Free The Dragon Keeper by Mindy Mejía Page B

see me when you get back on shift.”
    “Why?”
    “I need some clarification on your paperwork.” He tapped a paper on the medical chart he was holding. She tried to see what he was pointing at, but the chart was above her line of sight. He smiled, following her gaze, and then strode out of the cafeteria without saying another word.
    “I like him,” her father said, watching Antonio leave.
    “Yeah, he’s great till he shoves a chip in your head.”
    “Hmm.” Her father piled his empty fry carton and drink container back on the tray and set it aside. “There’s something in the air between the two of you.”
    “Like hate?”
    “Like a spark, an attraction.”
    Meg choked on her last fry. She coughed and shook her head dumbly. Maybe the Irish whiskey was frying his head instead of his gut. One sappy family reunion under his belt, and he was some Cupid with a psychology degree.
    “Well, I should probably head off to the airport and let you get back to work.” He half stood and pulled a manila envelope out of his back pocket, sliding it across the table to her.
    “What’s that?”
    “It’s for you. I know you hate flying, so I thought this would be better.”
    She opened the seal and unfolded the papers inside: Two tickets on a cruise line, departing from New York to Dublin.
    “They’re flex vouchers. You can use them anytime in the next two years.” He closed a hand over hers and patted it gently. “Come visit your old man sometime, okay? You can bring anybody you like.”
    She flinched away and dropped the tickets on the table between them. “You always did bring gifts after being away. I guess things don’t really change.”
    For the first time all week, he looked old. The lines on his face tightened up, and his eyes went watery, then hard. Slowly, he nodded. “I always said we’d take a trip together, too. Do you remember? I planned a dozen, you know, but it never worked out with my schedule—or if it did, your mother refused to spare you from her dog shows.”
    He tucked the tickets back into the envelope, pushed them toward her, and squeezed her hand.
    “Come see me, Magpie, after you work out all this dragon stuff. We’ll finally have a proper vacation together.”
    There were other days, saner days, when she’d have happily kicked the old man’s ass back to Ireland for trying to pull off the father-of-the-year act this late in the game, but right now he looked weathered and defeated, like one of the animals on a slow death watch, and she just didn’t have it in her.
    “Think about it.” He pulled his jacket on and walked slowly out of the cafeteria, leaving the tickets and all the garbage from the food on the table in front of her. This was normal again, being alone; this was how she wanted her life to be. But still she sat in the empty room and looked out at the river valley, fighting the strangest urge to get up and follow him.
    ~
    “What do you want, Rodríguez?”
    She found him in one of the quarantine rooms on the safe side of the bars from a lioness lounging in a pile of hay. The animal was facing away from Antonio and flicking her tail once every few seconds, apparently pissed off at the accommodations.
    “I want her to get up and walk around a bit, so I can see how the foot is healing.”
    Meg pressed her forehead into the bars and spied a pink incision pointing down the pad of her back paw as Antonio made a note on the animal’s chart.
    “Domestic dispute?” she asked. Sometimes lions got touchy about the feeding order, but the males usually started all that shit.
    “Glass shard. Puncture wound went straight up, right between the toes.”
    “Bottle?”
    “Yep. One of the interns thinks Snapple.”
    “Bastards.”
    “Sometimes.” He flipped the chart closed and tossed it onto the chair. “We’ll have to keep her in isolation a week or so just to make sure she’s out of danger for infection. Poor girl.”
    He patted the bars and went back into the hallway, handing