City Vet, Country Temptation
Autorzy
Alison Roberts
Lektury
18,9K
Rozdziały
13
Will her attraction to the dashing country vet be enough to make her stay in the hometown she once couldn't wait to leave? Find out in Alison Roberts's latest novel! WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT… Vet Andi is unimpressed when she must fill in at a country clinic, devastatingly close to the site of her parents' fatal accident. Yet she'll do anything to secure her hard-earned promotion — even work with her frustratingly attractive new colleague, Jack! Jack's first impression of the stunning high-heeled city doc and her schnoodle is that they're completely unsuited to farm life. But as his professional respect for Andi grows, so does his desire… While Jack's cautious of being hurt again, indulging in temporary temptation is inevitable. Only, when Andi's time is up, will they be ready to let go?
CHAPTER ONE
LIFE JUST DIDN’T get any better than this...
Jack Dunlop stood up in his stirrups to get a better view of the mob of sheep flowing down the steep gully towards him. It was late enough in the day for the sun to be sinking behind the spectacular mountain range that bordered this property on the outskirts of Cutler’s Creek and that was making it a little more difficult to see everything that was happening despite the cowboy-style hat he was wearing, so he shaded his eyes with his hand.
Then he made a U shape with his middle finger and thumb, wrapped his lips over them and gave a loud whistle.
‘That’ll do, Bess,’ he yelled. ‘That’ll do...’
His dog dropped out of sight amongst the tussock and the sheep slowed down, bunching together to wait, watching the farm dogs warily. Jack waited for his father to appear at the back of the herd, with the other dogs, having rounded up any stragglers amongst the rocky outcrops of the foothills. There was no sign of Dave Dunlop yet, but Jack was more than happy to take a moment to enjoy the scenery and he relaxed into his saddle again and turned to look towards the old family homestead—a solid stone, two-storied house that had been built well over a hundred years ago. The dwelling might be on the other side of the main road that divided the property, but both the house and ancient shearing shed looked as much a part of this New Zealand landscape as the mountains on this wilder side of the road.
He reached down to pat his horse’s neck and loosened the reins to let him stretch his head down to find a few blades of grass.
‘How lucky are we, Custard?’ he mused out loud. ‘To live in a place like this and spend an hour or two out here after work to unwind with the girls.’
The ‘girls’ were a small mob of around a hundred and fifty sheep. It had started as no more than a way of keeping the grass down in the hard-to-reach places of the gullies in the foothills, but Jack had become interested in breeding these sheep with naturally coloured fleeces in all shades of black and brown and it was now an enjoyable hobby that he could share with his dad. They were rounding them up to take them into the yards, down on the flat land between the shearing shed and the house. Jack had brought the portable ultrasound scanner home so they could find out how many lambs each ewe was carrying and plan their supplementary feeding for the next few weeks.
There was no guarantee they’d have the time to get the scanning done as well as the mustering, though. As the only veterinary surgeons in this rural community, one of them always needed to be backup even if they weren’t formally on call because another out-of-hours vet could be based miles away or busy on another job. Besides, knowing that nobody around here would call them out during the night unless it was a real emergency, they would both want to do whatever they could to help an animal in trouble on their patch.
If his father didn’t appear anytime soon, they might even run out of time to get them down the road and into the yards, anyway. Jack made a clicking sound with his tongue and Custard’s head came up instantly. Bess the dog stood up, waiting for instructions as she saw Jack move in her direction.
‘Stand there,’ Jack commanded.
This wasn’t going to take long. He could see the other dogs appearing from the gully now, driving a couple of wayward sheep. Then he saw his father’s horse, a black mare called Mary.
And it was in that moment that he could feel the solid foundation of his life starting to tilt.
Because the saddle was twisted sideways and his father was nowhere to be seen...
The sheep scattered as Jack raced up the hill as fast as Custard could manage. He hurled himself off the horse as he got through the entrance to the gully and saw the shape of his father lying flat on his back on the rocky ground.
‘Oh, my God, Dad...are you okay?’ He crouched beside the older man. ‘What happened?’
Dave Dunlop had his eyes shut. ‘Not sure,’ he said. ‘I think Mary slipped on a rock. We both went down. She... I think she might have stood on my back... I can’t feel my legs and my hands feel all weird and tingly...’
A chill ran down Jack’s spine. ‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘I’m going to call for help.’
They were not only lucky enough to have a hospital in Cutler’s Creek but one of the local doctors, Isaac Cameron, was qualified as a specialist trauma surgeon. He was also one of Jack’s best mates. So was Ben, the senior paramedic in their ambulance station.
‘I’m on my way,’ Zac told Jack as soon as he got the call. ‘I’ll get Ben on the road with the ambulance as well, but I have a feeling we’re going to need a chopper. I’ll get them on standby. Don’t let your Dave move a muscle and support his head so he can’t move his neck.’
‘Onto it,’ Jack said.
He ended the call and then knelt on the hard ground. He put his hands on either side of his father’s head, spreading his fingers to provide the best support he could.
‘I’m sorry, son...’
Dave sounded as though he was in severe pain and Jack’s heart broke.
‘Don’t be sorry,’ he said, his voice rough. ‘It’s going to be okay. We’ve got through worse than this in the past, haven’t we?’
‘You’re not wrong there, lad,’ Dave said quietly. ‘And yeah... We’ll get through this as well.’
As dawn broke the following morning, however, Jack found himself fighting to retain that optimism.
It wasn’t simply that he was exhausted physically after a sleepless night.
He’d been part of a huge emergency response that had involved a good chunk of the close-knit community he’d grown up in. Bruce, the chief local policeman, had arrived along with Zac and Ben with the ambulance and coordinated everyone coming along the road who had stopped to offer assistance.
A neighbouring farmer had taken the horses away to take their saddles and bridles off and shut them safely into a paddock beside the Dunlops’ house. A nurse on her way home from the hospital took the dogs back to their own kennels and promised to stay overnight to care for them. The sheep were in the far corner of their paddock, tightly bunched in a frightened huddle.
Jack had become part of the medics’ determination to give his father the best of care, helping to immobilise him on a back board with his body, head and neck carefully secured with straps, cervical collar and tape. IV access was obtained and pain relief given, along with fluids and other drugs that could control complications that a spinal cord injury could cause, such as falling blood pressure and shock. They kept him warm and comfortable and reassured, monitoring his vital signs as they waited for a rescue helicopter to arrive. Even secured as well as he was, no one wanted to risk making a high spinal injury worse by carrying him down the steep, slippery slope to a ground surface that was flat enough for a helicopter to land, so it became a winch operation.
A small, visibly shocked crowd gathered on the road to watch the rescue of a man who’d devoted his life to caring for their livestock and pets and it was in that moment that Jack was reminded of his mother’s funeral, where these same people had gathered to watch him stand beside his father, only five years old and bewildered by the turn that life had taken. The effect of that memory was to ramp up the fear for his father. And for himself, although he couldn’t let himself go anywhere near the horror of losing his only parent—the man who’d raised him alone and created a bond that made him the absolute rock in Jack’s life.
Jack had run on adrenaline as he made arrangements to have a vet in the closest town cover Cutler’s Creek for any emergencies in the next few days and travelled with his father in the helicopter to the nearest specialist spinal injuries team and the intensive care his father might well need. Several hours later, the results of the scans were enough for the doctors to be cautiously hopeful that Dave might have escaped a life-changing injury and paralysis, but he needed urgent surgery and would be having a halo neck brace fitted, attached to his skull with metal pins, that would protect his neck as it healed.
It was still an emotional rollercoaster for Jack as he paced the floor of a relatives’ room, waiting to be allowed into Recovery to see his father after the apparently successful surgery.
He was, in fact, close to tears as he watched the sun coming up.
Life could change in an instant, couldn’t it?
There he’d been, thinking that life didn’t get any better than it was for him, but the shock of an accident that could have been catastrophic had left him realising how wrong he’d been.
What would he have in his life if he’d lost the person who was his only family? The most important person in the world to him?
He’d have a job he loved.
A community that was like an extended family.
He’d have his beloved dogs and his horse and a home he wanted to live in for the rest of his life.
He’d have his friends, like Zac and Ben. Even a couple of ex-girlfriends who had been able to cope with only being in his life—and his bed—for a limited time.
Okay...that was a lot. More than many people had in their lives, for sure.
But it wasn’t really enough, was it?
Because Jack had had a glimpse of being in his home with only his dogs for company and he’d seen the truth.
And he didn’t like it.
It was a great life, but it wasn’t quite what he’d dreamed of.
It would, in fact, be what he’d most feared when he’d been that frightened five-year-old who’d just lost his mother.
It would be...unbearably lonely...
Andrea Chamberlain was not having the best day.
‘I’m so very sorry, Mrs Parker.’
The elderly woman had her hand pressed to her mouth and tears streaming down her cheeks. A small dog was lying on the high table between them and was now watching its owner with the kind of deep concern spaniels were so good at displaying. Andrea stroked the silky black head and gave him a reassuring ear rub.
‘We can keep him comfortable for a little while yet,’ she told her client. ‘But there’s nothing more we can do. The MRI scan has shown us just how far the cancer has spread now. I’m so sorry,’ she said again, swallowing back her own tears. ‘I know this is the last news you wanted to hear.’
And she knew exactly how hard this was going to be. Janice Parker lived alone with a dog she absolutely adored.
Just how Andrea felt about her own fur baby, Pingu.
Losing a beloved pet who had been such an important part of your life was always devastating. She’d seen—and totally empathised with—the fear in Janice’s eyes when she’d rushed her fifteen-year-old Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Toby, into the clinic a couple of weeks ago, having felt a hard lump in his abdomen. Toby had had a lumpectomy, which he recovered from quickly, but when the aggressive nature of the cancer had been identified, a scan was done to see if a chemotherapy course might be an option.
It wasn’t.
And it was only a matter of time before the kindest thing to do would be to make sure this little dog didn’t have to suffer. Thankfully, this appointment was the last one for Andrea this afternoon and she could take as much time as she needed to make a plan of how they could both help Toby get the best quality of life and the most happiness out of whatever time he had left.
Andrea stayed in the consulting room for a few minutes after Mrs Parker had carried Toby back to the reception area. She pretended to be tidying shelves that contained all sorts of supplies and medications, but she was actually trying to get her head together so that she could face her colleagues without revealing the level of difficulty she’d had coping with that last appointment.
Being too emotionally involved with a case could count against her in her bid to become one of the permanent partners of this practice—a goal she’d been working towards ever since she’d been lucky enough to score a locum position in what was the place she had dreamed of working ever since she’d decided to become a vet.
A position that she’d been in for nearly two years now, but while the invitation to become a partner had been hinted at, it had not yet been formally extended. Perhaps it was because she was feeling so bad about Mrs Parker and Toby that her longed-for goal seemed further away than ever. She certainly didn’t feel inclined to stay late, as usual, to catch up on paperwork, chase lab results or go over details for the surgeries on her list in the morning. She could do all that later tonight.
What she needed to do right now was to go and give her little dog a cuddle and then take him home. Pingu had a large, comfortable crate at the back of the hospital wing, where he snoozed between short walks or visits whenever Andrea could take a few minutes’ break in her working hours. Everybody here loved Pingu and helped look after him and that was another reason why she was so keen to make this job permanent.
When that happened, her life would be perfect...
Andrea opened the door of the consulting room to find the practice manager, Ginny, right in front of her.
‘Andi...are you free for a few minutes?’
‘I can be. What’s up?’
‘Warren wants to see you in his office.’
Warren was her boss. Everybody’s boss, here. He had set up his own small veterinary practice at least forty years ago not long after he’d graduated from vet school and he’d built it into the most prestigious and successful small animal practice in the city of Auckland.
Ginny’s eyes were wide. ‘It sounds like he wants to talk to you about something important.’
She knew how much Andrea wanted to join the practice. She also knew that Warren had the casting vote for the employment—or firing—of every staff member. She leaned closer to Andrea and lowered her voice to a whisper.
‘Maybe this is it. The offer...’
Andrea’s heart skipped a beat. Maybe it was.
She tucked a wayward strand of hair behind her ear before she knocked on Warren’s office door.
‘Come in... Ah... Andi. Just the person I wanted to have a chat to. Do sit down...’
Warren’s smile suggested that he was delighted to see her, in fact. As if he had some really good news he wanted to share, even. Andrea was smiling back as she sat down on the comfortable leather chair to one side of the antique desk that was Warren’s pride and joy.
‘You’ve become a real asset to this practice,’ Warren said. ‘I’m hearing that you’re getting more and more referrals for orthopaedic surgery, which is hardly surprising given how well you’ve done in your postgraduate training. It’s the perfect area for you to specialise in, going forward, and it would be a good investment for us to facilitate any further training you want to do. Or set you up to get involved in some research.’
Andrea’s breath caught in her chest. Funding specialist training or research projects was not something that would be done for a locum who could move on at any time.
‘Top of the agenda for the next partners’ meeting is drawing up a partnership agreement for you, Andrea.’ Warren was still smiling.
Yes...!
But Warren’s smile faded slightly. ‘I do need you to do me a small favour in the meantime,’ he added.
‘Of course,’ Andrea said. ‘What is it?’
But Warren gave her a thoughtful stare before he spoke again.
‘How old are you, Andrea?’
‘Thirty-four.’
He nodded slowly. ‘I was quite a few years younger than you when I started this practice, but it’s been my life’s work and it’s something I’m very proud of. It almost didn’t happen, though...’
‘Oh...?’
Warren shrugged. ‘I couldn’t afford it, even though it was much cheaper in those days to set up a clinic of your own. I was lucky enough to be offered a loan. My closest friend all through university—a man called Dave Dunlop—was setting up his own practice in Cutler’s Creek. He mortgaged his house to do it and he wanted to help me have the same opportunity, so he lent me the money.’
‘That’s an amazing thing for someone to do. He must have been a very good friend.’
‘He still is,’ Warren said. ‘I paid the money back, with interest, long ago, of course, but I suddenly find I’ve got the chance to help him as much as he helped me back then.’
Andrea had no idea why this was relevant to her potential partnership. She was also slightly distracted by the mention of a place called Cutler’s Creek. Why was that name familiar?
‘He was lucky to survive a fall from his horse a week or so ago. Even luckier that his cervical injury hasn’t resulted in paralysis. He’s been allowed to go home to recuperate, but he’s got a halo brace screwed into his skull and hardware attaching it to some kind of rigid chest harness, so he won’t be working for at least three months. He contacted me to ask if I knew of someone who could come and help his son run the practice while he’s out of action. Mixed practice. Rural and small-town stuff.’
Did he want Andrea to find a potential locum?
‘Where is Cutler’s Creek exactly?’ she asked.
‘South Island. Central Otago. About an hour or so out of Queenstown. Gorgeous place, from what I’ve heard. Mountains, lakes, rich gold-mining history...’
But Andrea wasn’t listening now. She didn’t want to hear about Central Otago. About a place she’d avoided even thinking about since she’d been five years old. Because she hadn’t wanted to go anywhere near that nightmare again.
‘So I told him I had the perfect person.’ Warren’s voice broke through Andrea’s defence system. ‘Someone who can turn her hand to anything and do it well. So well that we’re intending to offer her a partnership.’
‘Me...?’ Andrea’s voice came out as a horrified gasp. ‘Oh, no... I’m sorry, but that’s not possible.’
‘Oh?’ Warren sounded surprised. ‘Why not?’
‘Because I live here. I have a dog. An apartment full of pot plants.’ Okay...maybe that wasn’t a very good reason. ‘Clients who are depending on me,’ she added quickly. ‘Like Mrs Parker. I had to tell her that Toby’s condition is terminal today.’
The quirk of Warren’s eyebrows made her feel as if she was stooping to using emotional blackmail by bringing Mrs Parker and her old dog into this equation.
‘None of that needs to be a problem,’ he said smoothly.
Unless you choose to make it one, his look suggested.
‘I will look after Mrs Parker and Toby personally,’ he assured her. ‘Dave said he’s more than happy for you to bring your dog with you and I’m sure your concierge can look after your apartment and water your plants. It won’t cost you anything for accommodation, either. Dave’s got a big old house that’s been in the family for generations, but there’s also a shearer’s cottage if you prefer to be independent. He’s also happy to reimburse you for any travel costs, like the ferry crossing and fuel.’
Andrea could feel her head turning slowly from side to side.
No...no, no, no...
Warren’s gaze was steady. He wasn’t smiling now.
‘I owe this man,’ he said quietly. ‘If it hadn’t been for his faith in me and his generosity, this practice wouldn’t exist. Your job wouldn’t exist.’
Oh, help... Was she supposed to feel grateful to this unknown old friend of Warren’s? Grateful enough to go somewhere she’d promised herself she’d never have to go again?
‘I’d go myself, but I can’t abandon a large practice that I’m responsible for.’ Warren raised his hands, palms outwards in a gesture of defeat. ‘I’m also the chairman of the committee that’s running an international veterinarian symposium happening in less than eight weeks and we’ve still got a huge amount to organise.’
He was holding Andrea’s gaze. ‘I would be very grateful if you could do this for me. Very grateful indeed.’
And there it was. The offer of a partnership had been made but only informally. It could easily be rescinded if Andrea demonstrated that she wasn’t prepared to be a team player and put the best interests of the practice—and the stranger who’d made it possible that it existed in the first place—over any personal reservations.
She wanted this job.
It would be the final feather in her cap of total success.
To fail in her goal to be a partner would mean that all her hard work and focus and personal sacrifice since she’d been old enough to recognise that perfectionism and success got you noticed—and valued—had been for nothing.
The position as a partner would be the icing on the cake that, so far, consisted of her gorgeous penthouse apartment, the stunning Porsche 911 sports car that she’d managed to score in her favourite shade of Guards Red and, of course, the most adorable fur baby in the world.
All good things. But the real status, the real respect and acknowledgement that other people thought she was something special, would come from becoming a partner.
Andrea didn’t just want this job.
She had to have it... She couldn’t allow herself to fail.
She managed to summon a smile, even.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘How soon would you like me to go?’
‘It’ll be at least a two-day drive, even with that flash car of yours.’ Warren was smiling back at her. ‘I suggest you get sorted tonight and hit the road first thing in the morning.’
