A Cold Creek Noel (The Cowboys of Cold Creek) Read Free Page B

horse at
four in the morning.
    He would have loved a nice evening with his kids and then a few
hours of zone-out time watching basketball on the hotel television set. Even if
he had to turn the sound low so he didn’t wake up Jack, the idea sounded
heavenly.
    The past week had been a rough one, busy and demanding. This
was what he wanted, he reminded himself. Even though the workload was heavy, he
finally had the chance to build his own practice, to forge new relationships and
become part of a community.
    “There. That should do it for now.”
    “What a mess. After seeing how close that puncture wound was to
the liver, I can’t believe he survived,” Joni said.
    He didn’t want to admit to his assistant—who, after three
weeks, still seemed to approve of the job he was doing—that the dog’s condition
was still touch and go.
    “I think he’s going to make it,” she went on, ever the
optimist. “Unlike that poor Newfoundland earlier.”
    All his frustration of earlier in the afternoon came surging
back as he began dressing the wound. A tragedy, that was. The beautiful dog had
jumped out of the back of a moving pickup truck and been hit by the car driving
behind it.
    That dog hadn’t been as lucky as Luke here. Her injuries were
just too severe and she had died on this very treatment table.
    What had really pissed him off had been the attitude of the
owner, more concerned at the loss of all the money he had invested in the animal
than in the loss of life.
    “Neither accident would have happened if not for irresponsible
owners.”
    Joni, busy cleaning up the inevitable mess he always left
behind during a surgery, looked a little surprised at his vehemence.
    “I agree when it comes to Artie Palmer. He’s an idiot who
should have his privileges to own any animals revoked. But not Caidy Bowman.
She’s the last one I would call an irresponsible owner. She trains dogs and
horses at the River Bow. Nobody around here does a better job.”
    “She didn’t train this one very well, did she, if he was
running wild and tangled with a bull?”
    “Apparently not.”
    He turned at the new voice and found the dog’s owner standing
in the doorway from the reception area, her lovely features taut. He swore under
his breath. He meant what he said, but he supposed it didn’t need to be said to her.
    “I thought I suggested you wait in the other room.”
    “A suggestion? Is that what you city vets call that?” She
shrugged. “I’m not particularly good at doing as I’m told, Dr. Caldwell.”
    Sometime during the process of caring for her dog, Ben had come
to the uncomfortable realization that he had acted like a jerk to her. He never
insisted owners wait outside the treatment room unless he thought they might
have weak stomachs. So why had he changed policy for Caidy Bowman?
    Something about her made him a little nervous. He couldn’t
quite put a finger on it, but it might have something to do with those
impossibly green eyes and the sweet little tilt to her mouth.
    “We just finished. I was about to call you back.”
    “I’m glad I finally disregarded your strongly worded suggestion, then. May I?”
    He gestured agreement and she approached the table, where the
dog was still working off the effects of the anesthesia.
    “There’s my brave boy. Oh, Luke.” She smoothed a hand over the
dog’s head. The dog’s eyes opened slightly then closed again and his breathing
slowed, as if he could rest comfortably now, knowing she was near.
    “It will probably take another half hour or so for the rest of
the anesthesia to wear off and then we’ll have to keep him here, at least
overnight.”
    “Will someone stay with him?”
    At his practice in San Jose, he and a technician would
alternate stopping in every few hours through the night when they had very ill
dogs staying at the clinic, but he hadn’t had time yet to get fully staffed.
    He nodded, watching his plans for a nice steak dinner and a
basketball game in the