doctor being gone.”
“I never said we were. I told you we haven’t heard from him, but we still have to come in.”
“You can’t blame me for finding that hard to believe.”
“Believe it or not, Hank, I can’t change your mind.”
“You board pets?” Miles asked softly.
“Yeah, some long-term. For deployed military personnel and those sorts of folks. Also have some horses boarded just outside the town limits. If it weren’t for the fact the office manager has access to the payroll system, we’d all be in deep shit right now. Bills are piling up and we don’t even have the right credentials to log in to Dr. Sheehan’s computer to cut checks. We’re kind of running in gray mode here. Turning away new customers and sending anyone who needs immediate care to the competition. I don’t know how much longer I can stay here myself. Too risky.”
“Have you worked here long?” Miles asked Katrine.
“Five years,” Katrine said.
Miles approached the counter and rested her forearms on top, twining her fingers. It wasn’t all that high, but even that looked like a strain for her.
She couldn’t intimidate so much as a toddler away from a pile of fresh leaves, so of course he wanted to pull her over, wrap her into his shirt, and hide her from the world. That was his inner cougar’s idea. Hank suppressed a groan. The cat was just fine with their convenient arrangement and insisted he reap the perks of having a mate, starting with the bedroom ones. His inner cougar wanted to know if she was a whisperer or a screamer. Hank had no intention of finding out. His cougar also didn’t seem concerned that Hank was going to have to pay up somehow for the favor. Animals rarely concerned themselves with the future. They were too busy getting the needs of the moment met. Obviously, his cougar thought he needed
her
, or at least very specific parts of her.
Involuntarily, Hank let his gaze track down the back of her body and settled on her hips, her ass.
I bet she’s a whisperer.
Hank discreetly adjusted his crotch. With much more of the salacious imagery the animal half of his brain was streaming to his man half, Hank would be sporting a painful erection in under a minute. Just because a quarter of the town, probably, had seen him naked before or after shifting didn’t mean he wanted them to see him primed and ready to go. They’d be able to guess the cause.
“Do you know where Dr. Sheehan and his family might go on vacation?” Miles asked. Apparently, while he and his inner cougar were having a battle of propriety, she was concerning herself with the glaring issues
he
should have been investigating.
Already, she’s got me screwing up.
Katrine leaned back in her seat and fidgeted with the collar of her puppy-print scrub shirt. She rolled her gaze to the ceiling. “I know what you’re getting at, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. They don’t have any time-shares or vacation property that I know of, but they do have an RV. I forgot about that old, ugly-ass thing. It’d be a miracle if they made it as far as the state line in it, though. Looks like a roving meth lab.”
Shit
. Hank dragged his hand through his hair and gave it a little tug at the end. If the Sheehans were constantly on the move, they might be impossible to nail down. They could have been making circuits around Mexico. Wouldn’t take them a lot of money to get by there, assuming they had access to any.
“Are there other groups—um,
glarings
—that would take them in?” Miles asked her.
Pointless, because he’d already asked her and every woman in the clinic that question.
“None nearby,” Katrine said. “Any glarings in the Four Corners states would call Mason and try to get a reference about them. Nobody wants to pull troublemakers into their group.”
“You believe they’re troublemakers?” Miles asked.
And damn her, Katrine answered. It was just a shrug, but it was telling enough. She wouldn’t have
“I never said we were. I told you we haven’t heard from him, but we still have to come in.”
“You can’t blame me for finding that hard to believe.”
“Believe it or not, Hank, I can’t change your mind.”
“You board pets?” Miles asked softly.
“Yeah, some long-term. For deployed military personnel and those sorts of folks. Also have some horses boarded just outside the town limits. If it weren’t for the fact the office manager has access to the payroll system, we’d all be in deep shit right now. Bills are piling up and we don’t even have the right credentials to log in to Dr. Sheehan’s computer to cut checks. We’re kind of running in gray mode here. Turning away new customers and sending anyone who needs immediate care to the competition. I don’t know how much longer I can stay here myself. Too risky.”
“Have you worked here long?” Miles asked Katrine.
“Five years,” Katrine said.
Miles approached the counter and rested her forearms on top, twining her fingers. It wasn’t all that high, but even that looked like a strain for her.
She couldn’t intimidate so much as a toddler away from a pile of fresh leaves, so of course he wanted to pull her over, wrap her into his shirt, and hide her from the world. That was his inner cougar’s idea. Hank suppressed a groan. The cat was just fine with their convenient arrangement and insisted he reap the perks of having a mate, starting with the bedroom ones. His inner cougar wanted to know if she was a whisperer or a screamer. Hank had no intention of finding out. His cougar also didn’t seem concerned that Hank was going to have to pay up somehow for the favor. Animals rarely concerned themselves with the future. They were too busy getting the needs of the moment met. Obviously, his cougar thought he needed
her
, or at least very specific parts of her.
Involuntarily, Hank let his gaze track down the back of her body and settled on her hips, her ass.
I bet she’s a whisperer.
Hank discreetly adjusted his crotch. With much more of the salacious imagery the animal half of his brain was streaming to his man half, Hank would be sporting a painful erection in under a minute. Just because a quarter of the town, probably, had seen him naked before or after shifting didn’t mean he wanted them to see him primed and ready to go. They’d be able to guess the cause.
“Do you know where Dr. Sheehan and his family might go on vacation?” Miles asked. Apparently, while he and his inner cougar were having a battle of propriety, she was concerning herself with the glaring issues
he
should have been investigating.
Already, she’s got me screwing up.
Katrine leaned back in her seat and fidgeted with the collar of her puppy-print scrub shirt. She rolled her gaze to the ceiling. “I know what you’re getting at, and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. They don’t have any time-shares or vacation property that I know of, but they do have an RV. I forgot about that old, ugly-ass thing. It’d be a miracle if they made it as far as the state line in it, though. Looks like a roving meth lab.”
Shit
. Hank dragged his hand through his hair and gave it a little tug at the end. If the Sheehans were constantly on the move, they might be impossible to nail down. They could have been making circuits around Mexico. Wouldn’t take them a lot of money to get by there, assuming they had access to any.
“Are there other groups—um,
glarings
—that would take them in?” Miles asked her.
Pointless, because he’d already asked her and every woman in the clinic that question.
“None nearby,” Katrine said. “Any glarings in the Four Corners states would call Mason and try to get a reference about them. Nobody wants to pull troublemakers into their group.”
“You believe they’re troublemakers?” Miles asked.
And damn her, Katrine answered. It was just a shrug, but it was telling enough. She wouldn’t have
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