janet dailey- the healing touch (2 page)

Hilda bleated and sniffed the second kid as Rebecca presented it to her. The mother wore a relieved and contented expression on her face, her long Nubian ears Sopping as she bathed her twins.

Finally, both kids snuggled close to their mother, nuzzling her, seeking her warm milk.

Rebecca sat down in the straw and enjoyed the scene. Moments like this one made it all worthwhile. She had done her job well. Hilda was relieved of her burden. The kids were safe and cozy. Katie and Neil were thrilled with the new arrivals. And Katie's father...

Rebecca turned to see if he was enjoying this warm scene as much as they were, but, to her surprise, he wore a frown on his handsome face.

He took a couple of steps closer to them, studying the second nanny. "That goat is obviously a runt," he said. "I don't think it will make an appropriate pet for a child."

"She is too an appropra... approp... a good pet. I want her!" Katie said. She glared up at her father, her blue eyes angry, but pleading. "And she's not a runt... whatever that is. If it's bad, she's not one!"

Rebecca had to fight to control her temper. What was wrong with this man? Didn't he have a heart? How could he ruin such a beautiful, happy moment?

"A runt is an animal that is born small and unhealthy," he told his daughter. "They often have things wrong with them, and they're hard to care for. And you don't even know if she'll live."

Rebecca couldn't stay quiet any longer. "Excuse me, Mr.—"

"Stafford," he said. "Michael Stafford."

"Mr. Stafford...I understand your concern about having a healthy pet for your child. But even though this nanny is a bit small, there's no reason to assume she won't live."

"Oh, really?" His blue eyes were cold and angry as he stared down at her. Apparently, he resented her offering her opinion without being asked. "And can you guarantee that, Doctor?" he snapped.

Rebecca couldn't understand the bitter tone of his voice. Why was he reacting this way? "Of course I can't guarantee the animal will stay healthy, Mr. Stafford," she said. "Life doesn't offer guarantees like that."

"It certainly doesn't," he said.

Again Rebecca heard the anger in his voice. What had happened to this man to make him so cold?

Looking down at Katie, Rebecca could see the same pain mirrored in her blue eyes. It seemed to run in the family.

"Mr. Stafford," she said, trying again to sound more patient and understanding than she felt. "I truly believe this goat is healthy, in spite of her small size. If you'll let Katie have her as a pet, I promise to help all I can. I'll teach your daughter how to take care of the goat. If anything goes wrong, all you have to do is call me, and I'll be here right away."

"Please, Daddy?" Katie pleaded. She ran to her father and, grabbing his hand in both of hers, she said, "Dr. Rebecca thinks it's okay. Let me have her. Please, please, please."

Michael Stafford said nothing for a long time as he looked down at his daughter, who was tugging at his hand. Rebecca couldn't understand how he could resist those big blue eyes. She certainly couldn't.

He couldn't either. Gently, he pulled his hand away from hers and turned toward the door. "Well," he said as he walked away, "if the good doctor thinks it's okay, it must be okay. I'm sure she knows more about these things than I do. I only hope she's right this time."

Rebecca wished he hadn't sounded so sarcastic, but as long as he had given his permission and Katie had her baby goat, that was all that counted.

Neil helped her as she gathered her things and placed them in her bag. Her work here was finished. At least, for the moment.

Having said her goodbyes, she turned to leave, but paused at the door to take one more look at Hilda and her kids, Katie and Neil. Katie had her arms around the baby nanny's neck and was saying sweet things in her ear.

Yes, Rebecca thought, I knew there was some reason why I became a vet. And this is it.

The moment Rebecca stepped through the door of the Hair Affair beauty salon, she was accosted by a furry missile named Twinkle. Twinkle had been white the last time Rebecca had visited, but this morning the dog's coat was a strange shade of lavender.

Rebecca had seen a lot of animals in her career, but she had never seen a purple Pekinese. She had her first clue as to what might have caused the mysterious skin irritation that Twinkle's mistress had described earlier on the telephone.

"Oh, Twink," Rebecca said as she dropped to one knee and stroked the dog's ears, "what has Betty Sue done to you now?"

The dog simply whined in reply and rolled her eyes pitifully.

"I know, I know..." Rebecca accepted the wet kiss on her cheek. "I've tried, Twink, but you know how Betty Sue is. By the way, where is your mistress?" she added, looking around the empty salon.

A door in the back of the salon swung open and a young woman in a hot-pink uniform entered, bringing with her the smell of permanent wave solution and nail

polish. For some reason, Rebecca wasn't surprised to see that Betty Sue had dyed her own bleached, platinum blond hair the same shade of lavender. Nothing about Betty Sue shocked Rebecca anymore. But Betty had been born and raised in the heart of Hollywood, so Rebecca tried to take that into consideration. The poor girl probably couldn't help herself.

"Hi there, sweet thing," she exclaimed, hurrying over to give Rebecca a warm hug. "It's our very favorite doctor, huh, Twinkle Toes...."

"Don't give me that 'favorite doctor' bull," Rebecca said, shaking her head in mock disgust. "You're just trying to butter me up because you know I'm upset with you."

"Upset?" Betty Sue batted her false lashes. "You're upset with me? Whatever for?"

"You didn't hear a thing I said when I was here last time."

"Why, that's not true. Of course I heard you. I—"

"Then you didn't listen. I told you to stop doing weird things to this poor innocent creature."

"But...but I..." she stammered.
"I'd never do anything to Twinkle Toes that I wouldn't do to myself."

Rebecca looked Betty Sue up and down, taking in the multiprocessed hair, the porcelain nails, the pounds of trowel-applied makeup. Betty wasn't what you'd call a natural beauty. That list of things she "wouldn't do" to herself or her long-suffering pet must be pretty short.

"Betty Sue, you have to stop this nonsense. I'm tired of coming over here to treat problems that you have caused. You airbrushed this dog's toenails and—"

"But she liked that. She was having fun."

"She was high, Betty Sue. Twinkle was buzzing on the fumes! And remember when you gave her corn- rows down her back with those beads and feathers?"

"Well, I thought-"

"I had to cut them out. I had to shave the poor little thing. She ran around looking like a scalped rat for an entire winter."

"But I knitted her a little sweater to wear."

"You didn't finish it until spring."

"My heart was in the right place."

Rebecca stifled a smile. "Then maybe you'd better start thinking with your head." She bent down and picked up the dog. Running her hand backward over her fur, Rebecca exposed the red, irritated skin. "Look at that! It's a reaction to that stupid purple dye you used."

"I did a patch test first, just like it said in the instructions!" Betty whined, refusing to meet Rebecca's eyes. "I really did, and it turned out fine."

"Those instructions were for a person, Betty Sue, not a Pekinese. I'm not kidding, you have to stop doing this, or I'm going to turn you in for cruelty to animals."

Betty Sue's chin began to quiver slightly, and her lower lip protruded in a pout. Rebecca felt a wave of relief; finally, she might have gotten through to her.

"I'll give you some shampoo that's medicated. It'll help stop the itching and keep the skin from getting infected. She won't smell very nice afterward, but—"

"Don't worry," Betty interjected, "I won't put perfume on her. No matter how much I want to. I'll resist."

"Attagirl."

As Rebecca took the medication from her bag and wrote her instructions on the label, Betty Sue held Twinkle and cooed into her ear.

"Does her love her mommy?" she asked the dog in a nauseatingly sweet tone. "Yes, yes, her does. Her knows Mommy was just trying to make her look beautiful. Twinkle Toes lo-o-o-oves her mommy."

Betty Sue set the dog on the floor and took the bottle from Rebecca. "By the way," she said, a smile on her perfectly outlined, carefully blotted crimson lips, "I heard something... but I don't know if it's true."

"What's that?" Rebecca asked, trying to look uninterested as she snapped her bag shut. Betty Sue was a hopeless gossip, and like most people, Rebecca found the idea of gossip appalling and the reality fascinating.

"I heard you've been spending a lot of time at Casa Colina lately... with that hunk widower, Michael Stafford."

"Then you heard wrong," Rebecca said, trying to stifle her irritation. Gossip that was about her wasn't nearly so fascinating. "I was out there one night, and it was business, not pleasure. Believe me. I had my hand

in a goat's rear end, up to my elbow. That's not what I call a good time."

"Oh...I...oh."

Rebecca was pleased to see that she had finally managed to shock even Betty Sue Wilcox. She considered it quite an accomplishment to shock someone from Hollywood.

"But, you did meet Michael Stafford, didn't you?" Betty was still trying to squeeze something juicy from the rather dry story.

"Yes, I met him. I saw him with my own two eyes. I gazed, spellbound, upon his handsome face for... heck... probably all of three or four minutes."

Betty Sue brightened. "And is it true, what they say? Is he really that good-looking?"

"He's stunning, he's breathtakingly gorgeous." She picked up her bag and slung it under her arm. "He's also very cranky, and, personally, I didn't like him...not one little bit."

Without another word, Rebecca spun around on her heel and marched out the door, leaving Betty Sue with her mouth hanging open.

But Betty soon recovered and scooped Twinkle up. "I just don't think I believes her, does you?" she asked in a singsong, baby voice. "Mommy thinks Dr. Rebecca likes Mr. Michael more than she's letting on. Don't you think so, too, Twinkle? Yes...Mommy knows true love when she sees it."

Betty Sue watched until the decrepit pickup had disappeared around the corner. "There, there, she's all
gone. Now, let's go try out that new tooth-whitener stuff Mommy bought at the drugstore. Your little choppers have been looking pretty yellow lately. Yes, they have. And we can't have that, can we, sweetie pie? No, sirree. It worked really great on Mommy's teeth. See...."

Chapter Two

For the next week, Rebecca couldn't stop thinking about Katie, her father and the baby goat. Finally, she gave in to her worries and dropped by Casa Colina.

The warm sun made her feel lazy as she got out of her pickup and walked up to the house. It was the perfect morning to just sit in the sun and sip ice tea.

She sighed to herself. No such luck. The busy life of a vet didn't offer her much time to be lazy.

She found Katie and the kid romping in the backyard. Playing a game of tag, they seemed to be enjoying each other's company.

"Hi, Dr. Rebecca!" Katie shouted as she ran toward her.

"Hello, Katie." Rebecca reached down to pet the goat. It lowered its tiny head and butted against her fist. "I see you've been teaching her bad habits," Rebecca teased.

"I didn't have to teach her that," Katie said with a giggle. "She seemed to know it all by herself."

"Yes, goats are little rascals. You have to teach them to behave. How is she doing?"

"Oh, fine," Katie said. "I named her Rosebud. But I call her Rosie."

"Rosie... um..Rebecca said thoughtfully. She studied the little goat, its silky white coat, its long floppy ears, blue eyes and pink nose. "Rosebud. Yes, I like that name. It's perfect for her."

Katie beamed at the praise. "I'm out of school now for the summer," she said. "We play all the time. She's my best friend."

Rebecca looked around for any sign of another human being. In the distance, Neil was digging in the garden, and his wife, Bridget, stood in the kitchen window.

But Katie's father was nowhere in sight. And Rebecca was sorry to see that Katie had no other children to play with.

"So, it's just you and Rosie?" she asked the girl. "No people friends to play with?"

The girl looked sad for a moment, then shook her head. Her black curls bounced and shone in the sunlight. "Nope. Just me and Rosie. I don't have any other friends."

"Don't you ever invite the girls from school to come over?" Rebecca asked. She thought of all the wonderful times she had shared with the Flores girls here at the Casa.

"I used to have friends over to play," Katie said. She wouldn't look up at Rebecca as she bent to scratch behind Rosie's ear. "But that was before. You know... when we lived in Los Angeles and my mommy was still alive."

An unexpectedly sharp pain shot through Rebecca. The pain of loss that was always so close to her heart.