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Hunter shifted the dog in his arms and felt down along the problem leg. The dog whined the same way he had when Isobel touched him. Hunter suspected a break but there was only one way to be sure.
“Okay,” Hunter stood up, holding the dog to his chest. “I’m gonna take this handsome guy to x-ray. We’ll be right back with some more answers for you.”
“Is Jupiter going to be okay?” the girl with glasses asked.
Hunter offered her a gentle smile of assurance. “We’ll go get a picture of his bones and then we’ll have a better idea of what we need to do to fix him up. Okay?”
She nodded reluctantly. Isobel hurried to open the door for Hunter.
The x-ray room was just a couple doors down and Isobel opened that door for him as well. He kept it clinical as he told her where the lead aprons were and put everything in place to get the images they needed.
He lifted Jupiter off the x-ray table when Isobel said softly, “You were good with the girls back there. It’s got to be hard when you can’t promise that their dog will be okay.”
Hunter didn’t say anything as the printer spit out the x-ray film. He silently handed Jupiter off to Isobel. She took the dog and scratched his head, being careful not to jostle his back leg.
“I mean, in college, they try to prepare you for that part of the job. I spent a semester volunteering at a clinic but I still never got used to it.”
The room was dark apart from the light box on the wall that Hunter slapped the x-ray films against. The atmosphere was a little too intimate. He didn’t want to bond with Isobel about the difficulties of being a vet. Because of course it was hard being part of the worst day in a child’s life when they had to say goodbye to a beloved animal. But the truth was, he’d gotten so used to it, it bothered him less and less over the years. Which bothered him even more.
Hunter frowned when he saw the x-ray against the light. “I was afraid of that,” he murmured.
Isobel came close. And flipped her hair behind her shoulder. Hunter gritted his teeth but pointed out the break even as she said, “Ouch. His femur. That won’t be easy to brace.”
She ducked her head down to nuzzle the dog.
“We can’t just use a standard cast,” he said. It was too high up on his back leg. “But we can try a Thomas brace to put the leg in traction. It’ll at least give him a chance.”
“Poor baby,” she cooed into the dog’s ear.
She was sensitive. Not always the best quality in a vet.
Which was a good thing, he tried to remind himself. He was supposed to be trying to get her to quit. Not be working with her like they made a good team.
Because they didn’t. At all.
He turned and abruptly left the room without another word. Her footsteps followed behind him. He ignored her as he stepped back into the room with the family and explained the x-ray and the brace he’d be putting on. He also tried to set their expectations—only time would tell how the dog healed with the brace and lots of rest.
The girls nodded bravely and then they went to wait out in the hall while Hunter pulled out the coil of aluminum tubing he used for this sort of thing. With a small heating element, he started molding a cone-shaped frame.
“Oh.” Isobel sounded startled. “You don’t use a pre-made frame? You make it from scratch?”
“All different shapes of animals,” was all he said. Plus, he saw no need for fancy equipment when he could make the same thing for ten bucks with materials from the hardware store. Folks around here could rarely afford the extra expense and sometimes any little cost saving measures he could find meant the difference between a client having to choose to put down a family pet or being able to treat them instead.
Hunter went over and gave the dog a sedative, then fit the round part of the cone he was shaping around Jupiter’s hip joint to check the fit. The hoop needed to be a little narrower. He went back to his heating element and rod to shape the aluminum some more.
He ignored Isobel for the next thirty minutes as he set the dog’s leg, then fit the Thomas brace into place and taped the leg down to keep it in traction. If Jupiter didn’t overexert himself too much, the leg had a good chance of healing up just fine.
He finished the last bit of tape around the frame, then, on a whim, reached into his drawer and pulled out a glittery silver smiley face sticker and placed it on top of the tape right below the hip.
He picked up Jupiter and turned to go take him back to the little girls and their mom. Which was when he caught Isobel watching him. With this little smile and her eyes all soft. It made his neck feel hot.
He frowned and headed for the door. “Clean up in here. It’s 12:45. We were due at the Anderson farm fifteen minutes ago.”
Chapter 10
ISOBEL
Four farm calls and one hundred and thirty miles later, Isobel was ready to pummel Hunter Dawkins’ handsome face in.
