Page 8 of Summer Ride

“No, you look dead on your feet,” Leslie said, running her eyes over him. “Go get your friend and go home. She was a big help tonight. If she wants, she can come back tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “See you then.”

After washing up, he gathered his things and went to find Kara. She was still in the main cat building, in one of the free-range cat areas.

She looked content sitting in a rocking chair, holding an armful of kittens who were all asleep in her lap and arms.

“Hey,” he said, sitting in the chair beside her. Instantly, a few cats brushed up against his legs, wanting attention. Two even tried to jump up on his lap and ended up smacking against one another instead. “Wanna head out?” he asked, picking both cats up.

She smiled over at him.

“Sure. I can’t believe you get to do this all the time,” she said with a sigh.

He thought of correcting her. Telling her exactly what he’d been doing for the past few hours. Instead he smiled and held in a yawn.

When she shifted to get up, he set the cats down and helped her dislodge the kittens she held. He placed a few of them in the cat beds that littered the enclosed room.

Kara put down the last of the sleeping kittens and turned to him. Her eyes ran over his face.

“They said you can come back tomorrow and lend a hand, if you want,” he suggested.

“I’d like that,” she answered immediately. “Are you coming back tomorrow?”

He nodded. “I have a few more surgeries I’ll need to do as well as check up on the ones I finished today,” he answered without thinking.

She frowned at him. “Surgeries?”

He reached over and took her hand. “Come on, I didn’t get to eat my sandwich. How about we hit the diner in town before it closes?”

He didn’t really give her time to respond and started pulling her towards the door.

When they reached their parked cars, he suggested they ride together. When she hesitated, he told her he was a little too tired to drive.

Thankfully, Kara didn’t argue. Maybe she’d seen just how tired he was?

When they walked into the almost empty diner, he took his normal booth and immediately asked the waitress for a cup of coffee and a bacon cheeseburger.

“I’ll take the same,” Kara said quickly.

“Surgeries?” she asked again.

“About a dozen of them. I lost two.” He frowned. “I have three more tomorrow, if the cats survive through the night. They weren’t strong enough to be put under general anesthesia today.”

“Oh no! I didn’t know some of the rescued cats were that bad.”

“They don’t put any of the sick ones in the roaming room where you were,” he pointed out.

“I helped out earlier in the kennels. Some of those were sick. Not surgery sick, but sick. Who would do such a thing to so many cats?”

“These were found on an abandoned property. Most of them are related. Who knows how long they were there. If it weren’t for a realtor, who was selling the property next door and found them, a lot of them wouldn’t be alive.” He took a sip of his coffee. He needed the jolt if he was going to stay awake.

“Why did you become a vet?” Kara asked, leaning her elbows on the table, and watching him, waiting for his answer.

He shrugged slightly before answering. “My dad is an ER nurse. My mother works at Alaqua.”

“I met her tonight,” Kara said. “She’s the one who showed me around the place and helped me out most of the night.”

He nodded. He knew that his mother would have been somewhere around there. “Yeah, she’s been working at the sanctuary as far back as I can remember. So I combined the two things my parents did and”—he motioned to himself—“this is what I came up with.” He finished with a smile. “Why did you become a massage therapist?”