Listen to the Child. Carolyn McSparren

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СКАЧАТЬ Sunday, dammit.” Mac bristled. “And I was here late last night removing a kidney.”

      Rick raised his hands. “Whoa! I’m just kidding. How come you didn’t let Liz Carlyle handle it? She was on call for small animals last night.”

      Liz Carlyle was an excellent vet. At the moment she was working on an advanced degree in veterinary ophthalmology and her surgical skills were top-notch.

      “I trust her, but I trust me more.” Besides, Kevlar’s kidney problem was an interesting and delicate case and a welcome change from neutering dogs and spaying cats. “I didn’t have anything better to do.”

      Rick nodded. “Like you don’t have anything better to do this morning. Hey, podner, you ought to get a life.”

      Mac forced a smile. “I have a life. And I have patients in ICU. Where else would I be? You’re the one who’s usually on the golf course by now.”

      “That’s where I would be if I weren’t on call here. Eighteen holes, then a late brunch with Margot at Brennan’s, a long post-brunch snooze in front of the television set and a late supper.”

      “And you think I should get a life?”

      “Actually, I think you should get a wife.”

      “You sound like my mother. Don’t.” Mac pivoted on his heel and walked back to his office, then stopped and turned. “Look, since I’m here already, I’ll handle the calls, if any, until Liz gets in. Will that give you time for your golf game?”

      “Heck, nine holes, at least. Forget what I said about getting a life. You just go right on being a lonely workaholic as long as you want.”

      After Rick dashed for the parking lot and his golf clubs, Mac propped his feet on his desk and picked up the copy of the Sunday paper he’d brought with him. He might take in a matinee this afternoon, maybe try a new restaurant tonight. Or he could work out at the gym. He had plenty of friends at the gym.

      Except they seldom showed up on Sunday.

      More annoyed by Rick’s gibes than he was willing to admit, he pulled open his desk drawer and took out a dog-eared black leather address book. He’d take someone to dinner tonight, maybe wind up spending the night.

      He wasn’t quite certain when he’d given up sex. It hadn’t been intentional. Recently he hadn’t been seriously involved with any woman. He never had been able to master the bed-hopping techniques of some of his bachelor colleagues. Sex should entail real emotional attachment.

      Talk about getting old!

      He ran his eye down the names in his address book. Cindy was married—pregnant, he thought. Marilyn had moved away to Seattle or someplace. Jennifer would probably be free, but her endless prattle about social functions would give him a migraine. Claire would hang up on him.

      Sarah Scott and Eleanor Chadwick, the two large-animal vets, were both happily married, and Sarah had a baby. Mac couldn’t barge in on either of them on a Sunday. Bill Chumney, the exotics vet, was out in the Dakotas somewhere building a census of black-footed ferrets, and Sol Weinstock was at the international equine clinic in Lexington, Kentucky, working on his experiments with EIA vaccine.

      Mac wandered back to the kennels. The cages were cleaned and all the animals had fresh water and food.

      “You about done, Big?” Mac asked.

      “Uh-huh. Got the little guy out and walked him around some. He’s a real happy fellow, isn’t he?”

      Mac nodded. “You doing anything this afternoon?”

      Big turned his seraphic smile on Mac. “Me’n Alva Jean are taking her kids to the zoo.” He looked hard at Mac. “Hey, why don’t you come along? They got that new baby gorilla out. Ain’t nothin’ cuter than a baby gorilla.”

      Mac shook his head. “Thanks for the offer, but no. I’m here until two. Then I’ll probably take in a movie.”

      “You ought to come with us. Alva Jean wouldn’t mind.”

      Alva Jean had recently been through a nasty divorce. The last person Mac might have expected her to take up with was Big Little. Well, maybe not the last. She’d walked out on her husband because he had smacked her and the two children around. It took a great deal to rile Big Little, and he would as soon raise a hand to a woman or child or animal as he would take up brain surgery. At least with Big she’d be physically safe from her husband.

      Unfortunately, if the husband tried to hurt either his ex-wife or his children again, he wouldn’t be safe from Big.

      Mac had no intention of spending all afternoon with this unlikely pair, and definitely not with Alva Jean’s two small children in tow.

      It wasn’t that he disliked children, exactly, but they always acted like—well—children.

      He avoided them even in his practice. Nancy usually spoke to distraught parents about Bobby’s rottweiler or Betty’s kitten.

      You could count on animals to act like animals, so he preferred to devote himself to them and not to the owners who caused so many of their problems.

      He said goodbye to Big and walked back up the hall to his office. His footsteps echoed on the tile floor. All the treatment rooms were soundproofed, so once he had closed the door on the kennel, he could no longer hear the whines and barks of the patients. The clinic felt almost eerily quiet.

      As he reached the door of his office, the front-door buzzer sounded.

      Good. An emergency. Maybe something to get his teeth into, to keep him from feeling as though he was the last human being on earth.

      He walked into the reception room and peered through the glass doors.

      His heart bounced into his throat. It was that Lockhart woman. He’d know that hair anywhere.

      He opened the door for her.

      “I’m here to see Kev.”

      “Yeah. Come in.” He stood back and held the door.

      She turned away from him and called, “Hey, Em, it’s okay.”

      The passenger-side door of an elderly but well cared for red Jeep opened and a slight figure jumped out and ran up the stairs.

      A child! A tall, skinny girl in oversize jeans and sweatshirt. Obviously Kit Lockhart’s child. There couldn’t be half a dozen people in the city with hair that extraordinary dark red. As she bounced up the steps, he saw that she had missed out on her mother’s green eyes. Hers were hazel.

      She might be a beauty someday. At the moment she was as uncoordinated as a day-old foal.

      He took a step back.

      “Is he okay? Can we see him?” the child asked. “We brought him some of his toys.” She held out a brown paper sack.

      “Whoa, girl. This is my daughter, Emma. Emma, this is Dr. John MacIntyre Thorn. He’s the man who saved Kevlar’s life.”

      “Uh-huh. СКАЧАТЬ