Free Every Breath You Take by Judith McNaught Page A

euthanize Max to find out immediately if he had rabies,rather than wait out a ten-day quarantine period to see if Max developed symptoms.
    “If he shows any symptoms of rabies while he’s with you, I need to know about it immediately so that I can be treated. Agreed?”
    “Absolutely,” Kate said, and nodded for emphasis.
    “And you understand clearly what those symptoms are?”
    “I wrote them down right here,” Kate said, holding up the tablet.
    “If this dog were to disappear before ten days from now,” the doctor lectured, “I would have to undergo treatment for rabies, whether he actually has rabies or not.”
    Mitchell had heard enough about this highly unlikely eventuality that didn’t need to be addressed unless it became an unlikely reality. The dog had been so weak and disoriented that his bite had barely broken the physician’s skin, but the man had howled in pain and bandaged his arm as if a major artery had been severed. “We understand perfectly,” Mitchell said smoothly, and ushered the physician to the door. “We’ll keep him on a leash when he goes outside,” he added, and swept the door open.
    In the doorway, the doctor hesitated, and turned back around. “Do you
have
a leash?”
    “I’ll get one in the morning.”
    The man still balked. “You’ll do it
first thing
in the morning?”
    “At the crack of dawn,” Mitchell averred, and, putting his hand lightly on the other man’s elbow, he turned him around and propelled him unceremoniously out the door.
    Kate watched that maneuver from the other side of the room, amused and impressed by Mitchell’s blasé sangfroid and his swift efficiency in times of stress. Inthe few hours she’d known him, she’d criticized him soundly—and unjustly—for the Bloody Mary; dumped a drink on his shirt; reneged on the nice dinner she owed him; and involved him instead in a dramatic canine-rescue effort. He’d handled all of that imperturbably—and very, very graciously. An hour ago she’d imagined he might be a murderer; now she regarded him as a friend and ally.
    Kate’s cordial feelings for him were evident in her warm smile as she said, “I still owe you dinner. I could call room service and we could eat out on the terrace, if you like.” Since Evan planned to arrive the next evening, Kate suggested the only other alternative she could offer. “Or would you rather forget about dinner and let me pay for your shirt instead?” She wondered if Mitchell would notice that she’d limited him to only those two choices, but his reaction was so nonchalant that she decided he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
    “Dinner here will be fine,” Mitchell replied. “You owe me a meal,” he added mildly, “and I always collect on debts that are owed to me.” She was obviously expecting a boyfriend to arrive the next day, he realized, or else she’d have offered an explanation for not being able to have dinner with him some other night.
    Kate folded her arms loosely across her chest and regarded him with amusement. “Do you really?”
    “Always,” he replied, reaching for the
Hotel Services
folder on the desk.
    “Then how much do I owe you for the physician and ambulance?”
    “Nothing,” Mitchell said, flipping to the Room Service section of the handbook.
    “Didn’t you offer them money so that they’d agree to come out here and treat a dog?”
    “I appealed to their humane instincts.”
    “I see,” Kate replied, pretending she believed hisstory. “And is that why they got here so fast, too? I mean, they were here less than ten minutes after you walked into the lobby.”
    Mitchell glanced at her from the corner of his eye. She was watching him with a knowing little smile, and he had a sudden, impossibly premature impulse to wrap her in his arms and cover that tantalizing mouth with his. That thought made a smile tug at the corner of his own lips as he shrugged and said, “They got here quickly because it’s a very small