Puppy Love For The Veterinarian

“Ah.” June had never been around such young animals before; once again, she was thankful to have an ally who knew far more than she about this unexpected development in her evening.

“In the meantime, is there anything I can get you?”

Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t yet eaten and it was almost nine o’clock, but she doubted there was much in the way of people food in a veterinary clinic. “I’d love something hot to drink. That is, if you have anything.”

“Come,” Dr. Singh said, holding out an arm. June walked through the door in front of him and he left it open, leading her to what had to be the staff break room, where he pulled a chair from a small, round table, motioning for her to sit.

She watched as he took a measuring cup from a cabinet and placed it on a hot plate before pulling milk from the fridge and what appeared to be a few spice bottles from a drawer.

“So tell me, Miss Leavy...”

“Please, call me June.”

He set to work, mixing ingredients in the glass cup as though he were a chef in an upscale kitchen, rather than a very patient veterinarian in a small-town clinic. “June, then. Have you ever had chai?”

It was only one of her favorite drinks. “Oh, I love chai tea.”

The doctor let out a chuckle as he stirred the mixture with a spoon.

“What’s so funny?”

“Just chai. When you say chai tea, what you’re really saying is tea tea. The word chai means tea in Hindi.”

“Oh, goodness,” she said, feeling like a doofus. “I’m sorry.”

“Not at all,” Ethan said, laughing.

June found she very much liked the deep, warm sound of it tickling her ears. He seemed much more relaxed now than he had when she’d first arrived, almost certainly ruining his night.

“Is your family from India?” she asked, surprising herself. She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to find something to talk about to pass the time until the storm let up and she could go on home.

“My father was born in Delhi and came here as a child.”

“And your mother?”

“She’s American, from New York. They’ve lived in Texas for most of my life, since my father opened this clinic.”

It was quiet for a few moments as Ethan continued to stir the tea and June took a couple of deep breaths, allowing herself to calm down for the first time since she’d found the puppies over two hours ago. Her shoulders ached with tension and her tiredness reached all the way down to her bones; she longed for a hot shower and her bed. For once, she would be happy to go home to her lonely, closet-size apartment, where she hoped to get at least a couple hours of sleep before her alarm clock sent her back to work.

When she opened her eyes, Ethan set two steaming mugs on the table and June lifted hers to take a sip. The hot liquid soaked all the way down into her veins, warming her through and through, the sweet, yet spicy, flavors tingling her throat in an incredibly pleasant way. “Oh, my gosh,” she said, rolling her eyes toward the roof, “this is amazing.”

Ethan grinned, then took a sip from his own mug. “Better than Starbucks, huh?”

“Um, yeah. Way better. Apples and oranges better.”

“I’m glad you like it,” he said, taking a few more sips. He got up and went back to the counter, turning on a small television set to the same local weather she’d watched earlier with Margaret. She made a mental note to text her boss soon to make sure she’d made it home.

“We’d better see what’s going on out there,” he said, returning to the table. “It looked much worse than I thought it was when I opened the door and you brought an arctic blast in with you and those puppies.”

“It’s pretty bad. I’m hoping it will clear so I can get home soon.”

Ethan looked skeptical but didn’t say anything as they both turned to watch the screen. It only took a few minutes for them to learn that the weather had gotten worse as they’d been taking care of the dogs. According to the meteorologist, a mass of cold, dry Canadian air had moved south into their area to intersect with a warm, moist air mass moving north from the Gulf of Mexico. Evidently, the cold air had advanced and pushed away the warm air, orchestrating the crazy mess outside. Over a foot of snow had fallen on already-icy roads and the whole of Peach Leaf was now under a winter weather warning.

June put her elbows on the table and lowered her head into her arms. It would be hours before it would be safe to drive home...for a person who had a working ride.

“Well, June,” Ethan said, getting up to turn off the steady stream of impending doom on the television. “Looks like you’re stuck with me for a while.”

“I... I can’t stay here. I’ve got to get home.”

Ethan tilted his head. “Not going to happen, at least not tonight. It’s really nasty out there—not anywhere close to safe for driving.” He finished the last of his tea and picked up both of their cups, carrying them to the sink.

“My car’s broken down, anyway. Surely I can at least get a tow truck out here. Maybe they can take me home.”

Ethan came back and sat down across from her at the table. “It’s not likely we’d be able to get a tow truck out here in this weather. I would drive you if I felt it was safe, but I’ve spent some time in Alaska and I’ve seen firsthand what can happen when people don’t heed weather warnings.” He paused, perhaps not wishing to sound overly concerned. “Of course, I’m not going to stop you from leaving, June, but I have to tell you, I don’t think it’s safe, and I’d really rather you not put yourself into any more danger than you already have today.”

Ignoring the fact that this man shouldn’t care about her well-being so much, June ran through all of her options in her head—all zero of them. She sighed. He was right. She was stuck there for the foreseeable future. She’d never in her life experienced such a dangerous storm and she definitely didn’t know how to safely travel in one. Besides, she had the puppies to think of now. The minute she’d picked them up, they’d become her responsibility, and she couldn’t just abandon them with a doctor who had other patients to care for, especially one who was only temporarily managing his father’s clinic.

She looked up at Dr. Singh, who appeared almost as uneasy as she.

“I hate to break it to you, June, but under the circumstances, the smartest thing for you to do is to spend the night here with me.”

Chapter Four (#u10f32068-c040-56d8-8cde-d264c2ecc079)

It took June longer than it should have to register what Dr. Singh—Ethan—had said. Mostly because, somehow, she’d gotten momentarily lost in those cinnamon eyes of his. The man was handsome in a way that could almost be described as beautiful, but his looks were also sort of unnerving at the same time, as though they had the potential power to unravel her completely.

It occurred to her that looks like his didn’t really fit in with the men she was used to seeing in Peach Leaf, almost as though she’d woken up still inside a dream involving a movie set. Men who looked like Ethan Singh were generally employed as actors or male models...not small-town veterinarians. And they usually associated with other exceptionally attractive or powerful people, or in his case, highly educated people...people nothing like her.

Staring at him made her think of all the ways she couldn’t quite measure up. Though she wasn’t sure where that notion had even originated from. After all, why would she need to measure up at all?

It wasn’t like he was interested in her, at least aside from his medical duty to assist her in getting the puppies healthy. He certainly wasn’t interested in her as a woman, as well he shouldn’t be, because she was not interested in him as a man.

Really, she was not.

She shouldn’t be, at any rate, not after what she’d been through the past several months. No woman in her right mind would seek to get back out there after the burn she’d suffered. And even though she might not be thinking clearly, what with her only real possession stuck out in the snow enduring God only knew what horrors, which might prevent it from ever working again—and with this man staring at her with unmistakable amusement as she waited for appropriate words to arrive—she could at least be certain that she was, in fact, in her right mind.

With that, she cleared the cobwebs from her throat and finally spoke, hoping her voice wouldn’t come out too rusty from lack of use.

“Um, okay. I guess that makes sense.” She swiped a hand across her forehead, suddenly warm despite the weather outside and the room’s cool temperature.

“Of course it does,” Ethan answered, his tone final as if the issue had been decided and there was nothing more to be discussed. But June thought there was plenty in need of discussion. Like, for example, the fact that she was suddenly starving.

And not, it would seem as she found herself in danger of falling deep into those eyes again, just for food.

The thought rushed in unbidden and was stuck there in her mind before she could stop it, meaning that the mature thing now would be to address where it had come from and what it meant. At some point. For now, feeling more ragged than she did after a double shift at work and hungrier than she could ever recall having been before, maturity was the last thing on her mind.

“Is something wrong?” the devastatingly handsome doctor asked, his voice even sexier thanks to its thick note of concern.

June shook her head. “No, it’s fine. Or in any case, I suppose it has to be.” She looked away from him and, not surprisingly, her mind was instantly clearer.