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

Evan raised his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

***

It felt like such a high school thing to do, but Caleb gave the Cat Café a wide berth as he walked by it on his way to work in the morning. He’d grabbed coffee from a little place he’d passed on the walk from his apartment. He could probably just buy a basic drip coffee maker for twenty bucks and put it in the shared office; it would make perfectly serviceable coffee. No need to frequent the Cat Café or see Lauren. Problem solved.

It wasn’t even that he didn’t like her. He was torn about whether he found her stubbornness irritating or charming; a little of both, probably. Really, though, she made him think of an old scene from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, with Ed Asner telling Mary she had spunk and Mary taking it as a compliment.

I hate spunk!

He said hello to Rachel on his way into the office, reflecting on the fact that, well, he did hate spunk. Maybe that was post-divorce Caleb talking, but after everything that had happened with Kara and their old practice, he had very little patience for nonsense. Kara’s nonsense had been covering up lies and betrayal, after all; for months, she’d pretended everything was fine when it hadn’t been. And now Lauren, while beautiful and sexy, was all nonsense.

An hour later, he was in Exam 1, finishing a chart after a patient had gone home, when a big yellow Lab mix wandered in. The dog sat at Caleb’s feet.

“Hi, buddy. Where are your people?”

Rachel ran in then. “Sorry, Dr. Fitch. He got away from me.”

“Is this your dog?”

“No. Dr. Francis took him in last night. Someone left him tied up outside with a note saying they couldn’t take care of him anymore.”

Caleb knelt beside the dog and pet his ears. The dog barked happily and licked Caleb’s face. Caleb laughed despite his sour mood. “Well, you seem friendly enough. Why would someone leave you?”

“It happens,” said Rachel. “We get pets left here periodically, usually either by older people who don’t have the energy to look after them anymore or, more often, people moving into apartments that don’t allow pets. And because there aren’t really any other clinics in Brooklyn that are open all night; we get a lot of the abandoned pets here.”

“My old practice got a few. Mostly boxes of kittens people found on the street. Usually not big friendly dogs.” The dog licked Caleb’s face again and he laughed. “You house-trained, buddy? Wanna go for a walk?”

At the W-word, the dog perked up even more.

“The note said the dog’s name is Hank.”

“Hank?” Caleb asked the dog. He was rewarded with another face-lick. “Well, that’s a good sturdy name. Do we have any leashes? I can take him for a quick trip around the block.”

“Yeah, sure, there are a couple in the drawer at the reception desk. I’ll get you one.”

Caleb shrugged out of his white coat and returned to the reception area, where Rachel handed him a leash and a little container with biodegradable pet waste bags.

Hank was definitely house-trained. He acted like a dog who knew exactly what he was supposed to do, including barking at every other dog they passed on the street. Caleb was mystified about how anyone could abandon such a big, friendly dog. Hank was big for a Lab, sure, so he’d be a lot for a small apartment. But his tongue lolled out of his mouth, and he trotted around the block, pausing to do his business near a tree, and then resuming his happy gait.

When Caleb returned, Hank barked at the Cat Café. “Good boy,” Caleb said as he reached down to rub Hank’s ears.

Back inside the clinic, Caleb let Hank off the leash, and Hank flopped down in front of the reception desk.

“What’s the procedure for adopting animals?” Caleb asked.

“Well, we usually keep them here for a couple of days in the kennels in back, and we’ll put signs up out front saying we’ve got an animal for adoption, but if nobody takes the animal, we find a shelter. If it’s a cat, Lauren usually takes them, but for dogs and other pets, there’s a no-kill shelter in Park Slope we work with.”

“Okay.”

“Unless you want to adopt him.”

Caleb couldn’t help but think of his old dog Jimmy, the one Kara had gotten in the divorce. His new place in Brooklyn Heights was still a bit underfurnished and sterile, and a dog would certainly liven things up. On the other hand, he put in long hours here at the clinic. A dog like this would need a lot of attention.

“I mean,” said Rachel, “this is the kind of dog you get when you’re on the rebound from a bad breakup. Just saying.”

Caleb looked at her.

“Sorry. Olivia told me you just got divorced.”

“I did. And you’re probably right. He seems like a good dog. But I don’t know if I’m ready to take on a dog just yet. I just moved to Brooklyn. I haven’t even finished furnishing my apartment yet.”

“It was a bad breakup, wasn’t it?”

“She left me for a younger guy and ran off to California after abruptly closing the clinic we owned together without consulting me, so yeah, it was pretty bad.”

Rachel’s eyes went wide. “Well, geez. That’s shitty.”

Caleb barked out a laugh. “To understate things.”

“But, see, this dog may be just what you need.” Rachel and Hank both looked at him with big puppy dog eyes.

“Okay, tell you what. Let’s board him here for a few days and advertise that he’s looking for a good home. If no one adopts him by, say, Friday, then I’ll take him home. Okay?”

Rachel grinned. “I think you just got yourself a good doggo.” She reached down and pet Hank’s head. Hank licked her face. She laughed.

“We’ll see.”

Chapter 5

Lauren trotted down the stairs from her apartment and walked out onto Whitman Street. It was a lovely spring day, the sky deep blue with wispy