Persuading Spring: A Sexy New Zealand Romance (The Four Seasons Book 4) by Serenity Woods Page A

Rowan fetched the bag she’d
left behind with her purse, phone, and keys.
    Bridget stood, catching sight of herself in
the mirror. A melancholy wistfulness swept over her as she remembered how she’d
looked the morning before, so full of hope and happiness at the thought that
she was marrying the man of her dreams.
    Her gaze fell to Aaron’s sweatshirt and his
baggy track pants. She could still smell his aftershave on the clothes.
    Her lips curved up a little. Yesterday,
she’d felt as if her world had ended, but the Earth had kept on turning, and
today was a new day. She had a long way to go until she was healed, but maybe
she was stronger than she’d thought.
     

Chapter Nine
    Nearly all the animals that came into
Aaron’s surgery for operations were frightened, and it was tempting to take all
of them home and hand-feed them himself until they recovered. His assistants—Pam
and Izzy—knew how susceptible he was to a whimper and the sad face of a dog or
cat feeling sorry for itself. They normally banned him from the cages, so he’d
trained himself to leave his patients alone once he’d done the stitching up,
and let the others tend to their recovery.
    Mandy was different. A beautiful boxer
bitch belonging to an adorable family who loved her to pieces, she’d escaped
through a gate someone had left open and had been missing all night. Although
they’d searched everywhere for her, barely getting any sleep, they’d only found
her when the sun had come up, lying by the roadside half a mile away, having
been hit by a car. Her front leg was broken, and yet the good-natured dog was
neither irritable nor vicious in her pain but just whimpered in Aaron’s arms
when he took her from the father to lay her on the table. The two young boys
with the dad were in bits, openly sobbing to see their beloved pet broken.
Seeing his own son in them, Aaron had promised he’d take special care of her
and that he would ring them as soon as she was through surgery.
    He x-rayed the dog and gave her a general anesthetic
before fixing the leg with pins and metal plates. He then made himself leave
her with Izzy in the cages to recover, and rang the family to say she’d made it
through but that it would be best if she stayed at the surgery overnight so
they could keep an eye on her.
    He kept thinking about her, about her large
brown eyes and the kids’ heartbroken faces, so before the afternoon clinic
started he went to see how she was doing, only to discover Izzy close to tears
herself as she listened to the dog’s pathetic whimpers.
    “It’s all right, lovely girl,” Izzy
whispered to her, fondling the dog’s velvety ears as the bitch shivered with
pain and fear. “You’ll be okay.” She turned watery eyes up to Aaron. “I was
just about to come and get you. I think the anesthetic’s wearing off. Shall we
give her some more pain relief?”
    “Yes, of course.” He gave the dog a shot of
an opioid analgesic and an anti-inflammatory while Izzy continued to reassure
her.
    She kissed the dog’s ear. “Aw. Poor little
thing. I can’t believe someone would hit an animal and just drive on.”
    Mandy gave a heart-breaking whimper and
turned her big, sorrowful brown eyes up to him.
    He sighed. “Okay, I give in.”
    Carefully, so as not to cause her more
pain, he wrapped her in a thick blanket and lifted her into his arms. She was a
small boxer, a brindle with a black smudge on her nose, and he kissed it as he
walked slowly through the surgery, rocking her in his arms and humming to her while
he stroked her back.
    “Is that a Barry Manilow song?” His
partner, Joe, was just making himself a mug of tea in the kitchen before the
afternoon clinic started. A steadfast, down-to-earth Maori guy, Joe had been
his best mate since high school. He came over as he saw the dog in Aaron’s
arms.
    “Her name’s Mandy. It seemed appropriate.”
Aaron continued to hum the ballad to her.
    “Is that the bitch from the accident? Poor
thing.”