LITMIR.BIZ

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in a warm lump, using each other for pillows. The runt didn’t seem even remotely interested in joining the group, and she collapsed in an exhausted pile at the edge of their nest, her face pinched and her delicate frame shuddering with every shallow breath.

      “I don’t like the looks of this one,” Heather commented somberly. “Do you have an incubator?”

      “Sort of.” Sierra half closed the door and took something from a hook attached to the back. She held it out with a grin. “It’s a sling they sell for mothers of preemies. The fabric is soft and light enough to let them breathe. I’ve found it works well for critter babies, too.”

      “What a great idea. If you don’t mind, we can take turns with it.”

      “You want to papoose a kitten while you’re working?” Bekah asked.

      Heather answered by pulling on the hammock-like device and carefully setting her frail charge inside. “She’s not that heavy, so as long as I’m not seeing patients, I can manage.”

      “I’ve never met a vet who’d even think of doing that,” Sierra informed her with a smile. “I think we’re gonna get along just fine.”

      The quick, heartfelt approval chased off the last of Heather’s lingering nervousness. “We’re more than just coworkers here. We’re a team, and everyone should pull their own weight, including me.”

      “Of course, these days some of us have more weight to pull than others,” Bekah joked, smoothing her hands over a modest baby bump. The rings sparkling on her left hand caught Heather’s eye, and she felt a twinge of envy for the pretty young mother-to-be. Then again, she reminded herself, she’d chosen to postpone having children until after she was firmly established in her own veterinary practice. It was a logical decision, and she was comfortable with the choice she’d made.

      Most of the time.

      “Will we be throwing you a baby shower soon?” Heather asked.

      “I’m not due until August, so it’ll be a while still.”

      “What are your plans after that?”

      “I’d like to keep working here, but that will depend on the baby,” she answered truthfully. “Family first.”

      “Absolutely,” Heather agreed, fearing that she might have overstepped her professional boundaries. Most people she’d worked with were stiffly polite, not open and friendly like these two. Now that she thought about it, Josh and Cam had made her feel right at home, too. Apparently, the residents of this small Kentucky town were the warm, welcoming type. This made her hopeful that Bailey would enjoy Oaks Crossing more than she had Detroit.

      “Speaking of family,” Sierra said while she mixed kitten formula in a container, “Erin told us you have a niece who lives with you. Does she like animals?”

      “Loves them. She’s settling in at the day care in town, but I’m planning to bring her to work with me sometime next week to see the menagerie we’ve got here. I’ll have to make sure she never sees this little darling, though,” she added, ticking the sleeping kitten’s pink nose with her fingertip. “I’m afraid if that happened, we’d end up keeping her.”

      “Occupational hazard.” Sierra chuckled. “If my landlord allowed pets, I’d have a dozen of them.”

      “When they’re old enough, Erin will take them to Pampered Paws and display them in the front window,” Bekah assured her, rubbing the striped forehead gently. “These cuties won’t last more than a few days there.”

      It hadn’t occurred to Heather that living above the pet store would mean that she and Bailey would be walking past adorable babies every day. While she was practical enough to bypass the temptation, she wasn’t sure that a five-year-old would understand why they couldn’t adopt some of their furry visitors.

      Then again, if they already had a cat, she’d have a built-in excuse to say no to more. It couldn’t hurt to think about it, anyway. A pet might also coax Bailey out of her shell and help her adjust to her new home more quickly. Because Heather wasn’t used to worrying about anything other than her job, she felt very out of her element trying to help her troubled niece.

      While she was debating, Josh poked his head in through the open top half of the Dutch door. “Everything good in here?”

      “More or less,” Sierra replied while she filled small bottles and capped them with even smaller rubber nipples. “We could use an extra set of hands, though. Have you got time?”

      He sent Heather a questioning look, which she didn’t understand. Then it occurred to her that while she considered herself an outsider, the others already viewed her as being in charge of the clinic. It didn’t feel quite right to her, but she assumed she’d get used to it. Eventually.

      “The more the merrier,” she said.

      “My mom always says that,” he commented as he joined them, closing the door to keep anyone from escaping.

      “Mine, too,” Heather told him with a smile. “That’s how my dad ended up starting out his retirement touring Europe in an RV with her, a Pomeranian and four parakeets.”

      “Sounds loud.” Josh chuckled, taking a bottle from the counter before sitting on the floor beside the kittens. His long legs stretched out in front of him, he lifted a bawling tiger and cradled it against him in a practiced motion.

      The small room didn’t have much space for spreading out, so Heather resigned herself to settling next to him with a bottle of her own. “I’m guessing you’ve done this before.”

      “Everyone in the family likes to help out down here when we can. Except Mike,” he added with a grin. “Our Kentucky cowboy’s got his hands full wrangling all those horses.”

      “I noticed them in the fields when we were driving out here. It looks like you have everything from Thoroughbreds to Shetland ponies.”

      “My great-grandfather started out training horses for the military in World War I, then Dad trained racehorses. After he passed away, that business disappeared and we came pretty close to losing the farm. Mike’s kind of a horse whisperer, and he came up with the idea to school retired racehorses and sell them to folks for riding.”

      “What about the others? I saw a Belgian in the front pasture, grazing next to an Arabian.”

      “Mike rescues some from bad situations, others come from owners who can’t keep ’em anymore and want them to have a good home. If they don’t get adopted, they stay here with us,” he added, grinning down at the slurping kitten. “We’re just a bunch of softies around here, aren’t we?”

      Heather smiled at the sight of the tall, brawny farmer cuddling the helpless animal, speaking to it in the kind of gentle tone most people reserved for children. While she had no intention of complicating her life any further right now, she couldn’t deny that he had a special brand of bright, sunny charm.

      It was a good thing she’d already committed to staying single for the sake of Bailey and her career. Otherwise, Josh Kinley might have proved to be impossible to resist.

      * * *

      “Hello?”

      It was Thursday afternoon, and Josh was buried underneath the oldest tractor in the county, trying to wrestle the drive belt back into place, when he heard a now-familiar voice. Hauling himself out hand over hand, he looked up to find Heather staring down at him with an amused look on her face.

      “Hey there, Doc. What brings you out here?”

      “It’s my lunch hour, so I decided to go exploring.” She looked around her at the overgrown field, out toward the neatly plowed acreage in the distance, and then back at him. “I’m not an agricultural expert, but this looks like it’s pretty far from where you’ve been working. Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing?”

      The crop portion of the farm was his domain. His brothers and

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