Dr. Horatio vs. the Six-Toed Cat Read online

  Books by Virginia Smith

  TALES FROM THE GOOSE CREEK B & B

  Dr. Horatio vs. the Six-Toed Cat (prequel)

  BOOK 1 — The Most Famous Illegal Goose Creek Parade

  Books by Lori Copeland and Virginia Smith

  THE AMISH OF APPLE GROVE

  “A Home in the West” (free short story e-romance prequel)

  BOOK 1 — The Heart’s Frontier

  BOOK 2 — A Plain and Simple Heart

  BOOK 3 — A Cowboy at Heart

  SEATTLE BRIDES

  BOOK 1 — A Bride for Noah

  BOOK 2 — Rainy Day Dreams

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  Published in association with the Books & Such Management, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409-5370, www.booksandsuch.com.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover by Garborg Design Works, Savage, Minnesota

  DR. HORATIO VS. THE SIX-TOED CAT

  Copyright © 2015 Virginia Smith

  Published by Harvest House Publishers

  Eugene, Oregon 97402

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  ISBN 978-0-7369-6483-8 (eBook)

  All rights reserved. No part of this electronic publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, digital, photocopy, recording, or any other—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The authorized purchaser has been granted a nontransferable, nonexclusive, and noncommercial right to access and view this electronic publication, and purchaser agrees to do so only in accordance with the terms of use under which it was purchased or transmitted. Participation in or encouragement of piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of author’s and publisher’s rights is strictly prohibited.

  Contents

  Books by Virgina Smith

  Chapter One

  Miss Ernie’s Cinnamon Roasted Pecans

  Brown Butter

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Epilogue

  Welcome to Goose Creek!

  Read More from Virginia Smith

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Chapter One

  Well, isn’t that the durndist thing?” Doctor Horatio Forsythe lowered his glasses from their perch on top of his balding head and settled them on his nose for a closer look. “And they’re all like this?”

  Julia Belchwater nodded, lifted a squirming kitten from the basket, and handed it to him. “Every one, the poor dears.” She placed a chocolate-brown finger beneath a miniature arm and splayed the tiny paws. “Six toes in front and five in the back.”

  Doc ran a gentle fingertip over the diminutive creature resting in the palm of his hand, noting the soft bones of the spine, the placement of ribs no wider than toothpicks. The kitten raised a wobbly head and voiced a feeble mewl of protest. The new mother, installed in the basket Julia had carried into the Goose Creek Animal Clinic, extended a nose toward her baby and then glanced upward as if to say, “You be careful with him, Doc.”

  “Don’t worry, Momma.” Doc returned the kitten to her side. “I won’t hurt your little one.”

  Belinda, a fine-looking blue-black feline and first-time mom, began applying her rough tongue to the protesting newborn as though to remove any residual human scent from the squirming body.

  The worry lines between Julia’s eyes deepened as she picked up another baby. “Belinda’s favorite place to sleep is on top of that big old giant television set George won’t let me get rid of, the tightfisted old miser. You don’t think there’s microwaves or electrons or something like that soaking into her body and affecting the kitties?”

  Doc laughed, partly at her expression and partly at the idea of what Julia would do to poor George if his refusal to upgrade his TV resulted in her beloved cat giving birth to deformed offspring. “These kittens look as healthy as can be.”

  “But all those toes! It ain’t natural. Poor things look like they ought to be in a circus sideshow.”

  She extended the kitten in her hand as proof. Doc touched each tiny digit, his finger lingering on the sixth. The extra toe on the kitten he’d inspected a minute before had looked like an afterthought, almost a growth tucked between what would normally be the fourth digit and the dewclaw. This one, though, was fully developed, and the dewclaw oversized, giving it the appearance of an opposable thumb.

  The baby issued a loud, trumpetlike squeak as if in protest to its lengthy absence from the nest.

  “They’re not deformed.” He rubbed the tiny head and gestured for her to return the kitten to his mother’s side. “Belinda has given birth to a litter of polydactyl cats.”

  The lines on Julia’s face deepened even further. “Sounds like some kind of dinosaur.”

  “Just means they have six toes. It’s not common, but it isn’t unheard-of either. The story goes that Ernest Hemingway received one as a gift from a sea captain, and the genetic trait spread from there.” He leaned against the counter in the small examining room and plucked the pen out of his lab coat pocket to fiddle with. “Who’s the proud papa?”

  “Don’t know. Belinda doesn’t like to go out.” Her features settled into a scowl. “But when she turned up in the family way, George admitted that a couple of times he left the back door propped open while he was working in the yard. Some sneaky tomcat musta come visiting while his back was turned. That sly boots better not come around while I’m on the watch. I’ll give him what-for with the business end of a broom.”

  Judging by her threatening tone, Doc spared a sympathetic thought for the poor feline who was, after all, only doing what came naturally for unneutered males.

  The door burst open and a diminutive silver-haired woman entered the exam room. Startled, Doc stared at her.

  “There you are, Horatio.” She turned a smile on his customer. “Hello, Julia.”

  Julia broke into a wide smile. “Miss Ernie, I haven’t seen you in an age. You’re looking fit.”

  Though officially named Ernestine Clemmons Forsythe, the entire town knew this petite powerhouse as Miss Ernie. Everyone except Doc, that is. He called her Mother.

  “Thank you.” She gave a regal nod. “You too. Red is definitely your color. How’s George doing?”

  Julia scowled. “Ornery as ever.”

  “Mother,” Doc interrupted, “what are you doing here?”

  “I have something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

  “Excuse me a minute.” With an apologetic glance at Julia, he rounded the exam table and escorted his mother gently but firmly from the room. In the narrow hallway he gave her a stern look. “Mother, I’m working. You can’t simply barge in and interrupt an exam.”

  She waved a dismissive hand toward the closed door. “Julia won’t care.”

  He fought a wave of irritation. “That’s not the point.”

  “Well, if you’d ever come to see me I could talk to you then. But it seems you don’t have time for your aging mother.” She gave an offended sniff and managed to look frail.

  Doc didn’t buy it. Mother might be eighty-three, but she was strong as a horse and an expert guilt-inflictor. “I’ve dropped by several times, but you’re either not there or you’re conducting a meeting of some sort.”

  Now she looked pe
eved, her lips pursed into a tight bow. “The Fall Festival doesn’t plan itself, you know. Summer is my busiest time of the year.”

  He swallowed a frustrated sigh. “I’ve got to get back to work. Can I come by the house later to discuss whatever it is?”

  She gave a prim nod. “I have a meeting at seven. Come before then.”

  “Fine. Goodbye, Mother.”

  He pressed a kiss on her cheek and watched her exit through the swinging door to the reception area before returning to work.

  Millie Richardson, morning receptionist at the animal clinic, eyed the desk and slid the appointment calendar slightly to the right so it was perfectly centered. Lizzie Forsythe, Doc’s wife, served as the clinic’s afternoon receptionist, and she was notorious for rearranging anything Millie set in place. Paper clips, notepads, the dog cookie jar—their placement was always slightly different in the morning. Millie had long suspected she did it in order to mark her territory, though that made no sense since hiring a morning receptionist three years ago had been her idea.

  The door behind Millie swung open and Miss Ernie swept through. Judging by her sour expression, her conversation didn’t go as planned.

  “Is everything okay?” Millie asked.

  “He said he was too busy to talk.” The elderly lady aimed a scowl at the wall, beyond which lay exam room one. Then her features softened. “It’s not his fault. Everyone is busy these days. I’ve been meaning to talk to him for several months now, but seems there’s never any time.”

  Millie nodded sympathetically. “Organizing Goose Creek’s Fall Festival is quite a job.”

  “It certainly is,” Miss Ernie agreed. Then her eyes twinkled. “But I’ve had a tremendous helper this year. Alison is a hard worker, and quite the organizer.”

  Millie couldn’t help preening at the compliment. Her twenty-two-year-old daughter, Alison, volunteered to help with the festival this summer since she had not yet found a job after graduating from college in May. Of course, her father complained loudly that she was spending far too much time doing free work instead of job hunting.

  Miss Ernie opened the front door and a fresh fall breeze entered the animal clinic. “I hope you have a good evening, dear.”

  A secretive smile hovered around the edges of those sharp eyes. Millie’s mother-radar went on instant alert. Over breakfast this morning Alison had announced that she wanted to discuss a serious matter with her parents at supper. Had she confided the topic of that discussion to Miss Ernie?

  Never one to beat around the bush, Millie took the direct approach. “Do you know what Alison wants to talk with us about?”

  Again, that taciturn smile. “Just keep an open mind, darlin’. She’s got a good head on her shoulders.”

  With that unenlightening comment, Miss Ernie made her exit. Millie snatched up the phone and speed-dialed a number.

  “Al Richardson,” said the familiar, beloved voice of her husband.

  “Albert,” she hissed. “She told Miss Ernie.”

  A loud sigh sounded through the receiver, one she recognized as Albert’s attempt to exercise patience before speaking. After thirty-two years of marriage there were very few of Albert’s moods that she couldn’t gauge simply by hearing him breathe.

  Remorse struck her. “You’re busy. I’m sorry.”

  A few moments ago she had been irritated when Miss Ernie marched past her desk to interrupt Doc’s work, and here she’d done the same thing.

  “I’m in the middle of a program, but it’s okay.” Albert worked as a computer analyst for a corporation in Lexington, forty minutes from Goose Creek. “By she I assume you mean Alison. What did she tell Miss Ernie?”

  “Whatever she’s going to tell us tonight.”

  The answer was delivered in an almost-patient tone. “And why is that important?”

  Millie held the phone away from her ear to settle an incredulous stare on it. Honestly! For an intelligent man, Albert could be so obtuse at times. She returned the phone to her ear and explained.

  “Because she told her first.” Millie’s cheeks warmed. Speaking the words aloud sounded so…middle-schoolish.

  But Albert did understand. “I know you want to be Alison’s confidante. You’re her mother. But she’s always had a special relationship with Miss Ernie. And they’ve spent so much time together recently it’s natural she’d talk about whatever’s on her mind.”

  “I know.” Now it was her turn to sigh. “But obviously tonight’s announcement is about something important. She seemed so mysterious this morning.”

  “Well, I hope she’s found a job.” A grumble sounded in his voice. “She’s been out of school for three months. About time that girl started paying her own way.”

  Millie shook her head, smiling. He could grouse all he wanted, but the whole family knew Alison held a special place in her daddy’s heart. The boys—men, she amended, because her married twenty-eight-year-old twins could no longer be called boys—didn’t mind. From their first introduction to their tiny sister, they’d fallen in love with her too. She’d instantly become the darling of the family, and had never yielded the position.

  In truth, Millie expected the announcement to be about a job. Either that, or perhaps Alison had decided to go to graduate school. She’d mentioned getting her master’s degree a few times during her senior year, though Millie hadn’t heard any comments about it over the summer.

  The clinic door swung open. Doc leaned out to hold it open for Julia, who emerged carrying her basket of newborn kittens.

  “Gotta run,” Millie said into the phone. “Love you.”

  She ended the call and pulled the computer keyboard toward her to key in Julia’s receipt.

  The surface of Miss Ernie’s dining room table could not be seen. Alison, holding a check for one hundred dollars, scanned a profusion of documents. Where were the approved food vendor applications? No doubt some sort of order existed, because when it came to the Goose Creek Fall Festival Miss Ernie was nothing if not organized. But the finer points of the elderly lady’s filing system were evident only to her.

  She directed a comment toward the kitchen. “I don’t see them.”

  The answer echoed from the other room in a voice infused with equal parts age and Kentucky twang. “Left center. Third pile from the edge.”

  “Pile?” Regarding the mishmash of paper with a skeptical eye she muttered under her breath, “There are piles here?”

  “Don’t be smart, young lady!”

  Alison cast a quick glance toward the doorway. Miss Ernie’s hearing was as sharp as it had been more than a decade ago when she’d taught Alison’s Sunday school class at Woodview Community Church.

  Now that she looked closer, Alison detected a messy order amid the chaos. Third from the left? Ah. There it was. She snatched up a disheveled stack of documents and leafed through them until she found the application for Korie’s Kettle Korn. Whipping a red Sharpie from its perch on her ear, she wrote Paid by Check #1327 on the top of the document and shuffled the pile into a semblance of order before returning it to the table. A little straightening wouldn’t hurt. She reached for the next stack—

  “Don’t touch a thing!” The command was issued with a note of authority that instantly reverted Alison to a guilty seven-year-old caught sticking gum under the church pew.

  She jerked upright and whipped her hands behind her back. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Thus chastised, she returned to the kitchen and placed the check in a metal cash box on the counter.

  Miss Ernie sat behind another cluttered table like a queen reigning over her castle. Wielding her letter opener like a scepter, she applied it to an envelope and awarded Alison a smile. “I’ve been coordinating the festival since before you were a twinkle in your daddy’s eye, darlin’. I know the location of every scrap of paper. Food vendors in the dining room. Demonstrations in the study. Arts and crafts in the living room. And children’s activities right over there.”

  She pointed with the
letter opener toward the kitchen counter, which to Alison’s eye looked even less organized than the mess on the dining table.

  “If you say so.” She eyed the chaos with doubt.

  “I do.” The old lady gave a decisive nod as she sliced into another envelope and pulled out another check. “Oh dear, he made the deadline. I was hoping he wouldn’t.”

  Alison took the check and noted the return address. “I love Nuts over Nuts! That man is here every year. The festival wouldn’t be the same without his roasted pecans.”

  “It’s that balloon.” The pronouncement, issued through tightly thinned lips, dared her to disagree. “He always demands to have his booth in the exact center of everything, and then he inflates that ridiculous balloon creature. Whoever heard of an inflatable pecan? It hovers over the festival like a vulture.”

  “Petey the Pecan?” The mental image of the silly character standing sentinel above a sea of white canopies along either side of Goose Creek’s Main Street brought a smile to Alison’s face. “He’s an icon. A festival without him would be like the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade without Snoopy.”

  “This festival is not defined by a giant nut in yellow shorts.” Miss Ernie’s lips tightened further. “And besides, the man’s prices are outrageous and three years ago his pecans were stale. I had several complaints.” She sniffed, and then gave a conspiratorial smile. “My cinnamon roasted pecans are better than his any old day of the week. I have a secret ingredient.”

  Alison shook her head and headed for the dining room, check in hand. When her beloved Granny passed away ten years ago, the blow had been almost more than a twelve-year-old could stand. Miss Ernie had known that Alison needed someone special, a relationship she didn’t share with her brothers or parents or anyone else. Quietly and smoothly, she stepped into the gap.

  A wave of sadness hit Alison, so strong her step faltered and she caught herself on the edge of the messy dining room table. How she would miss Miss Ernie when she left. What if the worst happened while she was gone? Though the elderly lady was as strong as anyone and sharper than most, logic dictated that she would not live forever. And Alison had no way of predicting when, or even if, she would return to Goose Creek.