Read Online Immortal Ever After by Lynsay Sands - Free Book Online Page B

caught up on the latest techniques.”
    “Do all vets do that?” Leigh asked curiously.
    “What about your clinic? Did you have to shut it down while you’re away?” Bricker asked.
    “And aren’t there veterinary schools in Winnipeg?” Marguerite chimed in. “This seems a long way to go to brush up.”
    Valerie grimaced at the barrage of questions, but answered, “I don’t know if other vets take courses to stay current. I have a partner, and two other vets work at the clinic; they’re covering things till I get back. And Guelph is where I got my original degree. It just seemed easier to return for these courses than to apply somewhere else.”
    Her answers were mostly true, and they were also the explanations she gave to everyone else. It was nobody’s business that she’d chosen to brush up and to do so in Ontario because she’d wanted to be out of Winnipeg for a while.
    “So were you born and raised in Winnipeg, or Ontario?” Anders asked.
    “Cambridge, Ontario,” Valerie answered reluctantly, knowing what question would come next.
    It was Bricker who asked it. “Then how did you end up opening a clinic in Winnipeg?”
    Valerie considered how best to answer, but really there was only one answer. “A man.”
    Silence filled the SUV briefly and then Anders said, “You aren’t married.”
    It wasn’t really phrased as a question, more like a command, she thought, and wondered about that, but said, “No. I’ve never been married. But I started dating another student my first year at university. We dated all seven years of school, but he was from Winnipeg. He wanted to go back when we graduated and he asked me to go.” She shrugged. “I moved there with him and set up shop.”
    “But you didn’t marry?” Anders asked and she glanced over to see that his eyes were narrowed on the road. There was a tension about him she didn’t understand.
    “No.” She turned to stare out the window at the passing scenery and said, “We split up eventually, but by then the clinic was successful and I’d made friends there. I stayed.”
    They’d split up nine months ago after ten years together. Ten years during which he’d claimed he never wanted to marry—a marriage certificate meant nothing to him. They didn’t need one. Two weeks after they split up he was dating Susie; six weeks after that he asked Susie to marry him. It seemed it wasn’t that he never wanted to marry, he’d just never wanted to marry Valerie. And she had no desire to be in town when he said I do to the woman he did want to marry. It wasn’t that she wasn’t over him. She’d been over him long before they’d got around to breaking up. It wasn’t her heart that couldn’t take it. It was her pride. It hurt that Larry had never wanted to marry her, yet had popped the question to his new girl within weeks. What the hell was up with that? Why hadn’t she been the type he’d marry?
    She had no idea and that bothered her.
    “Oh, we’re here,” Marguerite said suddenly. “And now we’re not.”
    Valerie blinked and focused on the view out the window to see that they . . . were driving past her house? She turned to Anders in question. “Why—?”
    “Put this on,” he interrupted, holding out a baseball cap and sweatshirt.
    Valerie recognized them. He’d made a trip upstairs to fetch them before they’d left, and set them on the floor when they’d got in the vehicle.
    When she didn’t immediately accept the items, he asked, “Have you forgotten Igor and his boss already? They may be watching your house.”
    “Why would they do that?” she asked with a frown.
    “Why did they take you in the first place?” he countered and then admitted, “They might not be watching, but they just as easily could be, and isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?”
    Valerie nodded, took the items, and quickly shrugged on the sweatshirt over her own clothes, then pulled the ball cap on her head.
    “Tuck your hair under,” Anders