Page 102 of Clara Knows Best

“Your hands aren’t wet,” he pointed out, dangerously calm.

“Did I forget to wash them?” she murmured. “Silly me.”

“Clara Marie Wilder, the day you snap a towel at me is the day I toss you in the stock tank. Do you hear me?”

“Yeah,” she said, grinning up at him. “I’m sorry. It’s a bad habit. I’ll work on it.”

“It’s not a habit,” he growled. “You’re just being a brat.”

“I will stop,” she promised. “Probably really soon.”

He let go of her and tossed the towel across the room—a precaution, no doubt. He glared at her as he left. “Stock tank,” he repeated significantly.

“Understood,” she vowed. Her heart was still racing from the promise of danger in his eyes, but she’d been tossed into thestock tank a time or two in her day, and it wasn’t as much of a deterrent as he probably assumed. In other words, if she had a good shot, she was still going to take it. She owed him one.

As she made lunch for herself and the man who had saved her dog, she considered her father’s recommended strategy. Patience and friendship might not seem like much of a master plan, but if that was what Jesse needed most from her right now, then that was what he was going to get. Luckily, poking fun at him wasalmostas fun as kissing him on a moonlit porch in the rain.

38

“Bad news,” Jesse announced as he arrived at work. He hung his coat on a hook, wiped his shoes thoroughly on the mat, and looked over the desk at his office manager.

“Yes?” she inquired professionally. He couldn’t see her outfit, but her long hair was down around her shoulders and she had on a headband that looked like a strip of fabric tied in a knot on top of her head.

“Three Caballeros,” he said. Why did he feel the need to play this word association game? He didn’t know.

“Caballeros,” she echoed, mimicking his pronunciation. “How is that bad news?”

“No, you look like you should be in the movie. ‘Have you been to Bahia?’ Never mind. The bad news is: someone stole the dog.”

She smiled. “I did. It’s Take Your Dog to Work Day here at Romeo Family Health. Come see.”

He peered behind the desk. Clara was wearing a belted shirt dress covered in loud orange and pink stripes that his nurse Margo wouldn’t be caught dead in, but somehow didn’t lookhalf-bad. Belatedly, he remembered to look past her for Greer, who lay on a fluffy white dog bed in the corner. “She’s wearing a onesie.”

“It’s a surgical suit,” Clara corrected. “It prevents her from licking her sutures, and I think the leopard print is stylish. She didn’t like wearing the cone.”

“You know she’s a working dog and not a pet, right? We don’t even really know if she’s had any training. What are you going to do if she starts barking or jumping on people? She looks a lot more awake than usual.”

It was true. The dog was propped up on her elbows instead of lying flat on her side. Her head was high, one ear stood straight and one flopped forward, and there was an intelligent gleam in her eyes as she watched their every move with interest.

“I’ll put a leash on her when we open, just so she won’t make anyone nervous. She wants to know how long you have to stand there frowning before you can go pet her.”

He did not want to encourage Clara in any way to start speaking for the dog, so he ignored her, but he did round the corner of the desk to crouch down before Greer.

“How’re you doing, dog breath?” he asked, giving her ears and neck a good rub. “You look pretty good for a hit-and-run, you know that?”

He allowed Greer to lick his face for as long as he could stand, and then he gave her a final pat and stood up. Clara handed him a wet wipe.

“In the kitchen, like always,” she said, at the exact same time that he said, “Coffee?”

Then, “No,” she said, at the exact same time that he said, “What are you, psychic?”

Then, “Fine,” she said, at the exact same time that he said, “Cut it out.”

“Too easy!” she called after him as he went scowling down the carpeted hall. “Ask yourself why you’re so predictable!”

Was it too much to ask that a man could get coffeebeforethe day’s harassment began?

He heard the front bell jingle, and then Yoli shouting jubilantly, “I’m getting married!”

---