I called Claire once we were at the clinic and told her I needed time off.
I didn’t offer a reason but said it in the happiest, most breathless voice I could muster. A die hard romantic, she immediately approved a week of vacation leave.
The first few hours passed with me at the front desk checking in patients, handling the bill after Cayce was finished with them and then trying to decipher Ellen’s bookkeeping files when the waiting area was free of patients and their owners.
Cayce hadn’t been joking when he said he wasn’t sure Ellen should be handling any of the accounts.
Around one, I went and grabbed lunch for the two of us, dropping his in his office and stealing bites from my Big Mac while working on the accounting files. At two, a gentleman came in wearing a short sleeve, lime green shirt and carrying a miniature Chihuahua attired in a matching vest.
Before I could open my mouth, he started talking.
“I just got off the phone with Dr. Gerard. He said he could squeeze my baby in. She hasn’t gone number two since Thursday morning.”
Suppressing the urge to chuckle, I licked my lips then pressed them into a firm line.
“He hasn’t mentioned anything, can you give me your name?”
“Samuel Taylor,” he answered, a chirp in his voice as he lifted the Chihuahua so that he and the dog were cheek to cheek. “And this beautiful creature is Gordita.”
All the blood left my head.
“Was that Sammie Taylor?” I asked, heart pounding in my chest as the damn ball of anacondas woke up inside my stomach.
“The one and only.”
I entered his name into the software and two pets showed up—Gordita and her littermate Chalupa. His address and contact number popped up, too.
512-xxx-xxxx
All the blood that had drained from my face raced back up to color my cheeks.
“Let’s…get her…uh…weight,” I stammered, my throat tight.
I reached, but Mr. Taylor pulled Gordita away.
“She gets a bit nippy with strangers,” he explained.
“I don’t blame her,” I said, recording the Chihuahua's weight then leading both dog and owner into the empty exam room.
As soon as I shut the door on them, I ran back to the computer, my brain rifling through my number laden memory to come up with the other names I had seen on the pieces of paper. My mind blanking on the potential owner names, I entered “Beauty” in the field for the animal’s name.
The search returned three results, one name jumping out.
Gillian.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I swore under my breath as I returned to the search page and typed “Midnight.”
Only one name appeared.
Amanda.
I shook my head. The discovery explained the slips of paper, but not a wastebasket that was empty except for condoms. Cayce had either slept with several women in the not-too-distant past, or he had slept with one woman several times over the same period. Either way, there was a high level of dishonesty in him showing up to the restaurant to interrupt my already messed up engagement and then taking me to his place, fucking me all kinds of stupid, and telling me he loved me.
Even though I had misinterpreted some evidence, my overall conclusion had been solid. I couldn’t keep handing my heart over to a man who treated women like playthings.
Fifteen minutes later, Sammie and Gordita exited the exam room. Cayce followed after them to join me behind the counter, his hand landing softly on my shoulder as he explained the billing codes for Gordita’s care.
Sammie leaned over the counter, a huge grin on his face as he looked from Cayce’s hand to where my fingers were moving over the keyboard.
“Is that a matching wedding band set?”
Apparently Sammie didn’t read the announcements section of the local paper. Cayce had made sure to put our names in there, along with the photo of us behind the cut-out, my cheeks a darker shade of gray in the newsprint. When I complained, he justified it as basically a free advertisement for both the clinic and the stables, as both were mentioned in the announcement.
“It is,” Cayce said and gave my shoulder a light squeeze.
I bobbed my head and tried to look happy. I made a mental note to practice in front of the mirror every chance I got.
“A week and a day,” I chirped.
“Was the wedding local?”
I could hear a building disappointment in Sammie’s voice. Apparently, he expected an invitation.
“Clerk’s office,” Cayce answered and gave me another squeeze. “We plan to renew our vows soon. Make a bigger show of it. Isn’t that right, baby?”
He bent down, his lips feathering across my cheek just long enough to make it flush.
“Yes,” I answered, struggling to keep my voice cheery as I ran Sammie’s bank card through the reader.
Sammie jostled Gordita then stuck his nose to hers.
“Will pets be allowed?”
I looked at Cayce, eyes wide and wondering what the rules were for a fake renewal that wasn’t ever going to happen.
He winked at me before answering.
“Absolutely.” Leaning across the counter, he scratched Gordita behind the ear, her leg going wild with appreciation. “If they behave as well as this little lady.”
Sammie left with a smile on his face as if he’d been the one getting his ear scratched by Cayce.
“We have a no-show,” I huffed, my mind still turning over the ridiculous assertion that we would renew our vows. “So if you haven’t eaten yet, go do that.”
My voice dropped lower, even though we were the only two people in the building. “And don’t get all kissy-touchy just because we’re in public.”
“Can I get kissy-touchy in private?” he asked, walking backward, the gray eyes dancing.
I looked around for something to throw at him. By the time my gaze seized on the stapler, he had disappeared down the hall. Turning my attention to Ellen’s records, I started clicking through files. I was running through payroll numbers when Cayce returned with re-heated McDonald’s and sat down next to me.
“Is there any one area where you have to go over the accounts more carefully than the others?”
My question came as he was feeding a French fry into his mouth, the perfectly formed lips pulling the strip of nuked potato past his teeth.
Nodding, he swallowed. “Receipts. Payroll used to be a nightmare, but I paid for access cards and a card reader in the break room. No more paper cards to read and everyone has been good about using them because I also put a small laser light in there to chirp when people are going in and out of the break room.”
“Huh.”
I clicked over to the accounts receivable file as Cayce chuckled.
“Huh?” he repeated. “Is that your professional opinion as a licensed accountant or is that my wife sounding off?”
I shrugged. We had come in the front and my purse was down by my feet, my jacket over the back of the chair. I hadn’t had cause to go through the break room, which opened onto the parking spaces in the back of the building for employees.
“It sounds like a good idea,” I offered. “I can’t imagine daddy instituting it, but it’s a good thing that you did. Did your payroll margin improve?”
“By five percent,” he answered around a smile and a bite of his Quarter Pounder.
Feeling the constant pull of his presence, especially as close as he was sitting, I rolled my eyes at him.
“You could eat that at your desk.”
“I want to eat it out here.” He gave a little wink, swallowed the last of his burger then bumped my shoulder with his. “I’m helping aren’t I? Answering questions. Go ahead, give me another.”
I couldn’t argue with him, not with an unlocked front door and another patient due in less than ten minutes. The public facing, happy couple crap for the next week was going to kill me.
“So no problem with vendor accounts?”
He shook his head, his gaze walking all over my body.
“I enter that myself whenever shipments come in. Don’t have to worry about the meds, that way.”
Cayce lifted his hand, his finger crooking as he reached for where my hair cascaded over one shoulder. I put my foot on the base of his chair and forced it to roll a few inches away.
Outside, a car pulled up.
“You need to stop that.” I cocked one brow in the direction of his encroaching hand. “I mean, you do want this to work, right?”
He stood up, grabbed his plate, and sighed as he walked away, his answer little more than a whisper.
“More than you can appreciate right now, love.”
We treated eight more patients before the clinic officially closed for the day. Seeing how beat Cayce was from a brutally long week, I burned some of the data in the receipts folder and appointment records for the same time period onto a thumb drive. I would have stayed at the clinic alone, but I no longer had a key and we had driven to the office in my car after I pronounced him too tired to drive.
The drive from the clinic to the farm was five miles, one of the facts that had chafed my ass over the last year. I knew that my logic went both ways. It was just as close for me to stop by on my way home from work or on a Saturday as it was for him to come out to the farm when he was finished at the clinic.
So why hadn’t I?
Pulling into the drive, I parked the car and left the engine running as I stared at Cayce softly snoring in the passenger seat. He had fallen asleep within the first mile from the clinic. From what I could see, he really was working long hours ever since my father became ill. Daddy had continued to work, but it was more like one and a third vets at the clinic instead of two.
And then just one.
Still, he should have reached out. I had lost my father. And I worked long hours, too, especially in the fall when business taxes were due.
Knowing I had to wake him, I turned the car off and brushed the back of his hand. He sighed, still half asleep, and then his eyes slowly lifted. He looked around the front of the sedan then at me.
His gaze seemed tender. I told myself it was sleep deprivation as I opened my door.
“I’ll fix dinner.” Stepping out, I leaned back in. “Don’t fall asleep out here or you won’t get any.”
He waited until I stepped onto the porch before he untangled from the seatbelt and followed.
“No,” I said as he tried to come into the kitchen. “Unless you’re getting a drink, you’re going to go sit in a chair or take a short nap while I cook.”
“I’m thirsty, baby.”
Scowling at his come hither tone, I filled a small juice cup with tap water and handed it to him.
“You’re going to rest,” I ordered and turned him toward the living room.
I watched him go, his steps leading him to the same side chair I had found him in that morning. The chair was positioned on the opposite side of the larger side chair that had been my father’s favorite. If it didn’t make me miss daddy so much, I would have smiled over the fact that I had yet to see Cayce sit in it since he moved in. It was kind of like he was preserving the spot for its former owner.
Running water in a sauce pan, I realized the only meal we had eaten together since getting married, provided McDonald’s didn’t count, was the breakfast I had cooked earlier that morning. Of course, it wasn’t as if we were a real couple.
“Baby…” Cayce called, his voice sounding far away.
I rushed into the living room to find him asleep, the juice glass about to escape his relaxed grip. Leaning over him, I pinched the edge of the glass and gently lifted. His hand opened.
I looked up. His gaze caressed my face, a flicker of heat shimmering across his tanned cheeks.
Clutching the glass to my chest, I ran back to the kitchen and finished making dinner.