Tennessee Vet. Carolyn McSparren

cool and detached around Stephen. He definitely made her heart speed up.

      What on earth could interest a man like Stephen in a woman like her? Okay, so they had shared a life-and-death moment with the eagle. They had a connection, but only as doctor and client.

      Her defenses were thin at the moment. High time she beefed them up.

      When she came in to the living room, Emma turned to smile at her, but made no attempt to climb out of the leather recliner where she sat with her feet up. Twisting even that far didn’t look easy.

      Stephen stood. He was nearly as tall as Seth, but thinner. He wore pristine chinos, a gray polo shirt and a pair of cordovan loafers that looked downright burnished. Not Savile Row, but not from a discount store, either. A dark wood cane topped by a wolf’s head leaned against the arm of the sofa. Not the plain aluminum cane he’d used at the café. A formal cane? Maybe he had one to go with every outfit.

      “White or red?” Seth called from the kitchen.

      “White, thanks,” Barbara said as she came forward to shake Stephen’s hand. It felt smooth, unlike her hands, eternally rough from too much soaking in horse liniment and antiseptic. “Remember I warned you about naming him, but I find myself calling him Orville, too, so I guess Orville he is. He’s settling down, although he is still irate and blaming you,” she said to Stephen.

      “I am innocent, Your Honor,” he said. “How come you escape the blame?”

      “Oh, he’d probably tear a strip off me, too, if he could reach me. But maybe he’s smart enough to know who hit him.”

      “I keep telling you...”

      She grinned.

      After a second, he grinned back at her. “Is he doing all right? I’ve been worried, but I hesitated to keep calling your office for updates.”

      “He’s holding his own. Thank you for not calling back every five minutes the way some of my clients do. We’re just too busy to field all the calls. Things do slow down a bit in the fall and winter. Breeding season is over for many species, like horses, and dogs and cats seem to stick closer to home, so they don’t get hit by cars quite as often.”

      “How is the search for Mr. Right coming?” Emma asked. She turned to Stephen. “Barbara is finally on the hunt for another vet to help share the load. She’s needed one for donkey’s years.”

      “Dr. Right, please. I’m open to somebody fresh out of vet school, to either a male or female associate veterinarian. And, yes, I’ve had several inquiries, but I haven’t scheduled any interviews yet. This is quite a ways to drive for an interview, so I’m trying to take care on the front end. I don’t want to interview somebody that doesn’t look good on paper.” She held up a hand. “But—and this is a good but—I’ve had a promising answer to my ad for an office assistant. I’m seeing her tomorrow morning. You can help interview and choose if she’ll do.”

      “Yeah!” Emma said. “I don’t know how long I can keep working without having someone trundle me around in a wheelbarrow. I really can’t manage anything but paperwork without help. I’m so ready to have this baby I’m considering driving down bumpy roads to hurry things up a tad.”

      “You still have two months left, tiger,” Seth said.

      “And first babies frequently come late,” Stephen added.

      “The bumpy-road thing is an old wives’ tale,” Barbara said. “My first was three weeks late, and I hit all the potholes I could find. They come when they want to. You will never be more out of control. Relax and put up with it.”

      “Ooh, aren’t you a little ray of sunshine,” Emma said with a grin. “No more baby talk. Tell us about Orville. How’s he doing?”

      “As well as can be expected. Maybe a little better,” Barbara answered. “We ended up not having to pin his break, just immobilize it.”

      “At some point I have to take a statement from you, Stephen. It’s the responsibility of us fish-and-wildlife game wardens,” Seth said. “I have to write up the incident and fill out a bunch of forms. It’s a good thing you drove straight to Barbara’s and got help.”

      “I’m willing to stipulate in my professional opinion it was an unavoidable accident, in which Dr. MacDonald was in no way at fault,” Barbara said. She lifted her glass to Stephen and took a sip, then winked at him.

      * * *

      SO SHE HAD decided to back him up. Stephen would thank her later when they were alone.

      “Good. Otherwise, Stephen, you might wind up before a judge. The fine can be up to five thousand dollars with possible jail time.”

      “But wouldn’t that be if you shot it?” Emma asked.

      “I’ve already volunteered to pay any vet charges associated with the incident,” Stephen said.

      “And he’s going to help with the rehabilitation,” Barbara said.

      “I am?” Stephen glanced at her quizzically. “I haven’t any idea how to do something like that.”

      “You’ll learn. There really isn’t anyone else available without interfering with the work at the clinic. Write that as part of your report, Seth. And you, Stephen, smile and say ‘of course I am.’”

      Seth laughed. “My friend, I think you have just been expertly sandbagged.”

      “The main problem is that I don’t have a flight cage,” Barbara said. “The closest one is in Kentucky, and I don’t want to move Orville out of Tennessee.”

      “Then you shouldn’t,” Stephen said. “We’d have no way of tracking his progress, knowing if he was getting the proper care...”

      “It may be the only solution to the lack of a flight cage. In my professional opinion, he’s better off where he is for the moment, but that could change. Dealing with the federal government over an accident involving a protected species and dealing with the state of Tennessee, too—I do not even want to think about adding another state’s regulations and bureaucrats. More red tape that might interfere with Orville’s healing, not good for Orville’s recovery. I know what I’m dealing with in Tennessee, and I trust myself.”

      “With you he’s getting the best possible care,” Stephen said. “Why would anyone purposely hurt a bald eagle?”

      “Men and their trophies,” Barbara said.

      “I have a theory that the only reason we have survived to evolve this far is because we taste bad.” The others began to laugh. She held up her hands. “No, listen. Most young, healthy predators avoid killing human beings in favor of yummier meals for themselves and their young. When the hunters take out a man-eater, they generally find that it’s old or diseased and too slow to run away.”

      “How about grizzlies?” Stephen asked.

      “Animals basically want to assure their DNA is passed on to the next generation,” Stephen said. “The same thing Orville wants.”

      “Orville probably has mated for life,” Barbara said. “For tough birds, they can seem to be extremely romantic. When they mate, they lock their talons together high up in the atmosphere and fall and fall until you think they’re going to plummet to the ground, before they break apart and soar again.”

      “We’re going to send Orville soaring again to find his lady,” Stephen said and patted her hand.

      She withdrew it quickly. “Talk about counting chickens! Don’t say things like that—it’s bad luck.”

      “Then let’s talk about you instead.” He grinned at her. “Why did you become a veterinarian? And don’t most women gravitate to small-animal practices? Dogs and cats?”

      Barbara looked away and shrugged. She seemed casual, but Stephen had noticed that when she talked