“What are you doing in here today, anyway? Just coming by because you missed me so much?” I tease.
I cock a brow and steel myself against the coy, and adorable, look on her face and thank God I’m now immune to this woman’s magical powers. I think.
“Actually, I need an antibiotic, Dr. McKenzie.” She flutters her long dark eyelashes my way.
“For . . .”
“Strep.”
“Strep? Okay. Where is your pet?” I ask.
“Babar is at home. Why?”
Dottie coughs. I glance at her to see her lifting the neckline of her shirt to cover her mouth.
“Well,” I say, flipping my attention back to Sophie, “I generally need to see the patient before I can prescribe a medicine.”
“Not around here. Dr. Fred just gives me antibiotics and sends me on my way. I mean, there’s really no reason to see the same dog repeatedly for the same thing, is there?”
I struggle not to smile.
She narrows her eyes. “You mean that you won’t just write me a prescription?”
A laugh topples from my mouth before I can stop it. It triggers a sparkle in her eyes, a fire that switches my laugh to an extended chuckle.
She can’t be serious.
“You know I’m an animal doctor and not a human doctor, right?” I ask.
“Yes. What’s your point?”
“That . . . Are you kidding me?”
Her lips twist into a coy smile. “Are you considering it? Think about the next time I get sick. You could be my savior. You’d be a hero.”
“No,” I say adamantly. “I don’t care how much you beg. I will not break the law for you.”
“Easy, Doc. I was joking. But I saw that flicker in your eyes. You were thinking about it,” she teases.
“I was not. Not even for you and that pretty little smile you have going on.”
She leans back and nods appreciatively. “Ah. Well, thanks. I’ll leave on that high note.”
“You do that,” I say with a laugh.
“Tell Dr. Fred this guy needs a lot of training, Dottie.” She jabs her thumb over her shoulder as she heads for the door. “Like a lot of training.”
“Oh, don’t I know it.” Dottie tosses me a wink. “See ya later, Sophie.”
Sophie presses her back against the door. She pauses and looks at me. The warmth in her eyes, the familiarity, washes over me like a drink of bourbon. It’s comfortable and unpretentious and a feeling I totally forgot existed.
“I’m leaving now. Nice to see you, Holden. Hope I don’t need those antibiotics anytime soon.”
I grin. “I’ll say nice words at your funeral and forgo all that pawning-my-possessions stuff.”
She fires a playful glare my way before giving Dottie a little wave. With a pop of her hip, the door flies open, and she’s gone as quickly as she appeared.
I look over my shoulder to see Dottie smiling at me.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothin’.” She tries to smooth her features to hide her grin. “Now, do you have any questions before we open for the day?”
“Nope. I just hope it ends a lot calmer than it’s started. I feel like I’ve been exposed to more bullshit today than I have in my entire life combined.”
She laughs. “Oh, handsome. You haven’t seen anything yet.”
That’s what I’m afraid of.
CHAPTER TWO
SOPHIE
What’s that smell?” I ask.
I kick the door closed and set the paper bags I’m carrying down on the counter. The kitchen at the Honey House is vacant but looks no worse for wear. There’s no smoke, no charred remains of a lunch gone bad despite the odor permeating the air.
The bed-and-breakfast I inherited from my grandmother is quirky. Sometimes I swear I smell Gramma Lois’s roast beef in the dead of night, and the hot water in the powder room off the entryway is as emotional as a preteen. But greater than the built-in quirks of the inn are the idiosyncrasies of Olivia Bates, my sister. And she’s what I’m putting my money on this time.
“Liv? What’s going on?” I look around as I open the window above the sink for some fresh air. “Hello?”
I hear her before I see her. A string of what would be profanities except for her self-censorship precedes her arrival.
“There you are,” I say as she rounds the corner. A sputter topples from my lips as I take her in. “What in the world happened to you?”
A blue bandanna is wrapped around her thick auburn hair. Wild splatters of black gunk paint her face, and a large piece of something—possibly cardboard—is stuck to the side of her head just above her ear.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” she says, as if that explains it all.
“And . . .”
“And I found myself watching a video about how to clean out a chimney, because that’s really been bothering me, you know. Fall is almost here, and the fireplace in the dining area is such an attraction. So I tried to clean it to save some money, but . . . well, it wasn’t as easy as the cute guy online with the great arms and plaid shirt made it look.”
“It never is,” I say. “Didn’t you learn your lesson after you tried to fix the dishwasher and flooded the kitchen?”
“You want me to quit trying after one failure?”
I raise a brow.
“Okay, more than one,” she says, blowing out a breath. A chunk of bangs flutters in the air and then sticks to the black residue at her temple. “I’m not a quitter, Soph. Besides, why should we pad the pockets of men when we are capable of some of this stuff ourselves?”
Her golden eyes shine.
This is the reason that no matter how big of a mess she makes, I can never be mad. Her heart is always in the right place. It’s just that sometimes her competence is not.
I pluck a piece of fuzz off her cheek instead of hugging her, which is what I want to do. Despite working her own nine-to-five at Haute Insurance, she helps me almost every day out of the goodness of her heart, because God knows I can’t pay her. She always says I can make it up to her when the Honey House is featured on a southern destination show and becomes the hottest ticket in Tennessee. Of course, she also says that if that ever happens, she’ll deny she ever called it an insolvent mess and claim she always had faith in the place. But whatever.
Liv adjusts her bandanna. “We might have to call Jobe in for a consult.”
“I am not calling our brother.”
“This was a bigger job than I thought it was going to be,” she says, cringing. “A little on-site guidance may not be a bad thing.”
“It would be such a cop-out to call a man now after that ‘I’m not a quitter’ speech.”
“I’m not quitting. I didn’t say that. I don’t quit.”
“Sounds an awful lot like quitting to me,” I tease.
“Sophie . . .”
The grandfather clock in the foyer chimes. It reminds me that I need to get Mr. and Mrs. Inman, my only guests this week, something whipped up for dinner. My insides twist as I imagine Liv’s rant that I shouldn’t be making them dinner when it’s not included in the rate. She’s probably right. I’m just a sucker.