My Funny Valentine (Pajaro Bay Series Book 4) (2 page)

J
osephine Anderson tried
to get comfortable, but it was useless. This hard little bed at the nursing home was just not her bed, in her house.

With her Strudel next to her. Strudel the Street Poodle. That's what she'd named the tiny rescue dog when the veterinarian had first introduced them two months ago. The dog and she were both elderly, both all alone in life, and both needed someone to care for. Dr. Cassidy Trujillo, the nice young vet, had realized that somehow, and had brought them together. Josie and her little dog had been inseparable since then.

Until now.

Josie tried to picture Strudel's fluffy white face, the brown eyes that looked up to her so trustingly, the constantly wagging tail. But it was too painful to think about.

The heavy door to the hall opened and someone came in. Josie burrowed under the covers as the person went over to the thick, full-length curtains that had kept out the night's chill.

"Good morning, Mrs. Anderson," said Sylvia, the too-cheery care assistant.

Josie heard her pull the curtains back with a rattle of the curtain rings.

"Now, isn't that nicer?" Sylvia said.

Josie poked her head out from the covers. "Not really." She had been hearing rain against the window all night, and it was hardly any lighter now that morning had arrived. All she could see out the window was gray.

Sylvia smiled encouragingly at her. "I love storms here along the coast," she said in that annoyingly chirpy voice. "They're so romantic, don't you think? And today, in particular."

Josie looked away. Said nothing. She didn't want to talk, didn't want to be cheered up.

Sylvia rearranged the construction paper hearts the schoolchildren had made for all the nursing home residents. The one on her nightstand was pink, with
hApy Valintins
carefully printed in lavender crayon. It reminded her of the tiny lavender harness Strudel had worn, and she closed her eyes to stop thinking about it.

"Now, now, Mrs. Anderson, you have to try." Sylvia bent over and gave her a gentle pat on the arm. "You won't get better if you don't at least try to get up and walk a bit. I know it's scary after a fall like the one you had, but that leg isn't going to heal all by itself."

She started to pull the covers off to help Josie out of bed for her physical therapy, but Josie grabbed the covers and held on.

"Not today," she said firmly.

She knew Sylvia couldn't force her to do her physical therapy, and sure enough, after a few more attempts at persuasion, the woman left her alone.

Josie closed her eyes and tried to sleep. It didn't matter whether her leg got better or not. She had nobody to get better for now.

C
lint Pham stood
with a cold cup of coffee in his hand, staring out the window above the kitchen sink.

Rain. He sighed and rubbed the wrinkled scar on his forehead. All night there'd been the patter of rain on the roof of his little beach cottage. And with the morning, it still rained. He should be glad he didn't have to go back to work until Monday. Driving up the coast to his boss's house in this weather would have been a real bear. But he was going stir-crazy staying home.

He was really looking forward to getting out of the house soon. It had been ten days since he'd first come down with the flu, and he was now at that stage where he was over the worst of it, but wasn't yet cleared by the doctor to go back to work.

He knew it would be unfair to expose everyone else to his germs just because he was going stir-crazy. But now he was so bored he was reduced to staring out the window at the next door neighbor's house.

He missed the little old lady next door. She'd fallen down the stairs and broken her leg last week, and she was recuperating in a nursing home. Now her house was empty and silent. And boring.

If someone had told him three months ago that he'd miss the little old lady next door, he wouldn't have believed it.

He had gotten used to talking to Mrs. Anderson every day. That was a part of small-town life he hadn't been prepared for. When he lived in the city he would go to work and back, just doing his own thing, and hanging around with people his own age. But now that he'd moved to this little town to be close to his boss's estate up the coast, his life was totally different.

In a little town he ran into the same people over and over again—people of all ages and backgrounds, all quick to smile and say hello. It was nice, actually. After a day of studying contracts and holding Skype meetings with executives around the world to argue about the minutiae in some legal contract, coming home to the quaint little village of Pajaro Bay had been relaxing.

He'd jog on the beach, have dinner at his grandmother's restaurant downtown, and let Mrs. Anderson regale him with the latest gossip.

Mrs. Anderson always had something to tell him, whether she was complaining about her obnoxious nephew's latest mess, sharing the latest story about her tiny dog's antics, or keeping Clint up to date on the activities of the pretty new veterinarian in town.

That last part was what had interested him the most.

It was funny. Even though the old woman's nephew was dating Dr. Trujillo, Mrs. Anderson kept trying to fix Clint up with her. "You two are perfect for each other," she'd said.

When he'd pointed out that her nephew wouldn't agree, she had just said, "all's fair in love and war," with a mischievous grin.

Unfortunately, the beautiful Dr. Cassidy Trujillo hadn't felt the same way. They'd had one date, and then she'd blown him off.

Clint ran a hand across the week's growth of beard on his chin. She seemed to prefer hunky surfers like Mrs. Anderson's nephew to nerdy lawyers like himself.

Too bad. Because he sure preferred her. Clint hadn't met any woman who'd fascinated him as much in a long time.

A long time? How about ever?

He poured his cold coffee down the drain.

But it wasn't to be. He was apparently a poor second to Trip Anderson, star athlete... and all-around jerk.

As if on cue, Trip's glossy black Jeep 4x4 pulled into Mrs. Anderson's yard. He parked sideways, gouging out muddy tire tracks on the old lady's perfectly manicured lawn.

Typical Trip.

Clint briefly considered going next door and asking Trip how his aunt was getting along, but decided he'd go see her himself in a couple days. And he was safer inside. Somehow he always ended up wanting to slug Trip. It wasn't anything in particular. Just his whole attitude: the offhand insults, the poking him in the ribs when he made lewd remarks about women, the whole macho thing that always seemed like he was trying too hard to prove what a tough guy he was.

So instead Clint pulled out the French press coffee maker his mom had sent him last Christmas and went about brewing another cup of coffee. Filtered water heated to a boil in the microwave, fresh grounds, and then press it down. Perfect coffee in only a couple of minutes.

He poured the brew into his mug and then put the press into the sink with the rest of the dirty dishes.

He glanced out the window again and saw Trip with his aunt's big-screen TV. He was maneuvering it into the open back of the Jeep and having some trouble with it from the looks of it.

Clint started to walk away from the window, but unfortunately Trip had seen him and waved frantically in his direction.

Clint would have ignored him, but he could see the TV was starting to slip, and he couldn't let Trip ruin Mrs. Anderson's set, so he ran out the door into the drizzle, squished his way across the soaking-wet lawn in his Teva sandals, and grabbed on to the other end of the TV.

"Thanks, Ham-Boy," Trip said with a grin.

Ham-Boy. The nickname had been his own fault. Trip had seen the business card he'd left with Mrs. Anderson, and kept calling him "Clint Farm," until he'd explained that his last name was "Pham, pronounced like ham." Ever since then, he'd been "Ham-Boy" to Trip.

Trip was still grinning.

"You might want to lose the stupid nickname if you don't want the TV to land on your foot," Clint said quietly.

"Don't be so sensitive, Clint," Trip said, still grinning. "Can't you take a joke? Stop whining and push on your end."

Clint did, and the TV slid into the bed of the Jeep, between a surfboard and a box of Mrs. Anderson's china.

"She needs all this at the nursing home?" Clint asked.

Trip wiped his hands on his jeans. "Yeah, she wanted the stuff. So hey, what the old broad wants, she gets. Gotta keep my inheritance safe." He laughed like he was being funny.

"Yeah. Whatever," Clint said. He turned to go, then asked, "so how's she doing? I'm going to visit her next week, once I get the all-clear from the doctor."

"What do you mean, the all-clear?"

"I don't want to give her my flu, you know."

"Oh. Well, you don't need to go see her. She doesn't need anything."

"Well, she might need some cheering up."

"No!" Trip said. "You wanna give her your cold? What are you, an idiot?"

Clint thought of pointing out that he'd graduated top of his law school class, while Trip had supposedly been expelled in the eleventh grade. But he held his tongue.

Clint started away again, and then, because he couldn't help himself, said, "and Cassidy? How's she been?"

"Dunno," Trip said eloquently. "I dumped her."

"You dumped her?!" Clint immediately regretted the shock that was obvious in his voice, because Trip grinned.

"I know you gotta crush on her Ham-Boy, but it's not like she was ever going to go for you."

"You never know," Clint said quietly.

Trip gave a pointed look at him, from the wrinkled scar on his forehead, past the gray tee shirt with a hole in it, past his sweat pants, and on to his feet. "You're wearing two different colored socks, Ham-Boy."

Clint looked down at his feet. He was wearing a blue sock and a gray one with his Tevas. "Whatever," he said. Okay, so he didn't lounge around his house in designer duds. He hadn't thought she was the type to care about that. But maybe he was wrong. She must have seen something in Trip. "So why did you break up with her?" he asked.

"I had to let her go. She was cramping my style. She was just too needy."

Clint pictured the tall, confident, quick-witted young woman with the killer figure, the glossy black hair, and the intelligent brown eyes. "Needy. Right."

Trip headed back toward his aunt's house. Not surprisingly, he forgot to say thank you for the help.

Clint just shrugged. "Say hi to your aunt when you give her the TV."

"Yeah, sure," Trip said, went inside.

Clint trudged away across the wet lawn toward his own house.

"
G
ot a minute
, Dr. Trujillo?"

Cassidy looked up from the reception desk to see a slight woman with unruly black curls poking her head in the veterinary clinic's front door.

"Of course, Mrs. Madrigal," she said. "Haven't had a customer all morning. I imagine people are out celebrating Valentine's Day with their loved ones."

The woman came all the way in the door. "Yeah, Kyle and I have a date night planned for later. What about you?"

Cassie shook her head. "No plans." Then, realizing she sounded curt, she added, "Probably grab a pizza or something and watch a movie. So what brings you here, Mrs. Madrigal?"

"Call me Hallie, remember?" Then she stared at Cassidy's face, and Cassie felt self-conscious all of a sudden.

"Of course I remember. Hallie." Cassidy rubbed her cheek, where from the pointed look Hallie was giving her, the bruise must be showing through her makeup. "So what's up?"

"My namesake's not too happy." She glanced down.

Cassidy stood up so she could see over the desk. Hallie was holding a pink plastic cat carrier. "Your namesake? Oh, the Halloween cat. She was fine on Tuesday when I updated her shots."

"Well, she's got a problem now."

"So what's her complaint?" She could see the orange, black and white calico glaring through the bars of her pink prison.

"I think she must have gotten her claw caught on one of the rugs. It's bleeding and I hope she hasn't torn it off. I just want to make sure it's okay. And I can't get her to let me look." Hallie held up her free hand, and Cassidy saw the big Band Aid on it.

"Ouch," she said. "That's gotta hurt. Well, come this way, and we'll figure out what's going on."

Cassidy led her to the clinic's exam room.

Hallie set the cat carrier on the stainless steel exam table. "Kyle said you handled her like a pro on Tuesday."

Cassidy nodded. "It was kind of your husband to put it that way." She took a deep breath. "It was a battle of wills, but I finally got the shot into her. Nothing like these formerly feral cats to test my bedside manner."

Hallie laughed. "Yeah. But he said you handled her like a champ. She's really a nice cat—on her own turf. It's just that she hates to be confined."

"Shut the door, will you," Cassidy said. "Just in case I lose this round."

It didn't take long for Cassidy to clean the torn claw and give a shot of antibiotics, and then Halloween retreated quite gladly to her pink crate.

"That wasn't so bad," she told the cat. She offered her a treat through the bars. Halloween took it, then hissed at her.

Hallie laughed. "You've got the touch. She won't admit it, but I don't think that hurt her at all."

Cassidy walked Hallie and Halloween to the door.

"I'll charge it to your account," she said.

At the front door to the clinic Hallie stopped suddenly, set the carrier down, and turned to Cassidy.

"This is none of my business," she said quickly. She dug through her purse and pulled out a business card.

She handed it to Cassidy:
Domestic Violence Hotline
, it said.
You are not alone. 1-800-799-SAFE
.

Cassidy stood there, dumbfounded, as Hallie talked quickly: "You told Kyle you ran into a door." She glanced at Cassidy's cheek again, and Cass put a hand up to it.

"I thought it wasn't showing through my makeup any more."