Final Stand. Helen R. Myers

been on her own for over a week or so. No sign of heart-worm. Except for needing a heap of good food, she’s a healthy enough dog. Do we continue?”

      The question startled her. “Of course. That’s why I backtracked, why I came to you.”

      He turned away and began collecting all kinds of paraphernalia. “Let’s get her on lactated Ringers before we get her cleaned up a bit.”

      “Sorry?”

      “An IV.” As he moved around the room, he asked, “So what do I call you?”

      “Whatever you’d like. I think we can both agree this isn’t going to be a long relationship.”

      He grunted, and the sound could have passed as a brief chuckle. “Fine, I’ll entertain myself by guessing until I see your check or credit card.”

      “I’ll be paying cash.”

      His slight hesitation, a tightening around his mouth, told her that she’d made a mistake. She didn’t yet know how much his fee would be.

      “The name’s Ann,” she said, mentally kicking herself.

      “As in Ann Doe? No, that would have to be Jane.”

      It took an effort not to grit her teeth. “Anna Diaz.”

      “Oh, Anna, not Ann.”

      “My friends tend to shorten it.”

      “Not very good ones. Anna is a beautiful name. Diminish the name, next they’re diminishing the person.”

      “Moonlight as a shrink, Doc?”

      “Just another student of life. I guessed you were of Spanish or Welsh descent. Your complexion’s too fair for Mexican, lacks the olive tones for Italian. Could be—”

      “In a hurry.” She nodded at the dog. “Couldn’t you put her under for whatever it is you’re going to do? I’ll get your money and—”

      “You step out of this room and I’ll call the cops.”

      Anna stiffened. It wasn’t often that she heard such a threat delivered in a voice so calm and assured. The man knew how to catch a person off guard.

      “The cops. Isn’t that a bit drastic?”

      “You strike me as too eager to leave, which tells me that either you have no intention of paying me, or else you’re hiding something.”

      He couldn’t be more right—and wrong. The urge to laugh, or run, grew. “That’s ridiculous. If I wanted to avoid responsibility or hide anything, I would be thirty miles down the road by now.”

      “Then wash up while I put in this IV, and slip on those gloves I set out for you. I’m also going to remove some of these ticks and clean her as much as I can. We don’t need anything crawling inside her while I’m sewing her shut.”

      Grateful that at least he showed some concern for the animal, she did as he directed. After soaping her hands, she ran cold water on her wrists to calm down her racing pulse.

      “How long is this going to take?” She wrestled with the gloves as she returned to the table. Spotting the jar of blood-swollen insects floating in what she guessed was alcohol, she grimaced.

      “Not very, but you can forget about her traveling tonight. We’ll see how she is in the morning.”

      Not “we,” she amended silently. By morning, she planned to be hundreds of miles from here. And the first thing she would be doing was looking for a change of vehicles.

      Gray closed the lid on the container and deposited it and the tweezers he’d been using in the sink. When he returned he had another injection prepared.

      “What’s that?” Anna asked, eyeing the yellowish liquid.

      “Sodium Pentothal. Lidocaine would probably do, but she’s been through a lot. Better to go with the general anesthetic.”

      Once he appeared satisfied that the drug had taken effect, he went to work. He’d completed several neat sutures before asking, “So what do you do?”

      He didn’t look up, and since they had only the examination table between them, Anna was glad. “I’m…between jobs.”

      “Good.”

      “Why do you say that?”

      “This way you won’t have to feel guilty in the morning for being groggy on the job. Healing, whether it’s man or beast, requires time.”

      No doubt, but she took from his sudden chattiness that he was softening her up, fishing for more information. She had no intention of taking the bait. She did, however, approve of how he worked, with speed and efficiency.

      “Holding up okay?” he asked midway through.

      “Well enough.” And for good reason—she was trying not to look. The last time Anna had been in an emergency room, it was to hold the hand of a kid getting her forehead sewn together. Blood had never bothered her before, but, maybe because the patient was a kid, the room had spun like a carousel gone out of control, almost costing her what remained of a six-hour-old lunch. Somehow this poor pooch brought that all back.

      “I’m impressed. Would have bet twenty you’d be hanging over the edge of the sink by now.”

      As she tried to ignore what her peripheral vision was picking up, she countered, “Does that mean I get a discount?”

      “It means I’m grateful that the sight of a half-gutted creature doesn’t make you faint…or worse.”

      “Then maybe skipping that grilled chicken salad was my one smart move today.”

      The gaze he shot her from under stark eyebrows, though brief, was sweeping and all-encompassing. His eyes, she realized, were neither aquamarine blue nor silver, but the color of the coldest January skies.

      “Don’t tell me you diet.” When she failed to respond, he murmured, “Ah, the profundity of the uncommunicative woman. But you’re right, I’ve ventured out of line again.”

      He didn’t speak after that, working with such focus Anna almost believed he forgot about her. After knotting the last stitch, he snipped the end, then swabbed the area with what she suspected was another antiseptic. Then he prepared another injection.

      “Penicillin,” he explained. “You’ll want to pay special attention to keeping the sutures dry and the area clean. She also needs as quiet an environment as possible. Don’t let her chase any squirrels or rabbits.” He administered the injection. “Otherwise, the stitches can be removed in about a week.”

      Anna shook her head, not at all happy with what she was hearing again. “You don’t really expect me to take her in a moving van?”

      “Not tonight, no…at least not for a long trip. The motion is liable to upset her stomach more than the wound. How much farther do you have to go?”

      She countered with, “What would it cost for you to nurse her back to health and see that she finds a good home?”

      He made a face. “Honey, you could tie a hundred-dollar bill to this mutt’s tail and there wouldn’t be any takers.”

      Talk about blunt! She took a moment to consider the listless dog and tried to see her from the perspective of a child. “She’d be a cute pet once she was cleaned up.”

      “Then you’d better head in a direction where they’ve had rain in the last four months because no one around here has the patience or funds to find out.”

      It wasn’t his sarcasm that got to her—she’d heard far worse—but the thought of being responsible for another life right now, even if it was a stray dog that no one else on the planet gave a spit about. “Why did you bother sewing her up then? I thought vets were supposed to help animals.”

      “I did,”