LITMIR.BIZ

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his feet. His uncropped ears flopped endearingly around his face.

      Sarah walked up to the reception desk and said, “Hi, I’m Dr…”

      “Watch out behind you!”

      Sarah glanced over her shoulder and shrank back against the reception desk, but not fast enough to avoid a butt behind her knees from a stumpy black pig. She caught herself on the counter.

      “Oh, I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Egg Roll, stand still.”

      The “miniature” Vietnamese pot-bellied pig stood nearly three feet tall at the shoulder and must have weighed about two-fifty. The woman he towed at the end of his leash weighed maybe one-ten. Anyone could tell who was in charge.

      The receptionist punched her hold button and leaned over her desk. “Egg Roll, cut that out!” She tossed a piece of hard candy onto the floor.

      The pig hesitated, snuffled, then scarfed up the treat. A moment later he collapsed into a big black blob of contentment. His owner wiped her forehead and gasped, “Thanks, Alva Jean. He hates having his hooves trimmed.”

      “No problem, Judy. Candy gets him every time. You better wait in room three.” She picked up the phone once more. Judy nudged the pig with her toe. Still snuffling contentedly, he stood and lumbered through the door beside the counter.

      A sigh of relief went up from the waiting dog and cat owners. Sarah sighed as well. The chaos felt just like home.

      “NO.”

      “But I promised when I hired her.”

      “Un-promise.” Mark Scott leaned back in his rickety desk chair and propped one knee against the scarred edge of his elderly desk. Once the clinic was fully operational, this room would hold patients’ records, but at the moment it served as a general storeroom and Mark’s office.

      From the far side of the wall came the pop of a nail gun. A small puff of plaster dust floated down from this side of the unprimed wallboard.

      Rick Hazard sneezed, wiped his nose and eyes. “Mark, we need Sarah. She’s young, she’s top-notch, she’s hungry, and we’re getting her cheap because she wants to work large animals. She’ll build that side of the practice fast. Don’t act as if we’ve never talked about this. We’ve got to have another full-timer. She’ll start with evenings, some weekends—fill in whenever she’s needed, until the large-animal practice is big enough to occupy her full time.”

      “Fine, you need her, but you don’t need a portable fluoroscope or a laser. And definitely not a large animal MRI.”

      “We do.”

      “We can’t afford to buy any more equipment at the moment, Rick. We can’t afford to lease, either. She’ll have to make do with what we have until the clinic generates some decent income.”

      “But I promised her if she’d move here—”

      “Answer me this—would you rather participate in the grand opening of this clinic or appear in bankruptcy court?”

      “It’s not that bad.”

      “It’s close. The cost overruns on Margot’s design changes and the construction delays have killed you.”

      “I’m not responsible for the wettest winter and spring since the 1880s,” Rick protested.

      Mark longed to say that Rick was certainly responsible for his wife’s continuing upgrades and changes, but he kept his mouth shut. No sense in antagonizing Margot any more than he had to, and even less in forcing Rick to defend her. “Blame the gods, blame the weather, blame the contractors. None of that changes the fact that you’re skating very close to the edge of your available capital—what the hell, your capital, your wife’s capital, your partners’ capital, your investors’ capital, your credit and every other type of financing you can lay your hands on. How can I explain this to you in terms you understand, my friend? I can’t— won’t—approve a purchase order for any more equipment until you at least come close to meeting the objectives in your business plan.”

      Rick sucked in his breath. “The small-animal area is more than meeting objectives.”

      “That’s true, thank God. But Bill Chumney hasn’t finalized the contract with the zoo or the wildlife conservation people to treat their exotic animals—”

      “He will. We already have a verbal agreement. They’re just waiting for us to finish building the flight cage to handle their raptors. That won’t take more than a week. Bill already has one of their eagles in recovery. He’s done a great job reconstructing that wing. The wildlife people will have to be impressed.”

      “Wonderful. However, a verbal contract is not worth the paper it’s written on. The fluorescent lights aren’t connected in the large-animal surgical suite, there’s no hardware on the intensive care stalls for the cows and horses, the observation cameras aren’t calibrated yet.…”

      “Punch list problems. We’ll have them done by tomorrow, close of business.”

      “That’s what you said last week. Give it at least a month before you bring in Dr. Marsdon, Rick.”

      Rick hunkered down in his chair like a sulky child. “The only person with no vested interest in this clinic is you.”

      Mark closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “We’ve been over that before. I want this clinic to succeed because that’s what Coy Buchanan wants, and I work for him. Like I’ve said from the beginning, I never invest my own money in a project I’m overseeing. Don’t want my own financial concerns to cloud my judgment.”

      The door behind Rick opened, and Alva Jean stuck her head in. “Dr. Hazard, there’s a Dr. Sarah Marsdon waiting to see you.”

      “Oh, God, not now,” Rick moaned. “She wasn’t supposed to be here until tomorrow.”

      “Tomorrow? Why didn’t you tell me she was already scheduled?”

      “What am I going to say to her?”

      “Start with your punch list,” Mark said.

      The door opened again.

      Sarah Marsdon was silhouetted in the light from the hallway behind her. Mark had assumed a woman who dealt with horses and cows would look like Hulk Hogan.

      Sarah’s silhouette looked more like Julia Roberts.

      “Hi, Rick.” The silhouette spoke. “The drive from St. Paul took less time than I thought.”

      She came forward into the light.

      More Melanie Griffith than Julia Roberts. Hair the color of well-aged honey and eyes the color of a cloudless sky.

      Rick hugged her, then turned to introduce Mark. “Dr. Sarah Marsdon, may I present Markham Scott?”

      She shook his hand with a firm grip. “Nice to meet you,” she said.

      “My pleasure,” Mark responded. “Although I—”

      Rick stepped in with a nervous laugh. “Mark’s vice president of operations for Buchanan Enterprises. He’s the money man of Coy Buchanan’s company. Coy is Margot’s father—my father-in-law. He gave us the land for the clinic and lent us Mark to handle the finances.”

      Waiting for Rick to wind down, Mark caught Dr. Marsdon’s curious glance. She’d obviously picked up on Rick’s nervousness. Time to step in. “He’s telling you I’m the resident bad guy, Dr. Marsdon. Rick says my middle name is Scrooge.”

      “I’ll try to stay on your good side, Mr. Scott.”

      “Mark—please. As a matter of fact…”

      Rick jumped in. “Come on, Sarah, let me show you around.” He put a hand to the middle of her back and practically pushed her into the hall. Then he turned to Mark. “Would you mind organizing some temporary accommodation for Sarah?”

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