Concealed Attractions (Cedar Island Tales) (3 page)

His
thick
sandy hair needed a trim, and his eyes seemed to
like what he saw when
he
gave her a sidelong g
rin
.
She felt her cheeks flush.
 

“Not to me—except you
are
kind of short
.” The corners of his mouth
curv
ed up
ward
again
as he
sat back down
, his head
now
nearly the
sam
e level as her own
. 

“Ben, why don’t
you go check that h
usky in the back and see if he’s calm enough for us to trim his nails.
You may need to m
uzzle him
. He has a tendency to snap
when people handle his feet.”

“Right.” Ben exited the office,
but not before look
ing
over his shoulder
at
Danni
as he left.

Joel
shoved two file folders to the side and
propped
his feet
on
the edge of
his
desk. “So how was
it
,
Danni
?
School, I mean.
We missed you around here.”

She thrust images
comparing
Steve
to Ben
out of her mind.
“
Pretty good.
I’m glad to be
home
. I was hoping you would let me work again
this summer.
Buckley’s
expensive. My dad expects me to
help out as much as I can
.”

“You know the hours
—eight to six
with an hour for lunch M
onday through Friday and a half
day on Saturday if you
can come in then, too
. D
oes nine to two
,
or ten to three
,
on Saturday w
ork for you? I’m guessing you’ll
want some time with your folks.”

She
nodded.
“I can do that, and
as many hours as you need on Saturday, too.”

“
We’re tight for office space with Ben here, so when you write notes in the charts, you’ll have to share the desk with him. It’s in the
sam
e spot as last year. Think you c
an handle that?” He
removed
his half-glasses
and rubb
ed
his nose
where the bridge rested
.

“Sounds good to me—as long as h
e doesn’t take up all the space.”

“That’s my girl.”
Joel’s
feet
hit the floor with a muffled bang.  “Time to get back to work.
You need
a lab coat to wear over your regular
duds.” He
led her out of the office and into the treatment area.
“Can you stay
ti
l
l closing
today, or do you
have
to get home
right away
?”

“I can stay. I’ll just call my mom.”
She donned the lab coat, pleased to see it was the
sam
e one Bronnie had embroidered her name on last summer, and
went into the reception room to use the phone.

Joel
Taylor
gunned the boat through the swirling water near the tip of the island.
Ben glanced over at his mentor,
whose
dark-red
hair
was
tousled
by
the wind, his brown eyes sh
ining
as the boat
seemed to struggle
against the current. 

“Come on, baby, do it!”
Joel
yelled
as t
he
thirty-five
foot Bayliner
skimmed
the waves against the incoming tide.
“Ben, watch that side.
We don
’t w
ant to hit the bridge.
” The muscles in Joel’s arm
s
flexed as he
fought
to keep the boat away from the uprights
that soared
nearly two hundred feet above the waterline. 
When they entered quieter water, the veterinarian
reduced the speed of the
Pride’n Joy
and
the two men
took in
the view of the far mountains,
the last
of the remaining snow on their
upper slopes shining just below
th
e clouds building up behind the peaks
.

“I thought
for a minute
we weren’t going to make it.”
Ben brushed his own hair out of his eyes.

“Trust, my man, trust. 
And knowing
the currents he
lps. I’ve done it often enough. A
lmost got creamed one day, though.” Joel laughed and pointed. “
Look there
!”

As if welcoming them to the
less sheltered
west
side of the island, the t
riangular dorsal fin of a male o
rca
broke the water
thirty feet
ahead
of the boat.
Then
two smaller killer whales
,
young
females
from the size of their more rounded fins
, hove into view. As the men watched, the
male breached, and three other
o
rcas
became visible, one with a little one at her side.

“Ah, a baby! Take the wheel
, will you?
” Grabbing his camera, Joel sn
apped several shots
as the boat bucked against the oncoming swells.

“Do you see them a lot?”
Ben
held
the boat on a steady course as they followed the big mammals.

“Not every day, but it’s a kick when I do. Several pods
live here year round
.”
Joel
took
the wheel. “So what do you thin
k of this side of the mountains?
D
ifferent from the dry side, isn’t it?”

“I like it. M
aybe enough to consider staying here, once I’ve done Boards.”

“No girlfriends
or family
calling you home?”

He
shook
his head
at the mention of a girlfriend
. “I’ve got responsibilities
to
m
y kid sisters. The sooner I get my degree
and am working
,
the sooner I can send money home to put them through school.”

“Since when
will
that stop you from having a social life?”

“
I was seeing somebody last year
, but she opted for
pharmacy
school and went off to the Un
iversity of Idaho.
She and I
…
well, we didn’t exactly see eye-to-eye on
certain
important things, like family.
Besides, I’m here to concentrate on what you’re going to teach me.
”

Joel nodded
and
squinted into the sun
. “So, what do you want to know about the practice? You said when we came aboard you had questions
about the business end of things
. Now that you’ve been with me
almost six week
s
, you’ve learned
enough to know what to ask
.”

Ben
eased
back in
the
seat to the side of Joel’s captain’s chair
. “Staffing. You’ve got Bronwyn at reception—”

“Bronnie. Yep. A gem. She’s from across the pond.
You probably
guess
ed
that from her accent. Married a
Navy guy and moved here. When his plane hit a mountain on some kind of training flight in Japan
, she stayed.”

“Does she help with the animals or just stay up front?”

“Mostly she keeps the
book
s, makes sure bills go out on time, keeps track of the
pat
ients
,
that sort of thing.”

“Wh
at about the techs? You have two,
three
?
”

Joel nodded. “Kate comes in
almost every day, but she asked for more time off during the summer, and with you here, that shouldn’t slow us down.
She’s got two little kids at home, so mostly I
’ll use her on an as-needed
basis
until fall
. Then there’s
Pia
. She’s very new, doesn’t do a lot of clinical stuff yet. She
has a dog
grooming
business
—independent
ly
, even though she uses
one of our
room
s
here for that
—and some
minimal
tech work.
My
best
assistant
is
Danni
. She was toying with the idea of
becoming a vet tech, maybe even applying
to vet school
,
last
summer
. I don’t know
if she still wants to do that, except she
ha
s to get through
three more
years of undergrad first. But she’s got good hands and she isn’t afraid of blood
or hard work
.”

“How old
is
she?”

Joel’s eyes questioned why
Ben
asked
. “
Twenty, I think.
I seem to remember we celebrated her birthday last summer. Maybe
twenty-one
. You interested in her?”

“I—she’s very pretty.
She’s not through undergrad yet?”

“Her old man is kind of old-fashioned. He said she had to work at least a couple of years after high school before he’d let her go
college.
She worked full
time at the grocery down the street for a couple of years, and part
time for me the last couple summers.
Her old man
keeps her on a tight leash, from what I saw last year. And then
s
he picked Buckley, that private school on the mainland.
More expensive than one of the state schools.
”

“
She
seemed
young
er when she was talking about the dog training she did last year.”

Ben
recall
ed the look on
Danni
’s face two days earlier when she had talked to him about the dogs she had trained. Her eyes had shone and her cheeks had
flushed
in her enthusiasm,
calling attention to
a sprinkle of freckles across her nose. Her long hair was so dark, a startling combination with her sky-blue eyes. “She seems to know how to handle animals.”

Joel nodded.
“
She’s
smart
and loves dogs
,
and they seem to love her
. Not very worldly-wise,
in spite of working for a
while
before heading off to
school
,
but
she’s
less
shy
now
than
she was
last year.
I guess c
ollege has matured her some.
Look
over there!”
He
pointed to an o
sprey skimming the waves, a fish
flapping
in his talons.

“The wildlife you see around here!”
Ben
exclaimed. “When did you say we were going
back
to that sheep farm?”

Joel
brought
the boat around the buoy as he entered the harbor. “Tomorrow afternoon. We’ll
check
the boarders first. Can you handle the bumpers as we come in?”