anyway, scheduling.”
Olivia had already explained when she expected the vets in her clinic to work—including at least one overnight per week, because this was the only animal clinic in Brooklyn that kept emergency hours. A whiteboard on the wall showed which vets were scheduled on which days. Then she took him on a chatty tour through the exam rooms.
“Remind me where you worked before this?” she asked, sounding like she was trying to make conversation but probably gauging whether she could leave him alone with patients or if she needed to keep an eye on him until he adapted to her preferred procedures.
“The Animal Care Clinic on 110th Street in Morningside Heights. It closed a few weeks ago.” Well, it closed because Kara had divorced Caleb, shut down the clinic, and moved to LA with her new boyfriend, but this was not information Olivia needed.
“Let’s do the first patient together,” Olivia said. She grabbed a chart from the plastic holder on the door to Exam Room 1, then popped her head into the waiting room and said, “Jingles?”
The woman, who’d been holding the cat in her lap when Caleb had walked in, kicked a cat carrier under the seat and carried her surprisingly placid-looking gray cat into the exam room.
All right, that was how this would play out. Caleb plastered his best animal-loving smile on his face and prepared to examine this cat under Olivia’s watchful eye.
Chapter 2
