janet dailey- the healing touch Read Free Page A

a smile. "Then maybe you'd better start thinking with your head." She bent down and picked up the dog. Running her hand backward over her fur, Rebecca exposed the red, irritated skin. "Look at that! It's a reaction to that stupid purple dye you used."
    "I did a patch test first, just like it said in the instructions!" Betty whined, refusing to meet Rebecca's eyes. "I really did, and it turned out fine."
    "Those instructions were for a person, Betty Sue, not a Pekinese. I'm not kidding, you have to stop doing this, or I'm going to turn you in for cruelty to animals."
    Betty Sue's chin began to quiver slightly, and her lower lip protruded in a pout. Rebecca felt a wave of relief; finally, she might have gotten through to her.
    "I'll give you some shampoo that's medicated. It'll help stop the itching and keep the skin from getting infected. She won't smell very nice afterward, but—"
    "Don't worry," Betty interjected, "I won't put perfume on her. No matter how much I want to. I'll resist."
    "Attagirl."
    As Rebecca took the medication from her bag and wrote her instructions on the label, Betty Sue held Twinkle and cooed into her ear.
    "Does her love her mommy?" she asked the dog in a nauseatingly sweet tone. "Yes, yes, her does. Her knows Mommy was just trying to make her look beautiful. Twinkle Toes lo-o-o-oves her mommy."
    Betty Sue set the dog on the floor and took the bottle from Rebecca. "By the way," she said, a smile on her perfectly outlined, carefully blotted crimson lips, "I heard something... but I don't know if it's true."
    "What's that?" Rebecca asked, trying to look uninterested as she snapped her bag shut. Betty Sue was a hopeless gossip, and like most people, Rebecca found the idea of gossip appalling and the reality fascinating.
    "I heard you've been spending a lot of time at Casa Colina lately... with that hunk widower, Michael Stafford."
    "Then you heard wrong," Rebecca said, trying to stifle her irritation. Gossip that was about her wasn't nearly so fascinating. "I was out there one night, and it was business, not pleasure. Believe me. I had my hand
    in a goat's rear end, up to my elbow. That's not what I call a good time."
    "Oh...I...oh."
    Rebecca was pleased to see that she had finally managed to shock even Betty Sue Wilcox. She considered it quite an accomplishment to shock someone from Hollywood.
    "But, you did meet Michael Stafford, didn't you?" Betty was still trying to squeeze something juicy from the rather dry story.
    "Yes, I met him. I saw him with my own two eyes. I gazed, spellbound, upon his handsome face for... heck... probably all of three or four minutes."
    Betty Sue brightened. "And is it true, what they say? Is he really that good-looking?"
    "He's stunning, he's breathtakingly gorgeous." She picked up her bag and slung it under her arm. "He's also very cranky, and, personally, I didn't like him...not one little bit."
    Without another word, Rebecca spun around on her heel and marched out the door, leaving Betty Sue with her mouth hanging open.
    But Betty soon recovered and scooped Twinkle up. "I just don't think I believes her, does you?" she asked in a singsong, baby voice. "Mommy thinks Dr. Rebecca likes Mr. Michael more than she's letting on. Don't you think so, too, Twinkle? Yes...Mommy knows true love when she sees it."
    Betty Sue watched until the decrepit pickup had disappeared around the corner. "There, there, she's all gone. Now, let's go try out that new tooth-whitener stuff Mommy bought at the drugstore. Your little choppers have been looking pretty yellow lately. Yes, they have. And we can't have that, can we, sweetie pie? No, sirree. It worked really great on Mommy's teeth. See...."
    Chapter Two
     
    For the next week, Rebecca couldn't stop thinking about Katie, her father and the baby goat. Finally, she gave in to her worries and dropped by Casa Colina.
    The warm sun made her feel lazy as she got out of her pickup and walked up to the house. It was the perfect morning to just sit