Adams, Cara - Calling Doctor Wolf [Shape-Shifter Clinic 1] (9 page)

Oscar felt a bit guilty. It was a Saturday after all. “Oh, hi, Sierra. Sorry to bother you on a Saturday. This is Oscar Thorne. I—”

“The doctor and the clinic. I remember you.”

“Thanks. I just received a legal letter from my cousin George saying the house should be his not mine. I—”

“Not possible. Due diligence showed it was yours. The will was clear.”

“Yeah, I know. So what should I do about the letter?”

“Read it to me.”

Oscar picked it up and began reading. After two sentences Sierra said, “Okay, I’ll need to read it myself. Can you scan it and e-mail it to me? Or fax it to my office?”

“I can scan it right now.”

“Good, thanks. I’ll get back to you.”

And she was gone. Oscar shrugged and scanned the pages, searching for her e-mail address in his contacts while the scanner whirred. As he clicked
Send
he shook his head. “I have absolutely no idea what George wants, really I don’t. Unless he needs money. That’d make sense, I suppose.”

* * * *

Ambrielle stood under the hot stream of water in her own shower. The men had been loving, caring, charming, and funny all at once. They’d entertained her, looked after her, and made her feel special every moment they’d been together. They’d treated her as an equal thinking adult in their conversations, listening to her ideas and giving her opinions as much weight as their own, unlike so many men who only wanted to talk about themselves and all the female needed to do was gaze into their eyes and nod occasionally. She smiled. Oscar and Danny hadn’t been like that at all. They’d asked her questions and listened to her answers, discussed ideas with her not just imparted their own views. And she’d loved every moment they’d spent together.

Then there was the sex. Awesome, mind-blowing, fulfilling sex. Oh yeah. Ambrielle wiggled her butt against the mattress. Yeah, she was a tiny bit sore, but just enough to remind her of what had happened. Two men, oh wow! But again, they’d put her first. She’d been an active, integral part of the sex. She’d not just been possessed. She’d been cherished.

What a wonderful memory. Something she would hold close to her heart forever.

Now, the big questions was, had they enjoyed the evening as much as she had? Would they invite her out again? Would they want to fuck her again?

I don’t care. I’m happy with what happened. On Monday I’ll be all professional and hard working. If they don’t say anything I won’t either. I’ll leave it up to them. But I can hope they ask me out again. I suppose I could ask them, but I’m not going to push my way into their lives, I’d rather just see them at work than annoy them and have to leave the clinic. Thorne House Clinic. I like that name, and I like the people, and most of all I like being with Oscar and Danny.

Ambrielle’s apartment was very small, but it didn’t matter because there was just her in it. The best part was because it was at the rear of the building she was able to wheel her motorbike up the loading ramp and into the building. She didn’t have to leave it in the parking lot, which wasn’t a very safe place at night. Instead it sat in her hallway on a thick rug she kept there on purpose for it.

Saturday was the day she did all her chores. If she was good and did everything on Saturday, then Sunday was her day for doing fun things that pleased her. That kept the motivation strong for her to get out of bed and get cooking and cleaning on a Saturday.

As soon as she was dressed, she grabbed her dirty laundry, a small carton of orange juice, and what she termed her “Saturday bag” and headed down into the basement. This was another not particularly safe place, but Saturday morning was a good time to go because the people who tended to cause trouble were still sleeping off the night before’s alcohol.

She filled one washing machine with her sheets, towels, and jeans, and the other with the rest of her clothing and underwear, and set them both going. Then she sat on a bench and opened her carry bag, pulling out a plastic container of cereal. Into it she tipped the carton of juice, then grabbed a spoon and ate her breakfast.

Once that was done she dragged out a hairbrush and some hair ties and brushed and braided her hair, trying several styles before deciding on one she was happy with.

Right on schedule her two washing machines beeped and she transferred her laundry into the driers.

Once they were organized she took out her nail polish remover and some wipes and cleansed the shiny blue from every second finger, then pulled out jar after jar of polish. Purple?
No, it doesn’t look right with the blue.
Green?
No, I had that on earlier this week.
Pink?
Boring
. Red?
I wear that too often already
. Orange?
Oh yes, I haven’t used that one for ages. Orange it shall be.

By the time her nails were dry, she’d decided on what groceries she’d need for the week and wrote herself a shopping list. She’d only just gotten everything tidied away again in her carry bag when her laundry was finished.

“Nice multitasking,” she told herself, folding her clean laundry into her basket. “And tonight I’ll plan a special ride to go on tomorrow as a reward.”

But her smiles were also because of the mental images of Oscar and Danny firmly front and center in her mind, no matter what her hands might be doing.

When she arrived back upstairs at her apartment, a huge bouquet of flowers was sitting in front of her door. Bright gerbera daisies in red, pink, orange, yellow, purple, and blue. Ambrielle was stunned at their beauty. She took her Saturday bag and her laundry inside and raced back for the flowers, holding the container in both hands, turning it this way and that to admire every flower.

Tucked in the box was a note that simply said, “You brighten our lives. Danny and Oscar.”

* * * *

Danny and Oscar had chosen the flowers for Ambrielle first thing that morning. It had taken them quite a while to decide which ones to buy, but as soon as they’d seen the brightly colored gerbera daisies they’d agreed they were perfect.

Now Danny looked around the huge third floor of the old farmhouse. It’d been used as children’s bedrooms and a nursery back in the day when children stayed out of the sight of adults. There was even a small kitchenette which could form the basis for the new kitchen.

He measured and checked all his ideas, then casually sketched an outline for an apartment for him, Oscar, and Ambrielle, because he knew he wasn’t going to give her up any time soon. They might have just had one date and one glorious night in bed together, but as far as Danny was concerned, she was going to be in their future, a very important part of their future.

The entire third floor was far too much space for the three of them. Danny planned to close off the hallway and use the back half of the house for the apartment, leaving the front half untouched for whatever Oscar decided he might need it for later. Possibly more patient rooms eventually. As well as being easier to make private, simply by putting a doorway closing off the hall, the back was also better, as the plumbing was already there, so making the small kitchenette into a kitchen and adding a proper bathroom—big enough for three people—would be easier. Besides, from what would be their living room there was a nice view out over the land to the lake and he liked the idea of standing at the window, gazing out.

When he was happy with his sketch, Danny went down to see if Oscar was around. He didn’t want to do any detailed layouts until he’d run his thoughts past Oscar.

Oscar was in his office sitting in front of his computer. Danny tapped on the door and stuck his head in. “Can I talk to you about the third floor?”

“Yeah sure. But read this first.”

Danny took the letter, surprised at the heavy, embossed paper, and began reading. “What? Is this even in English?”

“No, it’s in legalese. Keep reading.”

Danny sat down and paid more attention to the words on the paper. A couple of times he had to reread a sentence to get the meaning, but in the end the message percolated through the long, wordy sentences. “George wants the house.”

“That’s the way I read it, too.”

“Did your grandparents promise it to him?”

“I have no idea. My grandmother wasn’t the kind of old lady to be always talking about her will. She was full of energy and was more likely to talk about politics than anything else.”

“Fair enough. So what are you going to do?” There wasn’t much sense in him building an apartment for the three of them if the clinic would be closed and the building given to Cousin George.

“Buy it from George if I have to, I guess. But for now I’ve sent the letter to my attorney.”

Danny stared at Oscar. “Can you afford to buy it from him?”

“Well, the thing is, he got the money and investments and I got the house. If he gets the house, I should get the money. Then I’ll pay him the money for the house. But it seems stupid to me because that means he’d be exactly where he is already. He’ll have cash and I’ll have the house. I suppose he might have more money, but it’d be easier for me just to give him a couple of thousand dollars if he feels he didn’t get a fair share.”

“But nowhere in American law does it say someone has to give their descendants equal portions, does it? The law doesn’t legalize a fair share. I mean, I can understand that you love him, and he’s family, and you want to treat him right, but your grandparents could do anything they wanted to with their own personal property, so why should George be able to challenge that?” asked Danny.

“I suppose I feel a bit guilty that maybe the investments weren’t worth very much anymore and George didn’t get what Grandma had originally intended him to have. But I haven’t got much cash myself. I had to get a loan to refurbish this place and I’m not paying myself a fair salary yet. I’m just taking what I need to buy the supplies and equipment. Once we get better established with more patients I’ll go back to claiming a full salary.”

“Well, I hope the attorney knows what she’s doing. She seemed pretty acute the time I met her, but I don’t really know anything much about that side of things. I actually came to talk about turning the third floor into an apartment, but I guess you won’t want to be moving ahead on that project until all this is sorted out.”

“No, we need that apartment. I want Ambrielle and the only way we can have her is if we’ve got somewhere private to take her. I mean it’s not just sex, but it’s the whole ‘getting to know her better’ thing.”

Danny hid a grin. Oscar had almost blushed when he’d mentioned the word
sex
. And he was a doctor, for fuck’s sake. But he knew what Oscar meant. To get to know someone required long hours of talking privately together, and an office was definitely not the place for that.

Danny jumped up and walked across to Oscar’s desk, leaning over it and spreading out his sketches. “This will be a door to make the back half of that floor private. Here is the living room, which opens into a kitchen. The bathroom is next to the kitchen and over here is our bedroom. This small room will be a guest bedroom with a wall of closets for storage. What do you think?”

“How big is the shower?”

“It’ll be big enough for three, I can guarantee that. I was thinking of installing a seat in it, too, for…well, you understand.” Now it was his turn to feel a fraction embarrassed.

“Hell, yes. That looks good. I think that’s all we need. We all work here and can use the gardens or the public rooms if we want a larger indoor space or an outdoor entertaining area,” said Oscar.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought, too. But are you sure you still want to go ahead with the alterations? Plumbing and tiling isn’t cheap, you know.” Danny didn’t say anything, but he had money saved, and if he was going to be living here he didn’t mind chipping in for the expenses. But likely Ambrielle might want to have a say in color schemes and things like that. Those decisions were a long way ahead yet, but he didn’t plan to take too long before they dated her again, not even as long as a week. He wanted this romance to progress and fast.

Oscar looked at him. “She seemed to enjoy herself. I certainly enjoyed myself. I hope she likes the flowers.”

Danny nodded. “Me, too.”

“Right, so begin the changes upstairs, and on Monday let’s invite her out again. I was thinking maybe a movie this time.”

“Yes, a movie would be good. We can ask her to choose which film we see and that will tell us about her and her tastes, as well as ensuring she enjoys it.”

“And if she picks some girly chick flick?”

Danny laughed. “We suck it up like men.”