Page 2 of August Heat
That was the proper course around there, but Krys also knew how overcrowded the county shelter was. While kittens were more likely to be adopted than grown cats, the odds still weren’t great.You know, I may not be a cat person, but I’m not sure I’m comfortable taking them to more of the same.
Ethan stopped her before she turned away. “There’s the vet, you know. I hear she takes in some of the smaller critters sometimes, especially if they’re really young or hurt. Nice lady. She helped us when our chickens were going crazy.”
“What vet?” Did he mean Dr. Global in town? His clinic was the closest thing to an animal hospital in their corner of the county, but Krys didn’t know much about him, other than the clinic was tiny and some people in town complained that he took the easy way out of diagnoses. Most pet owners drove a few extra miles to the county seat for a “proper” vet clinic.
“You know, the farm vet.” Ethan looked at her as if she were nuts. “I mean, don’t she live in town? I know I see here there all the time. Dr. O’Connor!”
“O… connor?” Krys didn’t know anyone with that last name. Not in Paradise Valley, anyway.Here I thought I knew as many people as the mayor did.Came with the territory of fighting fires. If you weren’t putting out everyone’s messes every other week, you were entertaining their kids at school.
“Yeah, yeah. Sigh-o-vaughn or something.”
“Sighovaughn O’Connor?” That wasn’t a real name. No way.
“Know what? Think I got her card here in my wallet.” Ethan looked plenty appreciative to have something take his mind off the death of his old barn. He fished out that wallet like he was about to give Krys some candy.
The card was soon between her fingers, although her arms continued to prop up the box of kittens. One of them had taken to rubbing its face against her hand. Poor buddy must have been cold and scared.Damn poor, scared animals.Didn’t matter if Krys were a cat person or not. She saw a scared, helpless baby animal? She did something about it. The guys at the firehouse would give her crap, but deep down they were all softies, too. Took a big ol’ softie to do a job like theirs.
“Siobhan O’Connor – Agricultural Veterinarian.”
“She look as Irish as this name sounds?” Krys asked Ethan.
“Is that what it is? No wonder I can’t say her name. It’s all Greek to me.”
More like Gaelic. “I’ll try her. Thanks.”
She took the box of kittens back to the truck, where she kicked open a door and shoved the box onto the seat first. After reclaiming her jacket and making sure the kittens wouldn’t fall from any untimely heights, she slammed the door shut and approached Quimby by the cinders.
“I’ve got cats, man,” she told him.
“Cats?” Quimby whipped his head toward her. “So, we’re jumping over the P word now and going straight to cats, huh?”
“Not like that, you dumb perv.” Krys had heard every lesbian joke under the sun, having lived in Paradise Valley, but nothing compared to working with a bunch of grown men who spent too much time staring at naked-lady posters and pitching in to get Cinemax for the station TV. They were polite to every lesbian in town. Except Krys. Because she was one of them, which meant she was up for ribbing about anything and everything. The fact shelookedlike them probably didn’t help her case. “I mean actual cats. Found a bunch of kittens in a box over by the woods. Longfellow says he doesn’t know anything about them, so I’m taking them to a vet as soon as we get out of here.”
“You mean Dr. Global? Not sure how much help he’s gonna be. I took a stray dog in once to look for a microchip, and he acted like he never heard of the damn things.”
“No, some other animal doc. Here, he gave me a card.” She passed it to Quimby, who looked it over with mild interest. “You ever heard of her before?”
“No clue. But if she’s half as cute as her name, you should hook me up, yeah? Assuming you’re not gonna make your move before I do, Madison.”
“Very funny.” The ribbing came from a real place, after all. Until that year, Krys had been an unapologetic womanizer who knew every woman in town.That means Iknowmost of them.Even if her carnal knowledge was not complete, she knew some pretty juicy drama. This was a woman who had always slept with her friends. More like she slept with them first,thenthey became friends… and those friends ran off with celebrities…
“You know I just josh you.”
Krys decided that was a good time to check on the kittens again. How long until she figured out who this Dr. O’Connor was?
How long until the distraction was over, and she returned to her seasonal mope-fest?
Chapter 2
SIOBHAN
“That’s a pretty determined girl right there.” The porch creaked beneath Siobhan’s weight as she leaned forward and brushed her fingers against the cat’s arching back. Giant pads for paws swatted at her before the cat scampered away. “She must have a giant will to live.”
“You think so?” asked Rita Mills, the lucky new owner of the cat pouncing on a bug.
“Animals are a lot like people in many ways. Some have a greater will to live than others. Not every cat who gets hit by a car like that one is gonna bounce back. You can take two cats of the same physical health, hurt them in the same stupid way, and one will live while the other dies. Like people.”
“Huh. Never thought of it that way.” Rita gazed at the gray American shorthair with new appreciation. “I was gonna name her Angel, you know, ‘cause it’s like she had a guardian angel watching over her, but now maybe I’ll name her after my grandma who lived to be one hundred despite all her health problems. Real spiteful one, that lady was.”
