Free The Room with the Second-Best View by Virginia Smith Page A

they’d played a part in the engagement. One reason why Susan was determined to keep the ceremony private. If she invited half the town, the other half would feel slighted. Best to invite no one at all rather than try to appease several hundred small-town egos.
    â€œHow exciting.” Jeannie grinned. “The big day will be here before you know it.”
    As she turned to go, Susan’s heart executed a crazy flutter. In twenty-eight days she would become Justin’s wife. Susan Hinkle. Susan Jeffries Hinkle. Doctor Susan Hinkle. A notebook on her bedside table at home contained a few dozen practice signatures, but the one she’d scrawled most often, the one she preferred, was Mrs. Justin Hinkle.
    With a farewell wave for Jeannie, Susan picked up the chart of the patient waiting in Exam Room One.
    Alice rose from her chair. “Did she say Room Two needs cleaning?”
    â€œIf you don’t mind.” Susan couldn’t stop a hint of apology from creeping into her tone. One of the most difficult things she’d had to learn about running a business was to delegate, especially the less pleasant tasks. She’d much rather do everything herself rather than have Alice or Millie feel that they were being taken advantage of. But she’d learned the hard way that one person could not run an animal clinic. Not efficiently, anyway.
    â€œOf course not.” Alice stood, and directed a stern comment toward her sons. “I’ll be right back. Don’t move.”
    The two spoke without looking up from their activities.
    â€œâ€™K, Mom.”
    â€œWe won’t.”
    When Alice disappeared through the door to the right of the reception area, Susan spoke to the women in the Kuddly Kitties section. “Sorry for your wait. We’ll be right with you.”
    Both ladies assured her they had not been waiting long and returned to their conversation. Turning to go, Susan hesitated a moment before approaching the boys in the other waiting room.
    â€œYou two are being really quiet. Thank you.”
    They twisted toward her and turned nearly identical gazes her way. The two could have been twins, though eleven-year-old Forest stood a few inches taller than Heath, the younger by a year. Both sported full heads of thick, unruly locks several shades darker than their mother’s and a smattering of freckles across pert noses.
    â€œMom said if we bother you we’re grounded from TV for a month,” Forest informed her.
    Heath added, “And we’ll get a whupping too.”
    Forest regarded his brother. “Losing TV’s worse ’cause it lasts longer.”
    â€œYeah,” his brother agreed. “’Sides, Mom’s whuppings ain’t bad unless she gets the big spoon.”
    Susan cleared her throat. She had never received a spanking as a child since Daddy did not believe in corporal punishment. But she’d been a calm, obedient girl. Poor Alice had her hands full raising five children on her own. What had happened to these boys’ father? Alice had never said, and Susan didn’t want to be a prying boss.
    â€œWhat are you doing there, Heath?” She nodded toward the electronic tablet.
    â€œKilling zombies.” He glanced at the device and then threw his head back and let out an anguished cry. “Noooo! The zombies ate my brains while I wasn’t looking.”
    Stomach slightly queasy, Susan turned to Forest. “And what are you drawing?” Hopefully something besides zombies.
    â€œA horse.” He held it aloft. “Only it looks more like a dog. I can’t get the legs right.”
    Susan made a show of inspecting the drawing. “I think it looks pretty good.”
    â€œNah, it’s stupid.” The boy’s shoulders slumped. “And I don’t got no more paper.” He raised wide hazel eyes to hers. “Could I get some from the printer stand over there so’s I can try again?”
    If it would