A Special Kind of Family Read Free

into her voice as she recalled. ‘Right into the path of my car. I would have hit him but I swerved.’
    ‘You went over the cliff!’ She must have. The road by the river left no room for error.
    ‘What do you think?’ she said bitterly. ‘So my car was on its side right down the bottom of the cliff. I’m lucky I didn’t go into the river. I lay in the car for a bit thinking someone would rescue me—I’m sure the people in the car in front must have seen what happened. But nothing. So finally I kicked my way out of the passenger door, which was suddenly my roof. It was really dark. My shoe came off and I couldn’t find it. I couldn’t find my phone. I climbed up the cliff but it took me ages and the dog was lying in the middle of the road. Just lying there. So I sat there in the dark, waiting to get my breath back—waiting for someone to come along. And I thought the dog was dying but he didn’t die. So finally I picked him up and carried him here.’
    ‘If you went over where I think you went over…That’s two—maybe three miles you’ve walked,’ Dominic said, horrified.
    ‘It felt like ten.’ She closed her eyes again. And then she opened them again. ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing. No, actually, not nothing. I’m thinking you deserve a medal. I can’t believe…’ He shook his head, forcing himself to move on. ‘I need to go back to the dog.’
    ‘The she dog,’ she said cautiously. ‘Elementary mistake. I guess my examination skills leave a bit to be desired.’
    Definitely medical, he thought. Nurse? But now was hardly the time to ask.
    ‘The she dog,’ he agreed gravely. ‘And I think I know why she’s not moving.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘She’s in labour. I’m guessing by the look of her that she’s been in labour for a while. I need to haul out my veterinary books and see what I can do. We’ll give your injection time to work and I’ll take a closer look at those scratches. Meanwhile…’
    ‘Do your best,’ she said, and managed a smile. ‘I didn’t pickshe was a she and I didn’t pick she was in labour. I deserve to be struck off. But please…help her. I haven’t lugged her all this way to have her die.’

CHAPTER TWO

    S HE might well have. The dog was still exactly as Dom had left her. He squatted beside her and winced.
    She was an obvious stray. She wore a frayed collar with no identification. She’d been dumped. She looked emaciated and exhausted and ill almost to the point of death.
    Maybe it would be more humane to put her down, he thought ruefully. As the only person with any medical knowledge for fifty miles, Dom had been called on for veterinarian duty in the past. He had something in his bag that would be fast and painless.
    But…
    But the dog was looking up at him. He’d never seen such pleading eyes.
    He swallowed. It’d be sensible…
    The dog’s gaze wasn’t leaving his face.
    He watched as another contraction rippled through her body. It was weaker than the last. It was a wonder her contractions hadn’t ceased altogether, given what she was going through.
    He did a fast, basic examination. There was no sign of a puppy coming.
    How long had the contractions been happening? Erin had obviously not been in a state to notice, but the fact that the second contraction was weaker than the first told its own story.
    This was an abnormal labour, in a dog near death.
    He couldn’t do a Caesarean section. He’d learned a few basic vet skills, but this was way beyond him. He had no anaesthetist to help him. Even if could find out the dosage, what sort of anaesthetic could he give a bitch so close to death?
    Erin’s heroics aside, what was the sensible course of action?
    She was a badly injured, stray dog in obstructed labour. He knew the logical thing to do.
    But still her eyes pleaded.
    Okay. Soft-touch Doc Dom. He sighed and hit his phone. Fiona McLay was the nearest vet, fifty miles away. She was as soft a touch as he was. Like Dom, Fiona was on call twenty-four hours a