"Slept it off," I lie to him, and the door opens, and I look over, expecting to see her walking in. But the only ones who walk in are Rachel, Victoria, and Lydia. The three of them are all wearing sunglasses.
"Please tell me that someone has a Bloody Mary?" Lydia says, going straight to the bar.
"Hey," I say to Rachel when she comes to say hi. "Where is Harlow?"
"Oh, she left," she says, and everything inside me shuts down. "She had an emergency and had to head out."
Chapter 16
Harlow
"Thank you so much, Harlow," Mrs. Marcus says as she grabs her cat and places it in the carrier. The cat had gotten out of her house and had a one-on-one with a raccoon. He came in and looked like the racoon got the best of him. But in the end, after three hours of surgery and two days of recovering with us, he’s finally going home. "I don’t know what I would have done without him."
"It was my pleasure." I smile at her and look into the carrier. "If there are any questions you have, you have my cell phone." She nods at me, opens the door to the examining room, and heads out. I walk over to the silver examining table and spray it down before I disinfect it. Usually, Donna comes in after, but I know that she was the last appointment of the day, so I don’t have to rush to the other room. Putting away the bottle under the sink in the corner, I open the water to wash my hands.
"Hey," Donna says from behind me, and I look over my shoulder as she comes into the room.
"If you tell me that someone else called." I glare at her and she just laughs.
"I was coming to say.” She drags out what she is going to say, and I have this dread run through me thinking that it’s going to be another long night. "That I’m leaving for the day and no one else has called." Donna smiles at me. "I’ve forwarded all the calls to Tyler for the weekend."
"Thank you." I turn the water off and grab a paper towel to dry my hands.
"I left the files on your desk." She mentions all the cases I did today. I always chart in writing, and she puts it in the computer. "You can take them home."
I shake my head. "I’m going to finish them here and sleep for the next two days."
"Well, I was going to say you look exhausted." She tilts her head to the side. "But you’ve been a cranky little bee this week, so I decided against it."
I chuckle. "And I’m not cranky."
"Oh, you're still cranky, but I don’t have to see you for the next two days, so you’ll forget all about it." She turns to walk out of the room. "See you Monday." She holds her hand up over her head.
Walking out of my examining room, I head straight to my office. The light for the two windows in the corner makes the room just a touch brighter. The big wooden desk sits in the middle with two chairs in front of it and a love seat in the corner. Which had to be comfortable since sometimes I would finish surgery and just crash on the couch for a couple of hours.
I walk around my desk and see the manila folders stacked in the middle as I sit in the big brown leather chair and lean back, my eyes closing for just a second.
This week has been brutal in so many ways. Work has been nonstop, and I’ve even been called in the middle of the night to help with a couple of horses birthing their foals. Then called back when the placenta didn’t come out, my days were going on twenty hours a day for the last three days.
To top all of that off, I was barely sleeping because every single time I closed my eyes, all I saw was Travis. He was smiling at me, he was smirking at me, he was on top of me, thrusting into me. He would shout my name and my eyes would always flutter open when I would get close enough to him. It was pure fucking torture, and I was over it.
My goal is to literally sleep all weekend long, right after I get my work done. I open the first chart and read the little notes that I scribbled down between patients and eating. It takes me about an hour to get through all of it. My mind is on autopilot when I hear the bell ring over the door. I look up from my desk, hoping and freaking praying that it’s one of my family members and not someone who needs me.
I have to laugh at myself as I sit at my desk, not moving, and after a couple of seconds, I get up. If it was any of my family members, they would have yelled my name by now. I walk out of the office and down the hallway toward the reception area, and I stop midstep. It can’t be, is the only thing I can think of. As my heart pounds in my chest, I feel the nerves fill my body as the heat rises up my neck. My hands shake just a touch. "Travis." I say his name, and I have to wonder if I’m dreaming. Is this a dream?