Read Online My Sunshine by Catherine Anderson - Free Book Online Page B

very long time. It wasn’t an appropriate thing for an employer to say. Hell, it wasn’t even an appropriate thing for an employer to think.

Chapter Three
    T he following morning, as Laura parked her Mazda behind the clinic, she whispered scolding lectures to herself. “You’re only a kennel keeper—a lady who’ll be hosing dog poop down the drains. If you blow this chance and get fired over a silly crush on your boss, you’ll be sorry.”
    And it was a silly crush. Isaiah Coulter was a handsome, accomplished, and very successful man who could have his pick of women. He’d never look twice at someone like her.
    Schooling her expression, Laura entered the building and found herself in a room lined from floor to ceiling with boxes of surgical supplies. She traversed the pathway to a gray door and was promptly greeted by a cacophony of mournful wails when she opened it. The kennels, she realized, and from that moment forward she forgot all about Isaiah Coulter.
    Dogs. Looking up the center aisle, she saw all different kinds, purebreds and mutts, large ones and small ones. The only things any of them seemed to have in common were their limitless joy at seeing her and their frantic attempts to get her attention.
    â€œOh, you poor baby,” Laura whispered as she knelt in front of a rottweiler’s cage. A tube protruded from a wide bandage around the canine’s belly, and an IV was taped to its front leg. “What happened to you?” she asked softly, thrusting her fingers through the wire mesh to touch his broad muzzle. The dog nudged her fingers and whined. “Oh, yes, I know. It’s so awful. Here you are, sick and hurting, and your people have left you all alone.”
    Laura knew exactly how that felt. After her acci-dent she’d been hospitalized and then eventually transported to a rehab center. Her friends had come to see her at first, but over time they’d shown up less and less, uncomfortable in her presence because she could no longer talk. Her family had visited her as often as they could, of course, but after several weeks, the demands of day-to-day living had kept them away a good deal of the time. Even now Laura could remember her sense of abandonment. Unable to communicate, walk, read, or watch television, she’d been isolated in her misery, the hours of each day stretching endlessly before her. Blocks of painful physical therapy had been her only relief from the boredom and loneliness.
    Looking into the rottweiler’s bewildered brown eyes, she remembered her own bewilderment during that time and the helpless rage that had often come over her in waves. Trapped and forgotten, that was how she’d felt, exactly like this dog.
    In that moment, a sense of purpose filled her. This is where I belong, she thought. I can help, really help these poor animals, because I understand how theyfeel in a way no one else can. It was the loveliest sensation, a huge, exhilarating rush. For five long years she’d been searching for her place in a world that had been turned upside down. Now she’d finally found something important that she could do. These animals truly needed her.
    Laura moved up the aisle, stopping to pet a spaniel with a cast on its front leg, a poodle with a shaved butt that seemed otherwise fine, and a black Lab with a bandaged paw and what looked like a plastic lamp shade buckled around its neck. She would have visited each and every cage if not for the sudden appearance of a stout blonde at the end of the aisle. As Laura pushed to her feet, she took in the other woman’s shoulder-length hair, kindly blue eyes, and masculine features set in a square face.
    â€œYou Laura?” the woman asked, her tone clipped and unfriendly.
    â€œYes. I was just saying hello to the dogs.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t poke your hands through the wire until you’ve been briefed. You looking to get bitten?”
    Laura tucked the offending