The Cupcake Queen. Patricia Coughlin

she protested. “Not completely anyway. Only the shedding, smelling, drooling stuff. I give to the SPCA and I wouldn’t be caught dead in real fur. Heck, I was even a vegetarian once. Remember the summer I turned fifteen?”

      “Vividly. Did you tell them all that to get the job?”

      “More or less.” Silence. “All right, I lied through my teeth and said I adored animals and that I have extensive office experience working for my dear departed veterinarian uncle whose records were destroyed in a fire.”

      “Olivia, when are you going to learn…?”

      “Soon. Word of honor. Right now I have to focus on surviving the next six and a half weeks.”

      “Is this job really going smoothly or was that bravado, as well?”

      “Half and half. Yesterday was pretty rough. I accidentally left this Doberman with an infected tear duct parked in the waiting room for more than an hour. Of course, I didn’t know it was infected, much less that it was so serious he had to be rushed to a veterinary ophthalmologist.”

      “I gather your late uncle didn’t treat too many infected tear ducts,” her mother remarked in a dry tone.

      “That’s not helpful, Mom. Do you want to hear this or not?”

      “Of course.”

      “Well, the good news is old Bozo isn’t going to lose his eye after all. That’s the dog’s name. Bozo.”

      “I see. And the bad news?”

      “Doc Allison was furious and made me promise to actually look at the patients at check-in and alert her to any glaring abnormalities. And she put me on notice that another incident will force her to let me go.”

      “Oh, she did, did she?”

      Olivia smiled, not surprised her mother was personally offended by the warning. It was perfectly fine for her to question her daughter’s ability, but even a hint of outside criticism elicited her maternal ire.

      “A bit overbearing, isn’t she? This is your first week on the job, after all.”

      “True, but at the time she was still pretty upset over the hedgehog.” She decided not to mention the mix-up with the fish tank, since in all fairness no one had bothered to tell her that the coral was living, not plastic, and had some sort of super sensitivity to sudden changes in its environment.

      “Hedgehog?” her mother repeated warily, as if the word itself were dangerous.

      “Yes. I sat on him. Not intentionally. He was the one curled up in my chair, after all. And I didn’t come down with my full weight…not once I felt those damned spikes. The little rodent totally lost it just the same. For all the noise and running around you would think it was my spikes that had punched holes in his favorite slacks…not to mention a pair of those silk panties I like so much—the ones I have to order from that little shop in Paris.”

      “Olivia, this is so comical it’s tragic. I’m worried about you.”

      “Don’t be. That was yesterday,” she reminded her, trying to sound reassuring as she absently swiveled her chair so she was gazing out the window, her back to the entrance. “So far today I haven’t slipped up once.”

      “It isn’t even noon.”

      Olivia sank back in her chair. “Don’t remind me.”

      “You’re groaning because you know I’m right. I insist you stop this nonsense before you or one of those poor animals really gets hurt, and come home.”

      “No.”

      “Honey, I’m certain your brother will understand and—”

      “No. Not a chance.”

      Her mother huffed impatiently. “Really, Olivia. Why can’t you be reasonable just this once?”

      “Because I’m not a wuss, that’s why, and because I don’t go back on my word, and,” she continued, her voice rising to match her irritation, “because I’d rather walk the plank—naked—than give that sneaky devil the satisfaction of seeing me shave my head in public.”

      A snicker from behind was Olivia’s first clue someone had walked in without her hearing and was standing close enough to hear every word she said.

      She whispered, “Love you. Gotta go,” and swiveled around to hang up the phone and grab the day’s schedule book.

      “Sorry to keep you waiting,” she said, plastering her best receptionist smile in place as she looked up—way up—and straight into a pair of dark, deep-set gray eyes she’d seen only once before and would not soon forget.

      “Because he grabbed my butt,” she’d told her mother. “Because the other men all laughed,” she’d told her. What she hadn’t told her was how the man hadn’t even flinched when she tossed the coffee at him, and how his dark, unsmiling gaze had caught and held hers for what seemed like forever, until it was somehow understood between them that he was good and ready to look away, and let her do the same. She also hadn’t mentioned how, with the front of his shirt and faded jeans soaked with coffee, he had paid for his breakfast, laid a five-dollar tip on the table and walked out…all without saying a word.

      His absolute control had unsettled her in a way his insolence couldn’t possibly. She was an old hand at dealing with unwanted male attention. She was not, however, accustomed to allowing a man to throw her off balance. And she didn’t like it. The fact that he was some hick from Danby made it more maddening. As soon as she’d handed in her apron, she had put him out of her mind. Or tried to at least.

      “Well, well,” he murmured finally, the sardonic slant of his mouth leaving no doubt he remembered their last meeting as vividly as she did.

      How much of her phone conversation had he overheard? Probably too much, given her recent streak of things going from bad to worse. She waited for him to speak first, but he was preoccupied with studying her, his hooded gaze cool and utterly unfathomable. The rest of him, on the other hand, was easy to read.

      He was a big man, not heavy, just big—tall and broad-shouldered and solidly muscled. His face was suntanned, suggesting he worked outdoors. His scraped knuckles and rough hands told Olivia he worked with those hands and worked hard. A glance at the dark-brown hair curling around his ears and collar and she knew there were lots of things he’d rather do with his time than sit in a barber’s chair. She had a hunch he didn’t like sitting around of any kind.

      His mouth was generous enough to be intriguing, his cheekbones high, his jaw solid…and stubborn. She supposed the town’s female population considered him quite handsome, in that primitive, diamond-in-the-rough way some women found irresistible. Personally, she’d never understood the appeal of a “fixer-upper,” in houses or men.

      What she found most revealing about him, however, was something more subtle than the rest. Actually, it was two things. The way he moved and the way he was still. This, she decided, was a man totally and unmistakably at ease in his own skin. It was the sort of intrinsic confidence you couldn’t buy. If you could, most of the men she knew would have it. It also wasn’t easily cultivated. Few people cared to turn over rocks inside themselves; fewer still could come to terms with what they were and were not.

      Of course, the fact that this particular man was so self-accepting indicated he was also an appallingly bad judge of character.

      While she was taking stock of him, he continued to look at her long and hard. Knock yourself out, thought Olivia, buoyed by her own rush of confidence. This was familiar ground. Stares and admiring male glances were a fact of life. Also a fact of life was her skill at keeping hormone-driven responses in check, even when the man had other ideas.

      Another of her father’s favorite quotes was “Use the gifts God gave you.” It wasn’t too long after puberty struck that she figured out her greatest God-given gift was the one she came face-to-face with when she looked in a mirror. It was a