Sinister Read Free Page A

and the floor was scratched from thousands of anxious paws that had crossed the threshold, but now this veterinary clinic was half hers. That had been a big personal goal—to work in her own practice and stay in Prairie Creek. Every day she thanked her lucky stars that she could check that big one off her bucket list.
    Well ... almost every day, she thought as she put her coffee down in exchange for the fat parchment envelope that Renee was waving.
    “Looks like a wedding invitation!” Renee said cheerfully.
    “That it does.” It was an invitation she had thought she’d dodged. Practically everyone else the Dillingers knew had gotten one, and she’d wondered, hoped maybe, that she’d been overlooked. As Sabrina noticed that the postmark was dated six weeks earlier, Renee’s smile fell a bit.
    “I know. My bad,” Renee said before Sabrina could say a word. “I, uh, it ... I think it got shuffled into the junk mail and recycling somehow and then ... wow, I don’t know, I saw it poking out of an old magazine, so I pulled it out and saw that it was for you. Sorry.”
    “Okay,” Sabrina said. “But—”
    “I promise I’ll be more careful with the mail. I really don’t know how it happened.” She blinked behind her glasses as if she might break down into tears.
    “It’s fine. Truly.” And it was. Renee Aaronson was usually reliable, and she had a charming way with the customers. She was able to juggle several phone calls, all the while dealing with a yapping Chihuahua or a freaked-out Siamese or, worse yet, their overly worried owners. Sabrina almost admitted to Renee that she would prefer the invitation should go back in the recycle box, but she didn’t want to dump her life story on the young woman.
    “Seriously, Dr. Delaney, it won’t happen again.”
    “Good. So,” she said, to change the subject, “are we busy today?”
    “Swamped.” Renee glanced at the computer monitor. “Wow. Yeah. Appointments back-to-back. And that’s before the emergencies.”
    “I’d better get at it then,” Sabrina said, already pushing open the short swinging door to the back of the clinic with her hips. Quickly, she made her way down the short aisle to her cubbyhole of an office, where she peeled off her jacket, slipped on a purple lab coat and exchanged her boots for shoes.
    A quick check in the mirror behind the door showed her honey-blond hair still in place, swept back into a braid that usually held through most of her hectic day. Frowning, she assessed herself with cold eyes. Her face was still smooth, and her amber eyes softened the sharp line of her high cheekbones and nose. Not quite the same girl who’d fallen in love with Colton Dillinger almost twenty years earlier, but all in all she’d held up pretty well.
    “It’s all that talking with the animals,” she said aloud, recalling how her sister, after observing her treating a lame horse, had dubbed her Dr. Doolittle.
    Once behind her desk, she slit open the envelope. She knew what it was of course: an invitation to the nuptials of Pilar Larson and Ira Dillinger, to be held the weekend before Christmas.
    She wondered if Colt would be at the wedding too, and what he would think of her if they came face to face. Looking at the engraved script on the invitation, she shook her head. What was wrong with her that she could let a romance nearly two decades old still get to her?
    “Perfect,” she said, noticing the enclosed RSVP card, the date for responding long past due. She thought about making up an excuse and not attending the event, but since the Dillingers were the best customers of the clinic, that seemed like poor form. Davis Featherstone, the Rocking D’s ranch foreman, already knew that she was on duty that week as Antonia was going to be out of town. “So I can’t even lie my way out of it.”
    “Lie about what?” came a voice from the doorway. She turned to see Antonia herself walk in. Her shiny dark hair was swept back in a twist that