Authors: Cathy Woodman
Tags: #Mystery & Detective, #Contemporary, #Fiction, #Romance, #Traditional British, #General
Must Be Love
CATHY
WOODMAN
Contents
Chapter One: It’s a Vet’s Life
Chapter Three: A Cold, Wet Nose
Chapter Five: Let Sleeping Vets Lie
Chapter Six: A Private Consultation
Chapter Seven: A Bird in the Hand
Chapter Eight: A Positive Diagnosis
Chapter Nine: Hold Your Horses
Chapter Eleven: The Cat’s Whiskers
Chapter Thirteen: The Duck Race
Chapter Fourteen: 101 Labradoodles
Chapter Sixteen: Love Is Blind
Chapter Seventeen: Confessions
Chapter Eighteen: Chicken Wrap
Chapter Twenty-one: Back to Black
Chapter Twenty-two: A Shot in the Dark
Chapter Twenty-three: A Double Dose
Chapter Twenty-four: Rising Damp
Chapter Twenty-five: Come Hell or High Water
Chapter Twenty-six: Vet Rescue
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN: 9781407059921
Published by Arrow Books 2010
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Copyright © Cathy Woodman, 2010
Cathy Woodman has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
First published in Great Britain in 2010 by Arrow Books Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 9780099543572
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Typeset by SX Composing DTP, Rayleigh, Essex Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Cox & Wyman, Reading RG1 8EX
Dedication to come
Must be Love
Cathy Woodman began her working life as a small-animal vet before turning to writing fiction. She won the Harry Bowling First Novel Award in 2002 and is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association. She is also a sessional lecturer in animal management at a local college for land-based industries.
Must Be Love
is the second book in the series, following
Trust Me, I’m a Vet
, based in the fictional market town of Talyton St George, in beautiful East Devon, where Cathy lived as a child. Cathy now lives with her husband, two children, two ponies, three exuberant Border terriers and two cats in a village near Winchester, Hampshire.
Also by Cathy Woodman
Trust Me, I’m a Vet
Chapter One
It’s a Vet’s Life
When I took the plunge and bought into the partnership in Otter House last year, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was taking on: a quiet country practice in the peaceful market town of Talyton St George. Moving to Devon from London, where I worked as a busy city vet, I was expecting something of a culture shock, but I was also looking forward to having time on my hands to get to know my lovely new clients and their pets, and generally living life at a more leisurely pace.
Gazing across Reception towards Frances, who’s behind the desk, which is covered with cards and gifts, I find myself smiling at how naive I was. Frances is looking fraught. Her wig – the almond-coloured one that reminds me of candyfloss twirled on a stick – has gone askew, revealing wisps of her scant grey hair.
She takes payment from Mrs Dyer, wife of the local butcher and one of our regulars, for a bag of prescription diet food and a Christmas-cracker toy, which squeaks when she passes it through the scanner. As it squeaks for a second time, Mrs Dyer’s enormous Great Dane (the Harlequin version, which looks as if someone’s taken a white dog and flicked black paint at it), who was trembling on the scales in the far corner of Reception, takes a flying leap towards the desk with Izzy on the end of his lead.
‘Brutus! No!’ Izzy’s eyes flash. The snowflakes on her hairband flash too, and something in the tone of her voice makes the dog stop in his tracks. Brutus might be a big dog – he’s so broad you could use him as a coffee table – but he’s no match for our nurse. He knows exactly who’s boss.
‘He thinks it’s a baby,’ Mrs Dyer announces to everyone else in the waiting area, whose pets have taken refuge on laps and under chairs. ‘He adores babies. He just wants to lick them to death.’
I notice how Lynsey Pitt – who’s brought Raffles, a small tan rescue dog short on legs and long on character, for a rather belated second vaccination – holds her baby daughter a little tighter as Brutus shakes his head, sending a glistening spatter of drool over Izzy’s navy scrubs, then pads meekly back to the scales.
Izzy persuades him back on with the aid of a healthy, low-cal treat while Diana, a white boxer with a big grin on her face, tries to join in. It’s no use Izzy scolding her, because she’s deaf and answers to hand signals – and that’s only when she feels like it.
An elderly woman I remember from the talk I gave to the WI back in November called ‘It’s a Vet’s Life’ struggles in through the double glass doors with a cat basket balanced on top of a shopping trolley, followed by a girl who can’t be older than twelve with a small box pierced with holes. Frances greets the woman with the cat and starts inputting her details onto the computer, the postman turns up with parcels to be signed for and the phone starts ringing. I answer it.
‘Otter House Vets’ – how I love saying that – ‘how can I help?’ Once I’ve ascertained from the panicking client that I have an emergency on my hands and she’s housebound, I arrange to visit. ‘I’ll be with you as soon as I can.’
Frances frowns as I put the phone down. I know what she’s getting at.
‘If you book anything else in, Maz,’ she says, surveying the packed waiting area, ‘we’ll all be here till Christmas.’
‘It is Christmas, Frances, pretty much.’ The day before Christmas Eve, anyway, I think, tearing my eyes from the hypnotic lime and yellow swirls on Frances’s top. Emma would prefer her to wear uniform, saying that the neo-hippy look doesn’t suit anyone, let alone someone in their late fifties like Frances, but I think she brightens the place up and provides a little light relief from the all-blue theme that runs through the practice: blue chairs, pale blue walls and blue-grey non-slip, easy-clean floors. It’s Emma’s choice – blue’s her favourite colour. ‘I’ve got to go. Will you let Emma know I’m on my way to Talyford?’ I won’t disturb her while she’s consulting.
‘Will do,’ Frances says.
I pick up the piece of paper on which I’ve scribbled down the address, grab my jacket and keys from the cloakroom and dash off with Frances’s voice ringing in my ears.
‘Maz, come back. Haven’t you forgotten something?’ I turn to find Frances holding out the visit case. ‘You’ll forget your head one of these days,’ she adds, with mock severity.
I fetch my car. It’s a sporty coupé which I’ve hardly used recently and the drive up to Talyford will do it good. That’s my excuse anyway – it’ll do me good too. I ought to change it for something more practical, but – not that I’m sentimental or anything – it feels like the last connection to my old life as a city vet, working in London.
While driving out of the car park at the side of Otter House, I glance back at the practice, a solid three-storey Georgian building rendered the colour of clotted cream. It has my name on it, along with Emma’s – my best friend for over fifteen years, and now my business partner – on a brass plaque outside. It’s like a dream, and if I wasn’t driving, I’d have to pinch myself. I still can’t believe my luck.
When Emma and I met over a dead greyhound at vet school, I hoped we might end up working together. I smile as I recall how one of our professors who thought himself a bit of a film buff referred to me as Gwyneth Paltrow on account of my blonde hair and Emma as Catherine Zeta-Jones.
I head out of Talyton St George, following the confusing one-way system, which has evolved because the streets aren’t wide enough to take two lanes of traffic. With the heater on full blast, I pass the butcher’s, where a queue of shoppers with coats and brollies stand under a striped awning to collect their pre-ordered turkeys and hams, before I emerge from Market Square, between Lacey’s Fine Wines and Lupins, the gift shop, and turn north on the road signposted to Talyford.