Jarvis laughed, setting to work on Fisher’s thumb. “X-ray it?” he asked. “Might need a ligament repair.”
Fisher shook his head. “It’ll be fine.”
“Dr. Fisher.” One of his students stuck her head in. “We need you up front.”
Fisher nodded. “What is it?”
“Stray.” Abigail paused. “Are you okay?” She glanced at him. “You—”
“The patient?”
“Right. Sorry.” But she couldn’t stop staring at his face. “Dog with several deep bites along the neck and back leg. Ear laceration, almost bitten off. His right eye looks pretty bad, too.”
“Bites from?” he asked.
“Two other dogs, apparently. Miss...” she paused to scan her notes. “Miss James just brought him in.”
He nodded, following Abigail from the operating room and into the patient care room. A speckled dog lay on a metal table, his gray coat matted with blood and dirt. At first glance, he looked like a blue heeler, same size and build. The dog didn’t raise his head when Fisher approached the table, though his uninjured eye was open and alert.
“Can you tell me what happened?” Fisher turned to the woman standing nervously in the corner. “Kylee?”
Was it his imagination or did she seem to relax when she saw him?
“Hi, Doc... Fisher.” Her arms were crossed tightly over her bloodstained, oversize white T-shirt. “I was walking around the park and these two big dogs were on him. He was fighting so hard. But they were too big for him. I saw him go down beneath them...”
Fisher listened to the dog’s heart rate with his stethoscope. Accelerated. One hundred ten. Respirations were shallow and rapid, distressed. But, from the number of injuries the animal had sustained, that was to be expected.
“No owners?” Abigail asked, taking notes on her clipboard.
“There wasn’t anyone else in the park.” Kylee glanced at Abigail, watching as she jotted down a few more notes. “No collar.”
He continued his inspection of the dog, his hands gentle, yet probing. “How did you break them up?”
“I found a big stick.” Her clear blue gaze held his, making it impossible not to look at her.
“A stick?” he repeated, trying to keep his voice neutral.
Her nod was tight. She was nervous, defiant...and so damn beautiful. He noticed her tension. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen her this way. Why did she always seem ready to run? “It was a very big stick.”
Abigail stopped writing then, looking at Kylee with the same mix of awe and surprise that he felt.
He shook his head. “You could have been seriously injured.”
Kylee’s face shuttered instantly. “All I had to do was yell and wave it at them, and they ran. He didn’t.”
Fisher wanted to tell her she was lucky. To tell her not to do it again. To shake her a little for putting herself at risk like that. But something told him that would be a mistake. Instead he said, “Abigail, make sure X-ray is free, please.”
Once Abigail left, he spoke. “Dogs, especially when they’re worked up like this, don’t always respond predictably. You could be the one in the hospital, Kylee.” His eyes swept over her too-big clothes and worn tennis shoes. Her black hair was pulled up in a ponytail that swung between her shoulders when she moved. She looked young and lost.
If she was listening to him, she gave no sign. Instead, she stepped closer to the exam table, running her hand down the dog’s side. “Will he be okay?”
“Not sure.” He watched her, moved by the tenderness on her face. She was tough. And fearless. And, apparently, she had no problem defending the underdog. A flash of her holding that beer bottle sprang to mind. She’d been ready to defend him, too. Was that how she saw him? Someone who needed protecting? He couldn’t stop his smile. “I’m sure he’d thank you if he could.”
She glanced at him, a hint of a smile on her mouth. “I thought you were fluent in dog.”
He laughed, surprised.
The dog whimpered and Kylee looked at him. “I feel like I should do something.”