Free Angel at Troublesome Creek by Mignon F. Ballard

somebody over there from time to time.”
    “Maybe Delia Sims was a little jealous,” Fronie said in what I’m sure was meant to be a teasing voice. “You know there was a little conflict there.”
    “No, I didn’t know,” I said.
    Fronie frowned. “Never did learn what it was. Tempie and I came here soon after we married, you know, and I’ve never heard anyone mention it, but there was a strain between those two.”
    And there’s a strain on your brain , I thought as I closed the door behind her. My aunt and Delia Sims had been good friends as long as I could remember. If there had been a problem between them, Aunt Caroline would have told me. Wouldn’t she?
     
     
    With Hairy curled on the rug by my bed, I slept well that night for the first time since Aunt Caroline died. But each time the phone rang I had to force myself to answer, dreading to hear Todd Burkholder’s voice on the other end of the line. To be honest, a secret part of me gloated at the delicious justice of rejecting him, but Todd’s rekindled interest annoyed me and I didn’t have the time or the patience to deal with it. Thank goodness he hadn’t called again since that first night, and I hoped he had gotten the message. I almost put him out of my mind.
    Until the next day.
    We had a waiting room full of sick animals and a terrified cat crying to get out of her carrier. Earlier, a boxer had escaped from his owner and cornered a whimpering Chihuahua behind the settee.
    When the phone rang for the third time in five minutes, I tried not to sound impatient. “Animal clinic.”
    “Mary George? Don’t you dare hang up on me. We’re going to talk.”
    “No, we’re not. Where did you get my number?”
    “That woman who lived across from you. What’s her name? Valerie. Said you’d moved back home and were working for a vet. Duh, Mary George, this was the only one in the phone book!”
    I remembered chatting briefly with my neighbor when I went back to Charlotte to close my apartment and collect the rest of my belongings. Naturally it didn’t occur to me that Todd the totally odd would come sniffing along behind me.
    “I mean it, Todd. Don’t call me here, or anywhere else, again!”
    And he didn’t—for a couple of hours at least. By the end of the afternoon we had worked our way to the last three patients—a cat with a kidney infection and two dogs waiting for microchip implants.
    The electronic identification chip is a new method for keeping track of animals. It’s about the size of a grain of rice and is inserted into the pet’s skin with a large needle. I had Doc Nichols implant one in Hairy Brown before I took him home. Now if he ever gets lost and turns up at an animal shelter, the microchip will cause a scanner to beep and display his identification number. Unlike a dog tag, the chip is supposed to last a lifetime and can’t fall off. At the clinic we’ve inserted one or two a day since the technique became available, and although it only takes a few minutes, it had been a busy day, and all of us were ready to go home.
    I was reviewing the next day’s appointments and wondering how we could possibly fit them all in when the telephone rang again. Oh, please! I thought. Don’t let it be an emergency! Doc Nichols was just finishing the last implant.
    “I’ll see you after work,” Todd said. “Your place. Be there.”
    “You’re hallucinating, Todd. Have you been eating funny mushrooms?”
    “I’m serious, Mary George. I made a big mistake when I broke off with you, but I won’t make it again. I’m not letting you go.”
    “Excuse me,” I said. “I think you’d better take a reality pill. Take a whole bottle of them!” And I slammed the receiver back in place. There was something in his voice that made me want to wrap myself in a blanket and hide.
    About that time Doc came out of the examining room and threw his green smock into the laundry bin. He took one look at my face. “What’s wrong, Sport? You’re