Page 18 of Curious Hearts (The Healing Hearts #2)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the kitchen, Jessica tried to shrug off a wave of self-consciousness as Ali watched her slide the lasagna into the oven before turning her attention to the salad dressing.

Ali leaned against the counter, watching with interest. “You’re good at this,” she observed. “The cooking, I mean.”

“My grandmother taught me,” Jessica said, drizzling olive oil-based dressing over the greens. “She believed everyone should know how to make at least three meals well enough to serve company.”

“What are your three?”

“This lasagna isn’t one of them.” She gave an awkward laugh. “A curry that my mother usually claims I add too much spice to, but my father loves. Sarson Ka Saag, sort of a winter casserole. And...” Jessica hesitated. “A chocolate soufflé that I haven’t attempted in years.”

“Soufflé? That’s advanced level.”

“Grandmother had high standards.” Jessica smiled at the memory. “What about you? What’s your cooking specialty?”

“Pretty bold of you to assume I have one,” Ali laughed. “But I make a decent chili. And pancakes. I’ve perfected the art of the Sunday morning pancake. Just ask Chairman Meow. He gets the edges.”

The image of lazy Sunday mornings, Ali in pajamas flipping pancakes with a cat waiting expectantly nearby, settled in Jessica’s mind with an unexpected ache of longing. How long had it been since she’d experienced a truly relaxed weekend morning?

“A cat who eats pancakes?”

“Chairman Meow is a food enthusiast with diverse tastes. I once caught him stealing olives from my martini glass. He’d fish them out with his paw, so precisely that he barely disturbed the liquid. Now I have to count my olives before I turn my back.”

Jessica tried to picture the dignified one-eyed cat she’d met, delicately fishing olives from a martini glass, and found herself laughing. “A cat with expensive taste. I wouldn’t have taken you for a martini drinker.”

“Only on special occasions,” Ali shrugged with a half-smile. “A result of my parents’ cocktail parties.”

Jessica raised her eyebrows. “Well, we all have our vices.”

“What’s yours?” Ali asked, the question casual but her tone made it feel weighted.

Jessica considered this while washing her hands. “Dark chocolate. Specifically, these ridiculously expensive truffles from a shop in Paris that I have shipped whenever I need fortification.”

“Fancy. My other vice is those cheap frosted animal cookies. You know, the pink and white ones with sprinkles? I keep them in my desk drawer for emergencies.”

“What constitutes a cookie emergency?”

“Difficult clients. Grant rejection letters. Tuesdays.”

“Tuesdays?”

“They’re inherently suspicious,” Ali said with mock seriousness. “Monday, you expect to be terrible. Wednesday is halfway to the weekend. Thursday is almost Friday. Friday is Friday. But Tuesday? Tuesday pretends to be just another day, but it’s secretly plotting against you.”

Jessica found herself smiling. This was the effect Ali had on her, making the ordinary seem entertaining, finding humor in the mundane. God, she was beginning to love those little moments… She stopped herself, suddenly aware of the way she was almost swooning over everything that Ali said.

As they sat at the table with wine and lasagna, easy conversation flowed and Jessica found herself relaxing, drawn out by Ali’s genuine interest.

Their eyes met, and Jessica felt an unexpected connection spark between them. Ali’s gaze lingered, her expression warming slightly, making Jessica acutely aware of the limited distance between them.

“Have you always worked with animals?” Jessica asked, genuinely curious.

Ali nodded. “Graduated from Colorado State with a Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine and went on to become a board-certified veterinary neurologist.”

She paused, as if considering how much to share. “After I burned out in vet practice—and we’re talking spectacular flameout, not just being run-down—I basically retreated to lick my wounds.”

“Burned out?” Jessica asked, her forehead creasing with concern.

“Yeah... it happens more than you’d think.

The constant emotional roller coaster takes a toll.

” Ali shifted uncomfortably. “It’s the combination of everything—the crushing student debt while earning less than people expect, then there’s the heartbreak of having to euthanize animals that could be saved if their owners could afford care.

.. in the last few months there wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t have to put down perfectly treatable animals. ”

Jessica watched Ali intently, seeing the passion and pain intertwined in her expression.

“You try to do as much work as you can for free but that’s not sustainable.

And when you’re working eighty-hour weeks because three colleagues left and weren’t replaced, and then your girlfriend leaves you because she’s sick of never seeing you.

.. accusing you of loving animals more than her, well, your world collapses and something breaks. ”

Girlfriend . Jessica registered the word with a small internal jolt.

So Ali did date women. She had teased Jessica before, when she said it was a shame she wasn’t hitting on her, but she’d wondered if that was all it was.

Teasing. A small flash of inappropriate elation burst into her chest before she quickly dampened it down.

Ali was being so open about what must have been the most difficult period of her life, Jessica reminded herself sternly, the fact she was into women was not what was important here.

Refocusing, she looked into those deep blue eyes brimming with sincerity and listened.

“I literally couldn’t function any longer, couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed, just the thought of my feet hitting the floor had me weeping uncontrollably.

” Ali looked up and met her gaze, then seemed to become aware of how much of herself she was sharing.

“You don’t want to know all this,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“So you moved into animal behavior?” Jessica asked gently, hoping to put her at ease.

“Yeah. I still wanted to work with animals, and I thought if I can’t heal them physically then maybe…

” Ali paused and blew away a few strands of dark hair that flopped over her eyes.

“I had to start over. Three more years of specialized training, a new residency program, case logs that took over my bedroom for months, and I worked my ass off doing three jobs to try to keep ahead of the bills.”

Jessica found herself impressed by Ali’s resilience, the quiet determination that had rebuilt her life after collapse.

“But somewhere in that chaos, I found myself healing alongside these animals. This massive pit bull mix with that silvery-gray color that looks almost blue in the right light? Sweetest guy, looked like he could eat you but really just wanted belly rubs—anyway, he fell asleep with his head in my lap during an assessment, and as I stroked his head, I realized I was breathing regularly for the first time in months. That’s when I knew that if these creatures could heal someone as stubbornly broken as me, imagine what they could do for others. ”

Jessica nodded slowly, processing this information.

“So I started Healing Paws. Not because I’m some visionary, but because I needed it. And it turns out, a whole lot of other people needed it too. The animals needed homes, people needed healing, and somehow putting those two broken pieces together makes something whole, new.”

Ali went through hell and came out softer—not harder. That’s grit. “Have you ever regretted it?” she asked quietly.

“Never once. But my mom...” Ali grimaced. “Well, she keeps telling everyone I was a ‘real vet’ once. They’ve mostly made peace with it, but my dad didn’t say much. I always get a sense he was disappointed in the changes I made.”

Jessica’s lips quirked upward in understanding. “My mother does something similar. ‘This is Jessica, she could have been a surgeon like her father, but she chose finance.’” She delivered the last word with a perfect imitation of subtle maternal disappointment with the vaguest hint of an accent.

“Parents,” Ali laughed. “They really know how to twist the knife, don’t they?”

“Mine are professionals at it,” Jessica agreed, a rare warmth entering her voice. “Family dinners are an Olympic sport in the Taylor-Mehta household. Gold medals awarded for most impressive accomplishments and subtle put-downs.”

“Taylor-Mehta? But you only use the Taylor name?”

“My mother is Dr. Lakshmi Mehta-Taylor. She never fully took my father’s name, to maintain her professional identity. She’s a cardiologist.” Jessica said this matter-of-factly, but with the familiar resigned edge in her tone.

“And your dad?”

“Dr. James Taylor, neurosurgeon.” Jessica’s mouth formed a wry smile. “As you can imagine, they had very specific ideas about acceptable career paths.”

“But yet you went into finance,” Ali pointed out. “That took courage.”

Jessica felt startled, having never considered her career choice an act of rebellion. “It was a compromise. Not medicine, but still respectable enough.”

“Still, you’re doing it your way,” Ali said. “The sustainable investing focus, that’s your passion, not just what your parents expected.”

“I suppose.” Jessica felt uncomfortable with this characterization. Ali had a way of noticing things she’d never usually discuss.

They finished cleaning up and moved to the living room, where the cats had already claimed various perches on the new shelves.

Mr. Darcy occupied the highest position, surveying his domain with regal satisfaction.

Ernest had settled on a middle shelf, his massive form taking up the entire surface.

Even Scout had ventured onto a lower shelf, though she remained less relaxed than her companions, still alert for any sudden movements.