“Is, uh, there something – something I can help you with?” she managed to stutter out after realizing she’d just been staring at him with her mouth hanging open for at least three entire seconds.
A slight frown crowded his patrician features. “I’m sorry if I’m interrupting. But I was…” His frown deepened, pulling at his full lips. Chloe had to stop herself from biting her own lip as she waited for him to go on. “I was… told that I… I should come to this address, and –”
Chloe’s eyes widened.
Is he… the receptionist the recruiter sent?!
She only just resisted the urge to shake her head.
No, that couldn’t be true.
But I mean… heiskind of dressed for a job interview? Though at a Fortune 500 company, not a small-town vet. And –
“Hello? Hello? Is there anyone here?!”
For the second time today, Chloe jumped at the sound of an unexpected voice ringing out from the entryway, as the bell on the door jangled wildly.
Chloe, her head still spinning, looked around the tall man who wasapparentlyher new receptionist to see a woman –somehow – carrying a large, fluffy golden retriever through the doorway, a wide-eyed boy following close behind.
“Oh, thank goodness!” the woman exclaimed, even as she teetered across the room, the dog heavy in her arms. “I didn’t think the new vet was starting until next week.”
Although she clearly was looking for the vet, the woman was looking up at the man the recruiter had sent – and, while Chloe didn’t blame her for staring, she didn’t need the assumption that he, and not she, was the vet.
“I’m not,” Chloe said quickly, hoping the woman would understand before things could get out of hand with a case of mistaken identity. “But what seems to be the problem here?”
The dog was obviously in distress, and she knew that the nearest emergency vet was a long way back down the mountain. There was no way she could simply send them away.
“She has a ball stuck in her throat – a small one,” the woman said, clearly struggling under the weight of the dog. “She won’t cough it up.”
Chloe glanced up at the man, who was staring at the woman and the dog with a faintly bemused expression on his face.
Okay, that dog’s clearly a heavy one, and I hate to ask him to crumple his suit, but –
“Sorry to throw you in the deep end,” Chloe told him briskly. “But would you mind bringing the dog into one of the rooms for me?”
The man swung his piercing blue eyes in her direction, opened his mouth, and then closed it again. He, too, was clearly thinking about his beautiful suit… but in the end, after clear signs of an internal struggle, he said, “Of course,” and, striding across the room, he lifted the golden retriever from the woman’s arms as if it weighed no more than a tiny toy poodle.
“What kind of ball?” Chloe asked the woman, as she opened the door to the examination room, ushering them all inside, thenew receptionist placing the dog down gently on the stainless steel table.
“A foam ball, like those stress balls you can get.” The woman let out a nervous laugh. “It sure has brought us some stress, I’ll tell you that!”
“Mr. Davis at the corner store gave it to me for free,” the boy said wretchedly, misery written all over his face. “I never should’ve taken it.”
“That’s okay,” Chloe said soothingly as she peered into the jittery dog’s mouth – and there, sure enough, was a small blue ball right at the back of her throat. It didn’t seem to be fully obstructing her trachea as yet, but Chloe knew that these kinds of things could change in an instant.
She turned to the boy and gave him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry – we’re going to help out your friend. What’s her name?”
“Bella,” the boy said seriously. “Her name’s Bella.”
Chloe turned back to the dog. “Well then, Bella,” she said, “I’m just going to go ahead and get that ball out of your mouth, okay? You’ll be good as new in no time.”
“Thank you,” the woman said gratefully, and the boy echoed her.
“Thank you, Doctor –” He hesitated.
“Dr. Chloe,” she said. She glanced at the receptionist. “And, uh, this is my assistant, uh –”
“Ethan,” the man said, after a slight hesitation. “Ethan Roan.”
