Hunter stroked Mars’s head. “You did good.” He spoke softly, noting the dog’s respirations and heart rate on her chart. Normal. They’d made the decision to go ahead with the surgery on her back tonight, since the dog would already be sedated. A few pins in three vertebrae. They’d realigned her spine and alleviated the stress off her compressed nerves. In a few days, they should know if Mars would recover use of her legs.
“She’ll be fine.” Archer checked Mars’s IV solution. “Puppies are, too. I told you there was nothing to worry about.”
Hunter glanced at his brother. Archer wasn’t a fan of small-animal medicine. His passion was large animals, not someone’s lapdog. If Mars had been a bull or even a mountain lion, Archer would be over-the-top excited right now. Instead, his brother was almost bored.
“Cute puppies,” one of the students, Lori or Linda or something, said.
Hunter nodded. They were. Two yellow and one feisty chocolate. All healthy and, undoubtedly, hungry. “Need to get some formula mixed up.” He washed his hands, mentally going over Mars’s chart again.
“I can do that, Dr. Boone,” Marco, one of the veterinary assistants, offered. “Tonight was awesome, totally awesome, getting to assist.”
“Nothing too edge of your seat.” Archer led him to the door. “Go on, Hunter, finish your date.”
Hunter clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Thanks for the call and the help.”
“I would say that’s what brothers are for, but this is also my job.” Archer tucked his glasses into his coat pocket and headed toward his office.
Hunter laughed, making his way from the operating room and through the maze of hallways and patient rooms to the front desk. When he pushed through the waiting room doors, he found Jo standing on top of a chair, measuring the wall with a yardstick. Two of his students stood nearby, watching Jo as she teetered on one foot.
“Do I want to know?” he asked, crossing to Jo. She’d twisted her hair up, two pencils sticking out of the messy bun at the nape of her neck.
“Hey.” She was all smiles, for him. And he liked it. “How did it go? Is Mars okay?”
“Fine.” He nodded.
“Puppies, too?”
“Puppies, too.” He wanted to grab her out of that chair and hold her close. “What are you up to?”
She frowned at him. “I’m not up to anything.”
“You’re standing on a chair with a yardstick.” He arched an eyebrow and waited.
“I had to do something while you were working.”
“And that would be?” he asked, aware that both students were trying to edge their way back to the admissions desk without being noticed.
“Nothing.” She held her hand out to him, rolling her eyes in exasperation. He took her hand, noticing for the first time that she was barefoot. He helped her step down from the chair, smiling down at her.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re just so damn cute.”
She grinned. “You’re not so bad yourself, Dr. Boone.” She smoothed her hands over his shoulders, her fingers skimming the collar of his white lab coat. “It’s the coat.”
He had trouble focusing. “Hungry?”
She shook her head. “We got pizza.” She pulled him over to the admissions desk. Five boxes of pizza were spread over the counter. “They were hungry. I figured you’d be hungry, so—”
“You bought pizza.” He looked at the students. “Been a quiet night?” he asked them. “No calls?”
One of the students jumped up, reading from the call log. “We did have one call about a dog that couldn’t go to the bathroom.”
Hunter shook his head. “Talk about an eventful night.”
“So, pizza?” Jo asked. “Canadian bacon and mushroom?” Which was his all-time favorite pizza. She’d remembered.
He nodded, taking the box one of the students offered, watching Jo cross the waiting room to a set of chairs. That’s when he saw the papers spread across them.