Doc showmance, p.1
Doc Showmance, page 1
Doc Showmance
Zoe Forward
Contents
Dedication
1. Amber
2. Ian
3. Amber
4. Amber
5. Amber
6. Amber
7. Ian
8. Amber
9. Ian
10. Amber
11. Ian
12. Amber
13. Ian
14. Amber
15. Amber
16. Ian
17. Ian
18. Amber
19. Ian
20. Amber
21. Amber
22. Ian
23. Amber
24. Amber
25. Ian
26. Ian
27. Amber
28. Amber
29. Ian
30. Amber
31. Ian
32. Amber
33. Amber
34. Ian
35. Amber
36. Amber
37. Ian
38. Amber
39. Amber
40. Ian
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also By Zoe Forward
Copyright © 2023 by Zoe Forward. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.
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Cover design by Mayhem Cover Creations
Edited by Tera Cuskaden and Jordan Bailey
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ISBN 978-1-7332429-7-4
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No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, photocopying, recording or otherwise without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at zoe@zoeforward.com
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All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.
Dedication
For veterinary technicians and assistants who dedicate their hearts and souls to their patients. You are the backbone of veterinary medicine.
One
Amber
“He pooped all over my shirt?”
My patient’s owner stretched his flamingo-patterned aloha shirt away from his chest to examine the stain I’d been trying not to stare at for the past few minutes. With a rip, he tore apart the snaps holding his shirt together in a fluid motion that would make any male stripper proud.
Don’t laugh. Do not crack a smile.
I caught the rotund Shih Tzu panting on the exam table between us when he attempted to jump off.
Didn’t need to see the guy’s chest. Most definitely didn’t need to see the yellow tattoo of Pikachu wielding Thor’s hammer around his left nipple. I’m all about some nice ink work, but I had to believe that’d been a drunken dare.
I met the gaze of my bomb-proof fifty-something career veterinary technician, Susan, where she stood at the computer station, ready to type in the details of our conversation. Susan’s face flushed as she compressed her lips tight and ducked her head.
A small noise came from the corner behind me. The cameraman, Martin, failed to hide his smirk. I’d forgotten he’d followed us into this appointment.
Controversy made great TV for the reality show based at this San Diego emergency hospital. All doctors here were required to allow the cameras to follow 30 percent of the time. It was part of our employment contract. The extra money rocked, which was why I tolerated it, but being on camera sucked. I wasn’t a showman in need of attention. The cameras made me hyper alert to details like ensuring I didn’t have food between my teeth. Being cautious about what I said was a lost cause. I have a potty mouth that surfaces at the wrong times.
“You’ve been great, Doc Hardin… Amber? Can I call you that? Maybe Dr. Amber? It feels like we have a connection. We’re both doctors, you know. I’m a chiropractor. I work over in South Park. You seem great at what you do.” The now half-naked man rotated to give the camera a clear visual of his chest. He had the kind of fluffy blondish hair that looked like he’d jumped in the ocean hours ago and dried it in the sun. Smelled like it, too.
He was preening, actually peacocking, for the flipping camera?
“Thanks,” I answered distractedly. He’d experienced but a pinch of my veterinary skills. I was so much better than an exam and one lab test to conquer his dog’s diarrhea. I’d never boast about myself. I do critique myself without pity and always give 100 percent. I know when it comes to medicine and surgery, I’m good. Sure, I have an ego and a big mouth. Both get me into a crapload of trouble, which is why my boss has kept me around. Great TV, he says.
“Do you know how to get liquid crap out of carpet?” He stress-smiled. “I’m house sitting for my mom. She’s going to kill me.”
“Steam cleaner?” Based on the poop Doudrop deposited on the exam room floor a few minutes ago, I speculated a powerful stinkage awaited him when he returned home.
The brightness in his eyes changed to something more intimate. He stared at me as if chewing on his next question.
Oh, no.
His hand began a slow path toward where mine rested on the metal exam table.
He was about to ask me out. This happened from time to time. I’d offered him a solution to resolve his biggest problem and worked with Susan to clean up his dog’s bum so he’d go home smelling like roses. Maybe not roses. More of a synthetic baby powder smell, but it was heavenly in comparison to where the dog’s aroma started.
He must’ve realized I was about his age, single, and… Who was I kidding? This guy didn’t care about me. He wanted his five minutes in the TV spotlight. He wanted to be on next week’s show.
I was selling myself short. Maybe he thought I was hot. I had solid curves in my hips and butt—not talking Kardashian-large, but solid curves—and my hair sported varying colors. Right now, it was red mixed with blonde over my base of light brown. I was on the edgier side that put many guys off. Edgier, meaning the hoop in one side of my nose, a few extra ear piercings, and many colorful tattoos. My Spanish heritage granted me a perma-tan that many here in California wished for but had to work hard to maintain.
Moments before he forced me to step back to ensure my hand stayed well out of reach, his dog ripped a fart. My eyes watered as the smell waged war inside my nostrils.
I laughed and waved my hand in front of my nose. “You poor thing, Doudrop. We need your meds to kick in fast.”
He grabbed the little dog off the table to pull her in for a hug. I bit back a reminder not to squeeze her too tight or things might come out the back end that he didn’t want on his bare skin. “Mom named her for a WWE lady wrestler, you know.”
“The name works for her.” I cleared my throat and offered what I hoped came off as a professional smile before asking in my hard tone, “Any other questions about Doudrop’s care? I think she should be blow-out free by tomorrow.”
“You love animals, right? It’s why you do this?”
“Yep.” I was a veterinarian so, of course, I loved animals—the furry, the hairless, the ones with chronic skin allergies who were always combatting some form of stink, the drooly, and those who showed love by sitting on my toes. In this job, animals played a big role. In reality, it was about far more than the patient. It was 80 percent about the person who came with the pet—like my half naked client demo-ing his chest for the camera. Also, it was 4 percent about food. People food. As in food to fill up my complaining stomach. As if on cue, my stomach grumbled to remind me I’d missed lunch to take care of this dog’s blowout diarrhea.
“You want to get coffee one day this week? I’m fascinated by your job. Love to talk about it more.” He seemed to angle his hold on Doudrop to make sure I still had a full visual of Pikachu over his left pec.
Ugh. Not saved by his dog’s gas.
I don’t date clients. Hell, I don’t date in general. It’s not that I dislike men or sex. I like both. I simply don’t have the patience or energy necessary to cultivate what most men of my age, closing in on their thirties, might be looking for. My focus for the next eight months was to finish this residency and pass my board exam. No distractions allowed.
“I’m flattered, but I’m seeing someone.” Liar.
“I promise not to bring Doudrop along until she’s gas-free.” He held the little dog away from him when she ripped another toot. “Good Lord, Doudrop. My car is going to smell like a porta potty.” He met my gaze again. “You sure you don’t want to get together?” He glanced at my ring finger with obvious purpose as if to suggest whomever I was “dating” didn’t value me. Or maybe my imagination read into the look.
Why did I even care?
So what if I was almost thirty and still single?
I had to shut this down before he pulled more colorful drama to ensure this made it onto the show. “I’m going to have my receptionist get you checked out in here. Call me if the diarrhea isn’t better in forty-eight hours.”
As I exited, he called out, “So that’s a no on us getting coffee?”
I didn’t reply. My heart pounded and my mind filled with worst-case-scenario images of how the TV editors would twist all this to put it on TV. Edit here, cut there, and then everything both of us said got distorted so far from reality that it became fiction.
Susan put a hand on my shoulder outside the exam room. The woman was professional to a t
“Shit does that to people.”
She shook her head, still smiling. “Good one.”
“Did you see the tattoo?” I asked. “Guess you couldn’t miss it. I tried not to look. Tried so hard, but using the nipple as Pikachu’s eyeball? I do love good ink work, but…” I sensed the camera nearby and clamped my mouth shut against finishing since something not nice was about to come out. Something guaranteed to make prime time TV. I parked myself in front of a computer to type up my plan for the Shih Tzu’s diarrhea.
Right now, I worked day shifts at the clinic. Most people think of veterinary emergency work as overnights only. Night shifts had done bad things to my endocrine system as I discovered my first year out, during my internship. I went into an adrenal crisis that landed me in the hospital from the mixture of lack of sun, stress, and stricly nocturnal schedule. The San Diego Animal Emergency Hospital in Pacific Beach stays open 24-7 with at least two to three vets on duty at all times. The hospital manager agreed to put me on day shifts until I finished my residency.
Technically, most considered me a baby vet still, being only three years out of school, but working exclusively emergency medicine accelerated my learning curve. I’d become a rock star. I knew it. The staff knew it. They gave me the hard cases, especially those that needed emergency surgery—the fractures, bloats, bleeding spleens, and foreign body ingestions.
From the corner of my eye, I detected movement. I couldn’t help but sweep my gaze in the direction of long, toned legs in jeans and cowboy boots.
Dr. Ian Todd?
What was Mr. Internet Sensation Veterinarian-Model who had his own TV show where he traveled the world to spotlight endangered species’ veterinary care doing here? My heart rate accelerated to the point its pounding hurt my ribcage. A mishmash of emotion pinged inside my head until I couldn’t think straight. Trickles of sweat slithered down my back.
Ian was like a bottle of Macallan with biceps. He took early five o’clock shadows and low voices to a whole new level of sexy—not that I viewed him that way. That’s what other women said. Not me.
Okay, maybe me too. But I’d never say it out loud.
“Amber.” His intonation of my name hadn’t been a hi-how-are-you nor a great-to-see-you. More of a fatalistic oh-crap-it’s-Amber tone.
“What are you doing here?” I snapped. We’d parted ways for what I’d hoped had been forever when we graduated from vet school. Never seeing this man again remained one of my top lifetime goals.
His face split with the ever-ready wide smile that was his go-to in almost all situations. Couldn’t read jack shit when he grinned like a sports commentator about to interview the top team player post-game.
Seven years ago, when we were both students at UC Davis vet school, he’d had side careers in TV ad acting and lady slaying. As in, he went through one-nighters with women the way most men did T-shirts.
Not me. We’d never had a one-night stand. I might’ve crushed on him a lot our first two years of vet school, especially during our long hours as lab partners, and then studying together in the library or the coffeehouse. We had something special beyond the fact we pushed each other to be better. Until he instigated the most embarrassing moment of my life. Valentine’s Day of my second year in school, Ian went down on one knee outside class. He declared he thought he was falling for me and offered me a bouquet of roses. My jaw might’ve hit the floor. Having seen the video recording, I stuttered a bunch of nonsense. Then I heard giggling in the bushes nearby.
Someone jumped out and yelled, “Gotcha!”
Surprise. I was on candid camera.
I’d been the victim of a cheesy prank for some online vlog show. Everyone in class saw me behaving like a smitten idiot. Ian hit number one on my shit list.
Did he apologize? He tried, but not right after it happened. Not the next day. Not even the next week. Months later, when we had to work on a presentation he tried, but my ears were deaf to his words.
Neither the lazy way he rested his six-foot frame against the counter, staring at me with that half smirk, nor the heavily muscled arms and chest he must spend hours a day working on caught my attention.
It was his blazing gray eyes entirely zoomed in on me that made me pause. I’d never forgotten how intense the color was, but today it caught me off guard.
Then there was everything else.
Ugh.
The angles of his cheeks and chin, and the long dark lashes—all of it made girls act stupid. They propelled him into international stardom as the “sexiest vet alive.” He’d made sexiest man lists in magazines for the past few years. Sure, I looked at the gossip rags. I even eavesdropped when staff members raved about his deep voice during his internet videos. In real life, he was just as tall and just as sexy. Damn him. If he had a best feature, it was those eyes.
“So? Why’re you here?” I didn’t want to deal with the nervous jitters and instant grumpiness this man triggered. Because I didn’t want to recognize how magnetic and attractive he still was. “Are you doing a zoo episode in San Diego and thought you’d crash my show to boost your ratings?”
“There’s an offer on the table for me to come on staff here for a while.” He crossed his arms and folded a hand into each armpit.
Say what?
“You’re bullshitting me, right?”
It wasn’t that I doubted Ian’s ability to handle emergency medicine. This man might be a pretty boy who could become a supermodel if he applied himself, but he was also wicked smart. As in, I’d gone head-to-head with him in one-upmanship encounters in vet school. I hadn’t ranked number one in my class—and neither had he—but we’d been top ten.
The real reason I didn’t want him here? I didn’t know if I could keep myself from ripping him a new asshole every time I saw him out of protective instinct to avoid admitting I found him hot. No time for distractions. Especially not Ian Todd.
Susan moved into my peripheral vision with a new chart in hand. I hissed at him, “Think twice, Dillweed. Here, you can’t lose your shirt or wiggle your ass to fix a problem. You actually have to use your brain and have skills.”
“I think we established in the past my skills are way better than yours.” He winked at me. Fucking winked. “Flattered that you think it’s a spectacular ass.”
“I didn’t say that.” I rolled my eyes. The smartass worked its way up my throat, but Susan handed me the chart.
As I reviewed the notes for my next patient’s crisis at a computer terminal ten feet away from Ian, I watched my show’s producer-director—she worked in both roles—move in next to him and whisper something behind her hand.
Ian caught me staring at him. His eyebrows slowly rose. He grinned.
He was coming on staff. No doubt. Not with the way the producer’s speculative gaze narrowed on me.
Shit.
I would not allow my issues with Ian Todd to become prime time drama that derailed my life.
Two
Ian
“The plan is for you two to have a romance. It’s all camera bullshit, but we need it to increase our show’s ratings.” Marianna Rinkov, the executive producer of the veterinary ER show had sidled in close. She pushed her reading glasses onto the top of her head, into her sleek shoulder-length black hair. This woman was a manipulative snake with the compassion of a grapefruit. I’d experienced her my-way-or-nothing tactics when she directed three episodes of my Vet in the Wild TV show.
