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“Fine, I’ll come for dinner tomorrow, but, if he’s pissed off that I’m there,” she added, “I won’t be back. I don’t want to cause trouble for our working relationship.”

“No, it won’t cause trouble at all. You’re trying to raise money to help him set up his rescue. We’re all trying to help him get this animal shelter off the ground,” Kat noted. “He’s just a loner and was thinking he would do it all himself.”

“Which he wanted to do,” Tiffany pointed out, “and I’m certainly not trying to take that away from him.”

“No, and doing it all by himself is one thing, but doing it all by himself when there’s the potential to have Max Killerman lurking around is a whole different story.”

“True, I haven’t met him, but honest to God he sounds horrible.” Then she stopped and frowned, thinking about the weird sensation of being watched last night.

“What’s the matter?” Kat asked.

“I’m pretty sure it’s just because of the whole weirdness going on at his place, but I got a sensation of being watched last night,” she admitted, again looking around.

“I couldn’t shake it, and it was so bizarre.

It’s not like me to get nervous or spun up, but the dogs were racing to get back home again, and I thought that was really strange. ”

“This was at your home?” Kat asked cautiously, but her gaze was intent.

“Yeah, at my house, which is nothing to write home about, but is home and normally feels safe,” Tiffany added. “But last night? Not so much.”

“Good enough,” Kat noted. “As always, just keep yourself aware, and stay safe. Hopefully it was nothing.”

“ Yeah ,” Tiffany muttered, unconvinced. “Hopefully it was nothing.” Then she frowned at Kat and asked, “But you don’t believe that, do you?”

Kat shook her head. “And you don’t either.”

“One of the things I have cultivated as a vet is understanding what patients are trying to tell me, but not just patients, what their owners are trying to tell me—or trying not to tell me too. So I pick up innuendos and coverups very easily.”

Kat smiled, a brilliant, brilliant smile.

Tiffany sighed. “No wonder Badger is all over you,” she said, with a hard look at her friend. “That smile of yours is enough to knock anybody sideways.”

Kat started to laugh. “It’s not intended to knock anybody sideways,” she stated. “But the fact that you are comfortable enough, happy enough, or confident enough to stand up to me about it is a really good thing.”

“If you say so,” Tiffany muttered, “but I still think you are procrastinating. Or you’re trying to get out of something.”

“I’m not trying to get out of anything,” Kat declared, “but I will mention to the men that you felt somebody was watching you.”

“I don’t think it’s important though,” she protested. “Why would you tell them?”

“Because I don’t want anything overlooked with Max on the loose. If he’s bad news, and if he’s hanging around, then we need to have a good idea what he’s hanging around for. If he’s not bad news, then it doesn’t really matter.”

Tiffany frowned at that. “But you do think it’s an issue.”

“I don’t know whether it’s an issue or not,” Kat noted, “but I’m not willing for it to become one. So I will be telling the men, and, if they aren’t worried, we’ll let it be.”

“What if they are worried?” Tiffany asked.

Kat raised one eyebrow. “If they are worried, then they’ll need to do something about it.”

“I don’t want anybody coming here and feeling as if they need to look after me,” Tiffany protested.

“ Right, of course not ,” Kat quipped. “ Makes no sense at all, right? I mean,… you want to confirm Timber’s looked after, but he’s not allowed to confirm you’re looked after?”

Tiffany blinked in confusion and muttered, “I feel as if you just set me up with that.”

She burst out laughing. “It’s not that I set you up, but I certainly left it open for you, and you did not disappoint.”

“Yeah, definitely a setup,” Tiffany muttered. “I don’t know how you get away with that stuff.”

“Oh, I’m good,” Kat stated. “And, just like you, I also have to interpret what people say, versus what they’re really trying to say.

A lot of the men who come to my office are not in any shape—or with any awareness to be perfectly honest—because they no longer know who they are.

They just see what their physical body has become, and they assume that’s who they are now, and it’s not even close. ”

“No, it isn’t,” Tiffany declared in agreement.

“I can’t imagine what the loss of a limb would be like, and I realize I probably sounded cavalier before, and I apologize.

I deal with animals losing a leg all the time, and they have such an interesting way of healing and adapting, and they do it so naturally.

Yet people?” she noted, with a huff. “I think that would be a whole different kettle of fish.”

“It absolutely is, and, in many ways, it’s not something easily definable either.

People are”—Kat shrugged, then smiled—“they’re just people.

It’s complicated and yet, at the heart of it, so very simple.

They just want love. They want to live a good life.

They want to live it with people who care, and they want to leave behind a legacy that they are proud of.

So really, it’s not hard at all.” And, with that, Kat announced, “So I’ll see you tomorrow night then.

I’ll do that delivery run right now, and then I will come back tomorrow night. ”

And, with that, she was gone.