Puppy Love For The Veterinarian. Amy Woods
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AMY WOODS believes that real love, while not always easy, is absolutely worth the work. She enjoys writing about imperfect characters who deserve to be loved for all the weird and wonderful things that make up who they are. When she’s not busy writing, Amy likes taking walks with her senior rescue dog and watching movies with a husband she adores.
Puppy Love for the Veterinarian
Amy Woods
ISBN: 978-1-474-04137-9
PUPPY LOVE FOR THE VETERINARIAN
© 2016 Amy Woods
Published in Great Britain 2020
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.
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Text to speech
This one is for the animal rescuers; thank you for the wonderful lives you save.
And for my Maggie dog, who has my heart.
Contents
About the Author
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Epilogue
“June, hon, why don’t you go on home now? I can finish closing up here myself, and it looks like things may get worse than they originally predicted.”
June Leavy looked up from her mop bucket and followed the owner of Peach Leaf Pizza’s eyes to the small television behind the counter, tuned in to the evening weather segment. January in west Texas could be unpredictable, but the idea of the twelve to eighteen inches of snow the meteorologist called for actually covering the ground and sticking was just surreal.
She studied her boss’s face, not missing the lines around Margaret’s mouth and the shadowy thumbprints beneath the older woman’s usually lively eyes. It had been a busy day, amid a busy week; they were both exhausted, but the work would be completed much faster with two pairs of hands.
June shook her head, causing a few more strands of hair to escape her ponytail. “Nonsense. I’m almost finished with the floor, and then all that’s left is taking out the garbage.”
Margaret offered a weary smile as her thanks, but June could see the relief in her boss’s face. She would never admit it, but Margaret Daw was getting older. It was time for her to retire and June could feel that the day was coming when her boss would ask her to take over. Margaret had all but asked her about it on more than one occasion—who could blame a new grandma for wanting to spend more time with the adorable twin babies recently born to her pediatrician son and daughter-in-law?—and besides, June was her only full-time employee and comanager. In many ways, it just made sense.
June sighed and sloshed the mop back into the gray water, wondering again how she would respond if and when the day arrived. She could see the pros and cons list she’d pored over so many times in her mind’s eye, her options jotted out clear as day on the yellow pad sitting next to the remote control on her coffee table. But no matter how many times she mulled over the bullet points, the decision wouldn’t be easy.
Margaret was a wonderful boss—kind and fair—and the job provided steady income. There was something comforting in the daily tasks, in kneading the dough each morning, chopping fresh vegetables and taking orders, in the warm, familiar faces of Peach Leaf Pizza’s many regular customers. She would miss the banter, catching up with people she’d known her whole life and the excitement in kids’ faces when they piled into the red leather booths after winning baseball games or performing well in dance recitals.
But she had dreams of her own, too.