Page 12 of The Mistletoe Kisser

Sammy: Do NOT give them any ideas. They burned a house down in the last match.

Eva: Allegedly! ALLEGEDLY burned a house down. And that was an accident. Also, it totally worked out in the end. You’re welcome, Eden!

The Beautification Committee had—through accidental arson—managed to end a fifty-year feudandmatch Lunar Inn manager Eden with the next-door winery general manager Davis. The two were happily having sex everywhere and planning on building a house that would sit astride their respective property lines.

Eden: Hang on. Does this mean Christmas Eve Pajama Happy Hour is back on?

Layla: YES! I’ll bring a slightly nicer veggie tray purchased with my new gambling winnings. I’ve also been saving this bottle of moonshine I got from some crazy West Virginia town. Bootleg Straps? Springs?

Eden: You can count on Davis and me for the wine and the dogs as if you need more animals running around your place.

Eva: Donovan is working Christmas Eve and I can’t drink, but I’ll bring snacks and freezer bags for me to throw up in.

Sammy: Best Christmas Eve ever.

She meant it. She didn’t mind quiet holidays. She had good friends, great pets, and plenty of Christmas movies to keep her entertained in between naps and eating all of the cookie trays her clients insisted on giving her. It was a damn good life.

Sure, it would be nice to have someone around to swap stories of the day with in front of the fireplace with a tall glass of wine. Someone to have regular, awesome sex with. But where in the hell was she going to find a guy who didn’t mind sharing a half-renovated house with three weird cats and a significant other that ended every day smelling like a barnyard?

For now, she’d stick with the plan. Finish the damn wreaths. Get her damn farm fixed up. And officially start the damn rescue.

“Get back here, Horatio!”

Sammy jolted as a humongous, hairy, half-washed dog bolted into the breakroom.

Jonica, the long-legged vet tech, slid into the room in soaking wet scrubs. The reindeer antler headband on her Afro was crooked.

Horatio, ninety pounds of mischievous mutt, evaded his captor by ducking under the table.

“Express his anal glands and he’s fine, but try to give him a bath and he loses his damn mind!” Jonica complained as she crawled under the table.

A chair tumbled to the floor as the wrestling match ensued. Sammy was just getting ready to join the fray when a pissed off tomcat hissed in the doorway.

“How did Mufasa get out?” she yelped.

Horatio stopped squirming and made a mad dash for the evil cat.

Sammy did the only thing she could, executing a flying leap and tackling the dog one foot from the bad-tempered tiger cat.

The dog went pancake-flat under her and then wriggled around to give her face and hair a lick with his giant pink tongue. She swore he was laughing at her as the hissing cat wandered off.

“You big doofus,” she said, getting a firm grip on the dog’s collar.

“My hero,” Jonica said, shimmying out from under the table. Her antlers were around her neck.

“Just another day in veterinary medicine,” Sammy quipped.

“Dr. Ames?” Another tech poked her head in the door. “We’ve got something for you to see in exam room two.”

So much for closing on time. Sammy mentally pushed back her dreams of a shower by half an hour.

“What have we got?” she asked, dumping the remains of her lunch in the trash on the way to the door.

“It’s kind of better if you don’t know in advance.”

There was a crowd in front of the open door to room two. Delighted snickers carried over the yowl of overnight kitty guests and the incessant yapping of Mrs. Chu’s four-pound barking machine.

“What have we got?” Sammy asked, making a beeline for the hand-washing sink in the hallway and praying it wasn’t a serious emergency.