Puppy Love For The Veterinarian. Amy Woods

hadn’t yet healed.

      Now her choice was between picking up the pieces and starting over—letting herself believe that she could somehow regain what was lost—or sticking with the safe option, taking over the pizza parlor and borrowing her neighbors’ joy as they lived their lives.

      Put that way, it didn’t seem like much of a choice at all, but she reminded herself that starting over wouldn’t exactly guarantee a happy ending, either.

      “Back to square one,” she said aloud without meaning to.

      “What’s that?” Margaret called from the counter.

      “Oh… I was just wondering if it’s really going to get as bad as they’re saying.”

      She tilted her chin at the television, where the Austin meteorologist gesticulated animatedly, her arms waving in circles and lines to indicate high and low pressure points across a multicolored map of Texas.

      “Beats me.” Margaret shrugged, her shoulders tapping the pizza-slice painted earrings she wore so that they swirled around beneath her silvery curls. “Wouldn’t be the first time, though, you know.”

      June finished cleaning a blotch of spilled marinara and pushed the wheeled bucket toward the back of the shop, doing a once-over of the black-and-white checked tiles in case she missed a spot.

      Margaret wiped the last bit of counter and stood on her tiptoes to turn off the TV before removing her apron. “When I was a girl, we got a couple of feet out at our house, and I’ll tell you, it is no easy time getting around town in that much powder.” She put a hand on one hip and pointed at June with the other. “Especially when nobody around here knows how to drive in that stuff.”

      Nodding her agreement, June crossed the kitchen and emptied the mop bucket into the designated sink, then shoved the cleaning supplies into a broom closet. She supposed it was possible that the weather might take a turn for the worse—it had been snowing steadily for a few days, so there was already a little covering the ground—but the thought of that much more coming down in the span of just a few hours in their neck of Texas still somehow didn’t seem realistic. Sure, they got a few inches most years, and there was always the danger of ice, especially on the country roads outside of town, but she didn’t think there was too much to worry about. She was certain she had plenty of time to get home before anything major hit.

      But when she closed the supply closet door and turned around, June found Margaret looking up at her from all of nearly five feet, her boss’s clear blue eyes fully of worry beneath a forehead creased with concern.

      “Just promise me you’ll be extra careful, and if it gets bad, we won’t open tomorrow. Just stay home. I don’t want you getting hurt trying to make it into work, you hear?”

      June gave a reassuring smile, promised that she’d be safe and patted Margaret’s shoulder. Over the years, their relationship had deepened into more than just a typical owner/employee situation. Her boss treated her more like a daughter than a paid worker, which only made things harder when thinking about the next chapter of her life. She knew Margaret would hate the idea of June factoring her needs into future plans, but they were a factor. A big one. If she ever got back on her feet, if she ever found a way to get back all the money she’d spent years carefully saving to open her own bakery, she would have to leave someone she cared about, someone who’d helped see her through the lowest point of her life. That mattered. Deeply.

      She shook her head. There was no use thinking about it now.

      The money was gone. In all likelihood, that meant her dreams were gone with it. She’d worked herself to the bone for over a decade earning it and had gone without quite a few comforts to save until it amounted to enough to buy her own bakeshop. Her shoulders sunk as the weight of loss settled once again. It would take years before she could build her former financial stability and credit back up, and even more to get her savings back.

      Six months had passed since Clayton left, taking everything with him. Their money. Hers, really, if she were being honest, and she was now—too much had happened for anything less. Her dreams.

      And, last but not least, her heart.

      Even after all he’d done, taking the cash from their joint account and running off to gamble it away in Vegas, June thought there might be a place inside of her that still missed that stupid man. It wasn’t that she loved him still—no, he’d broken her trust and hurt her far too much for that to be the case—but the loss of him and all they’d shared, and the deep chasm of loneliness in his wake, the death of the life they’d built together… June thought maybe those were the things she truly mourned. And it wasn’t that she needed him, either, or any man, for that matter. She’d been single for most of her life until Clayton came along and had been happy and fulfilled before his presence.

      But that was just it. Until he left, she would have sworn to anyone that he was the one she’d spend the rest of her life with, and when he’d gone, all those promises of a family and a life with him vanished, and she was back where she’d been before—only this time, it wasn’t the same. This time, she knew what it was like to share her home with someone she loved, to talk about having kids one day and to dream together, staring off into the future, side by side. This time, she felt the absence.

      Shoulders up, chin up, she told herself, remembering Margaret’s wise words in the aftermath of that mess. Better to make peace with the present, than to dwell on the past, right?

      Of course.

      Starting with her small, albeit cozy, apartment, June forced herself to make a list of all of the things she had to be grateful for. When she finished, she headed back to the storefront and kitchen to fetch the two large trash bags, hefting them over her shoulders to carry through the restaurant to the Dumpster in the loading area out back.

      Things weren’t so very bad. She had her job, her friends and a warm place to live, and for that she was thankful. It was a good thing right now to be single and free, to have time and space to decide what to do next, what path to take in putting her life back together. No strings, no one else to care for, no one to put before her own needs. She planned on staying that way for a good while; it would take someone very special to convince her to put her trust in a relationship again, and she was fairly convinced that person might not be anywhere in her future, near or far. It was a…difficult thought to swallow, but one she was doing her best to accept.

      June dropped the trash bags near the back door and went to get her coat. Margaret was doing the same. “Bundle up, now.”

      “Yes, ma’am,” she teased, holding her fingers to her forehead in a salute.

      Margaret put both hands on her hips, a foreboding figure. “I’m not joking around, Junie. You forget I’m from upstate New York, where it gets dangerously cold in the winter. You Texans don’t know from cold, and you’re always caught unawares when it hits. Don’t let it get the best of you.”

      “Okay, I promise.”

      Both women pulled on gloves, hats and purses, and Margaret opened the back door for June when she picked up the garbage bags. A blast of frigid air slapped her across the face and briefly challenged her footing until she steadied herself against its force.

      “I’m good here, Marg. I’ll drop these off and lock up. See you in the morning,” she shouted over her shoulder as she stepped onto the loading dock and into what felt like gale-force winds.

      “I’m not so sure about that.”

      June chuckled to herself. “Okay, then, see you soon.”

      “All right, hon. Don’t forget what I said about not coming in if it’s bad,” Margaret called, her voice fading as the back door slammed behind her and she headed for her car in the front parking lot, which she always parked next to June’s fifteen-year-old jalopy.

      June shook her head at the older woman’s cosseting, then heaved the bags into the giant metal bin, starting at the loud clanging sound that erupted.

      Something else must have