The Doctor Next Door. Victoria Pade

Eden in jeans and a T-shirt—she didn’t think she was overdressed now.

      At least she didn’t until Boone Pratt brought Charlie out into the waiting area.

      Boone was clean today. Perfectly. His dark wavy hair, his extravagantly handsome face, his hands and nails, even his cowboy boots showed not a speck of the dust of the day before. His clothes were spotless, too, but beneath the long white lab coat that gave him a professional air were jeans and a chambray shirt. And it occurred to Faith only then that maybe she should find some more casual attire for Northbridge.

      But her dog was following behind him as he joined her and she turned her focus there.

      “Oh, my poor baby! Are you sick?” she asked the dog without greeting Boone Pratt.

      Charlie wagged her tail, obviously happy to see Faith.

      “She’s feeling pretty sorry for herself,” Boone said as Faith scooped up her pet to hold in her lap.

      A section of Charlie’s front paw was shaved but other than that she, too, was cleaner than she had been the previous day and she smelled like she’d been given a bath.

      “We just got her to eat a little food and take a few laps of water,” Boone Pratt was saying despite the fact that Faith had yet to address him and was looking only at her schnauzer. “If she can finally hold that down and maybe take in a little more later tonight she can go home tomorrow.”

      “What made her so sick?” Faith asked, still not taking her eyes off of Charlie.

      “Some dogs just don’t tolerate the anesthetic or the pain medication as well as others. There’s nothing to worry about. She had enough pep this afternoon to hop onto my desk chair. Then she barked like crazy at the cat that was in here half an hour ago, so she’s really fine. She just needs to get up to speed again and I think she’ll be there tomorrow. The extraction went well and there’s no infection. When her appetite comes back and she’s rehydrated she’ll be good as new.”

      Boone Pratt moved from where he’d been standing in front of Faith.

      Feeling as if the coast was clear, Faith glanced up from Charlie to see what Boone was doing.

      He was behind the reception counter removing his lab coat, rolling it up and tossing it somewhere Faith couldn’t see.

      Then he returned to the waiting area.

      Faith looked down at Charlie once more but out of the corner of her eye she saw Boone lean against the wall. He folded his arms across his chest, placed one ankle over the other and seemed to settle in to watch her.

      It was unnerving and, under other circumstances, with someone else, Faith would have made conversation to ease the tension. But she wasn’t feeling friendly and was trying to avoid saying the wrong thing. So she pretended to be aware of only Charlie. When, in fact, she was much, much more aware of Boone Pratt than she wished to be. Aware and not unaffected by the sight of the man all cleaned up.

      “I owe you an apology for yesterday,” he said suddenly. “That’s why I asked that you not come in until after office hours. You were right, I was rude and nasty to you.”

      He’d overheard the parting shot.

      But recalling that she had said that and that Eden thought better of him than she did, Faith decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and take a step of her own in the direction of peace.

      Still without raising her eyes, she seized on the assumption that he’d been peeved because of something she’d done unknowingly and she said, “If I snubbed you one of the times I’ve been in town since high school it wasn’t intentional. You weren’t at Eden’s wedding and I only knew you were you yesterday because… Well, because it was you who was meeting me here. You don’t look like the same person you did all those years ago. I would never have recognized you if we did just run into each other on the street.”

      “Yeah, I had quite a growth spurt first year of college. But yesterday was just some old stuff of my own, it wasn’t that you’d snubbed me sometime in the last eleven years.”

      “I did something to you when we were kids?” she asked, believing that that was what his old stuff stemmed from.

      “It’s not like that, no. I guess I just took offense at how much you hated Northbridge and those of us in it—”

      “Hate is a little strong. I just wanted something different. There was nothing personal in it.”

      “I’m sure there wasn’t. And hey, so we aren’t your cup of tea, that’s just the way it is. But yesterday, remembering it, set me off. Anyway, like I said, I apologize. It was uncalled for and out of line and Charlie here let me know it in no uncertain terms.”

      That made Faith smile and look up from her dog to see that Boone Pratt was smiling slightly, too. And that yes, when he did, his remarkable face formed deep creases in his cheeks that only added to how great-looking he was.

      “Charlie let you know in no uncertain terms?” she repeated. “Charlie talked to you?”

      “You mean she doesn’t talk to you?” he joked.

      “She is good at letting me know what she wants,” Faith conceded.

      “Well, she let me know that she didn’t approve of how I treated her mom yesterday and I agreed she was right. So maybe we can start over?”

      “Okay,” Faith said, a bit leery but again recalling that Eden liked him.

      In the interest of starting over, Faith finally opted for friendliness. As Charlie curled up in her lap, she said, “Did you know that I’ve been enlisted to organize a fund-raiser for a horse rescue? And in a hurry—apparently the mayor wants it to happen next Saturday in conjunction with some sort of auction?”

      She ended that with a question because she knew next to nothing about the project.

      “A horse auction,” he said. “The horse rescue is my baby. I’m doing the auction. I knew the mayor was going to try to whip up something to go along with it, but this is the first I’ve heard of your being in on it. How’d that happen? Didn’t you just get to town?”

      “I was enlisted by phone through my sisters. If I had to guess, I’d say Eve and Eden probably volunteered me. They’re saying that the mayor heard I would be back in Northbridge, somehow knew about my experience as an event planner and thought I was just the person for the job, but that seems fishy to me.”

      “You think they offered you up for it?”

      “My sisters want me to move back permanently—that’s part of what I’m supposed to be here thinking over. I’m sure they figured this would get me involved in the community again, that it would help convince me to stay. But however it happened, I said I’d do it. Even though it will be a huge crunch to pull it off on such short notice.”

      Faith had the impression that Boone wasn’t particularly happy to hear that she was on board, but he was trying not to show it.

      Then, with some leeriness of his own, he said, “Do you have any idea yet what you’ll do?”

      “Actually it was a long drive here from Connecticut and I had a lot of time to think, so yes, I do. I was thinking that it’s spring and that’s a big time for people to clean out closets and basements and garages and cellars and attics. So I thought why not have them donate what they want to get rid of and arrange a flea market in the town square with all the proceeds to go to the horse rescue.”

      She didn’t have a clue as to why he looked so surprised, but he did.

      “Bad idea?” she assumed to explain it.

      “No, that’s a good idea. A terrific one, in fact.”

      “But you expected me to come up with a bad idea?” she asked, still confused by the shocked expression she’d prompted.

      He