AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m Melody,” the other said. “I’m the office manager. Kendall is the vet tech.” Which he figured as much by how they were dressed. Kendall was in scrubs, Melody in pants and a shirt.
“Nice to meet you,” he said.
“We’ve met before,” Melody said. “I mean you’ve done work on our cars. Normally you deal with my husband, but I’ve been to the garage once to drop him off.”
“Sorry,” he said. He wasn’t surprised that he didn’t remember or recognize her. He was good with faces at times but not names, and if someone had only been in once and it’d been a while, he was clueless.
“Hi, Carter.”
He turned to see Josie standing in the doorway from the waiting room that led to the exam rooms.
“Hi, Josie.”
“Where’s Dopey? I want to meet Doc too. Do you have them with you?”
He knew there were three sets of eyes on him behind the opening, but Josie couldn’t see them. They couldn’t see Josie either.
“No,” he said. “They are at the garage.”
“You leave them alone?” Josie asked.
“My mother has Doc in her office with her. Dopey hangs out with the guys working. He’s good.”
“He is good,” Josie said. “He let me pet him for a long time the other night and never moved.”
“Dopey likes the attention,” he said.
“Do you have a picture of Dopey?” Josie asked. “I’ve been drawing pictures of dogs as they come in. I ask the owners if I can take a picture and then draw them and Avery is going to put them in frames on the walls. But Dopey isn’t here for a picture.”
He pulled his phone out. “I do have a lot of pictures, but don’t know how to get it to you. Can you take a picture of it on my phone?”
Josie turned and ran from him, he wasn’t sure what he said, but she was back fast with an iPad in her hand. He assumed that was what she was using to take pictures.
He held his phone out with a picture of Dopey on it and she snapped it. “Do you have one of Doc too?”
He swiped through and found one of his puppy, and she snapped that picture too.
“Doc will be here next week for an appointment. You can get a better one then if you’re here.”
“I’ll be here,” Josie said. “Until school starts, I’m staying here.”
“She’s having more fun than my staff.”
Carter looked up and saw Avery standing there. “Hi. Sorry to bother you. If you’ve got a minute? Alone.”
He was looking at Josie and realized he shouldn’t say this in front of her, as he wasn’t sure what turmoil it might cause.
“Sure,” she said. “Why don’t you come back to the exam room with me?”
He followed her to the second exam room. The first one had the door shut and he heard voices in there and assumed that was where she’d come from and noticed that Kendall had left his view when he was talking to Josie.
“Sorry to drop in like this. I know you said that Josie could get a puppy, but you had to find one.”
“I did,” she said.
“I had a customer come in today. Good family. They’d bought a miniature poodle for their parent who is in her seventies. They thought it’d keep their mother company, but after a few weeks, it’s not working out.”
“Why?” she asked.
