Like Cats and Dogs by Kate McMurray (scary books to read TXT) 📗

to make sure there isn’t a worse underlying problem. If it’s not a UTI and Sunday gets sicker, then where will we be?”

Lauren let out a frustrated grunt.

Sunday let out another little mewl as Caleb ran his hand over her belly. He frowned. “This could be a blockage. Maybe I should do an ultrasound.”

“Geez.” It was like he was deliberately challenging her now. Lauren crossed her arms, wondering if she should prepare to do battle.

Caleb stood up straight again. “I mean, I only spent five years in veterinary school, and five in practice, but you run a café, so you must know better.”

Lauren took a step back. She hadn’t expected the sarcasm, even though she knew she was poking him. Maybe he was right, but she hated to put Sunday through unnecessary tests, or to subject her bottom line at the café to a huge veterinary bill. She was willing to eat the cost for a real problem, but she could see the dollar bills floating in front of her, a lot of them, for what should have been a pretty standard course of treatment.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but—”

“Could you maybe trust me? Wouldn’t you rather rule out any potential issues that could be causing this little cat worse problems that antibiotics won’t cure? Cats have short memories. Drawing a little blood will be forgotten in an hour. And an ultrasound is not invasive but will tell me if she has a blockage or anything else unusual going on. Did she use the litter box at all today?”

“Not that I could tell.”

“Well, then.”

***

Caleb felt a little bad for snapping at Lauren, but not that much, because she was getting on his last nerve. On the other hand, she looked kind of adorable when she was all angry and befuddled.

Besides which, this cat probably had kidney or bladder stones and not just a “garden-variety UTI.” UTIs were usually associated with frequent urination, not no urine at all. The fact that this little cat had stopped eating was a red flag to Caleb, an indication of a more serious problem.

Lauren furrowed her brow. “I’m not an idiot, you know. I’ve worked with a lot of cats over the years.”

“I know. But I’m not an idiot either. Here, hold her on the table. Let me go get the portable ultrasound.”

He could tell she was going to fight him. He was in the right here, though, and he didn’t need some café manager telling him how to do his job. Because if the cat did have some kind of stones, she was likely in pain, and Caleb needed to know exactly what was wrong so he could provide the right treatment to stop that pain.

Maybe Lauren was right. But she could let him run a couple of damn tests.

He walked out of the exam room and stuck his head into the waiting room. “Hey, Rachel? Can you assist me? Exam 1.”

“No prob! Be right there!”

He went back into the exam room and said to Lauren, “Why don’t you wait in the waiting room?”

“Olivia usually lets me assist.”

“She must have better insurance than I do.”

“Caleb—”

“Do you have to fight me on everything? I’ve done these tests three times just this week. I know what I’m doing, and you can trust me. Please wait in the waiting room. This will take ten minutes, tops.”

Lauren pursed her lips and looked at Sunday, uncertainty all over her face. But she nodded and left the room, passing Rachel on her way out.

Ten minutes later, Caleb had ascertained there was a bladder stone small enough to pass on its own, so there wasn’t much he could do. Usually, the treatment he preferred was blasting the stone with lasers to break it up, but he could already hear Lauren objecting to surgery, and it wasn’t necessary anyway. But antibiotics certainly wouldn’t do anything, so he wasn’t going to subject the cat to them.

“I better go give Lauren the good bad news,” he said to Rachel, who smirked.

“She means well,” Rachel said.

“I’m sure she does, but I don’t enjoy people telling me what’s wrong with their cats as if they have the veterinary degree and I don’t.”

Rachel filled a small bowl with water and put it on the table next to the cat, who lapped at it.

Caleb took a deep breath and walked back to the waiting room. “You can come back now.”

Lauren had clearly spent the last ten minutes working up a good amount of resentment toward him, and now she scowled and set her shoulders forward before marching into the exam room.

“Good luck,” said Rachel under her breath.

Back in the exam room, Caleb said, “She doesn’t need antibiotics. It’s a bladder stone. This one is pretty small and should pass on its own in a day or two and she’ll be back to normal. Try to make her drink as much water as possible. If you notice blood in her urine, bring her back and we’ll look into surgically removing the stone.”

“Surgery?”

“It’s a small stone, but it’s just big enough to block part of her urinary tract, which is why her symptoms read like a UTI. I doubt surgery is necessary. Give it a day or two, and if she’s not better, come back.”

But rather than thank Caleb for figuring out what was wrong with her cat, Lauren continued to glare at him. “Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired.”

He sighed. “What do you want from me? You marched in here and told me what you thought was wrong. I actually did the tests to find the problem. If I’d gone ahead and prescribed antibiotics without checking, she probably would have gotten better on her own, but you’d have to chase her around to shove a pill down her throat twice a day for no reason. I saved you from that. I’m the good guy here.”

“Are you this charming with everyone?”

He watched her pet Sunday for a moment. Sunday flopped onto her side and presented her belly to Lauren,