“It’s awkward, and a compulsion that I sometimes can’t ignore,” I said softly. “Is your nephew okay?”
I saw a smile break through his intense stare. “He’s doing okay. He has some issues with touch now. Won’t get anywhere near a woman if his life depends on it. But he’s getting there.”
“And how many years did you spend in prison for protecting him?” I asked.
“Six. And if you’re wondering, I didn’t kill them. Which was the only reason that I didn’t go for life. But I did break both of their necks in my haste to teach them a lesson. One of them is a paraplegic now.”
“He deserved worse,” I replied.
He held his cat out for me, and I couldn’t help myself.
I touched it.
It was exactly like a warm peach.
I shivered in delight and dropped my hand, my gaze meeting Bain’s, who hadn’t said a word up until now.
I wasn’t sure about Bain sometimes. He seemed super intense to me. Brooding. Scary. Unapproachable.
But he was looking at me curiously now, as if I finally made sense to him.
I looked away as Shawna made her reappearance with the drinks. “Who had the suicide?”
I raised my hands gleefully.
I allowed myself one caffeinated, sugary drink a day. And sometimes I couldn’t choose just one.
“That’s me,” I chirped, bouncing on my ass as I did.
The man at my side chuckled as he reached for his Dr Pepper she held out next.
After everyone’s drinks were placed out of the way, we got to work.
But not before I took a slurping drink of my concoction.
“Ahh,” I sighed. “Heaven.”
The man at my side looked over at the outburst.
“No straw?” Etienne looked at me, surprised. “How un-American of you.”
“She loves straws,” Diana offered. “She just hates listening to her stepmother tell her she’ll have a butthole face when she’s fifty if she doesn’t stop.”
Etienne glanced my way, studying my mouth. “I don’t see it.”
I blew out a breath that I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“Let’s talk about this clinic,” I suggested, my patience wearing thin after thinking about her so much. “I have about an hour I can spare. I need to leave by one to get to the clinic the next town over.”
“The vet clinic?” Etienne asked.
“Yes,” I confirmed, wondering why he cared.
“I’m going there.” He grinned. “Want to give my cat a ride?”
I frowned. “Your cat? And not you?”
“I’m riding my motorcycle,” he offered. “I wasn’t sure how he would do on it, or I wouldn’t ask.”
“How will you get him home?” I asked.
“I’d arranged for a car service to pick him up. But if you can do it…” He left that hanging.
I shrugged. “I’ll take him.”
“Thanks,” he pulled out a notebook from his backside that was legal size. Where he’d been hiding it, I didn’t know. “Let’s talk about what y’all want out of this clinic. Is it small animal or large?”
The next thirty minutes we talked about what we wanted to see out of the clinic. We talked about budgets—me nothing, Diana almost everything—and we talked about what we didn’t want.
Which were closed-off rooms.
“I want everything to be open. I want the dogs in the rooms to be able to look out and see the other dogs. I don’t want to have any questions, either, about what we’re doing in the back with their babies. I want them to be able to look and see, whether that’s via monitor, or glass walls.”
“Glass walls.” He wrote down a few notes. “What about the trauma rooms, though? You want them to be able to see into that?”
“Yes,” I said. “If they so desire. The only rooms I want privacy in are the bathrooms and staff areas. We also need to make sure we have a few housing areas for us that sleep overnight. Because this is going to be a twenty-four-hour vet clinic.”
“Really?” he asked. “Interesting. I didn’t know they even had those.”
I snorted, ready to reply, but Bain beat me to it. “Those are the ones that make a shitload of money.”
I nodded in confirmation. “It is. But that’s not why we’re doing it. There’s just not one in this area that’s available, and we think it’ll be profitable.”
“Plus, there are two of us to man it,” Diana added. “With the hopes of bringing one more on in the next year after we get up and running. We have a candidate in mind who graduates this semester.”
“Who?” Bain asked curiously.
“A girl that you’ve never met, I’m sure,” I muttered. “She’s extremely introverted, and I’m already going back and forth with your ‘Luce’ because of it.”
“Is she bad?” Etienne asked curiously.
“No, not at all,” I added. “But I’m already bad enough with my sensory issues, and my neurodivergence. Once we get more established in the new business and add Folsom… let’s just say we won’t be known as the nicest people around.”