HE VETERINARIAN’S OFFICE was in a narrow pink clapboard house, and the waiting room area was obviously the vet’s living room. Mitchell had found the vet’s name in a phone book earlier that morning and phoned for an appointment, but even so, they had to wait nearly forty-five minutes, during which time Kate filled out the vet’s information sheet and Max sniffed every inch of the cramped room, including an indignant cat, a shy poodle, and a terrified yellow canary in a birdcage, all of whom were already there with their owners when Mitchell and Kate arrived.

When the vet finally came out and asked for “Mary Donovan,” Kate left her purse on the chair next to Mitchell so that she’d have both hands free to deal with Max while the vet looked him over.

Mitchell watched her disappear through a doorway; then he picked up a tourist guide written in Dutch because there was nothing else in the waiting room to read. Kate’s cell phone rang shortly afterward, and he let the call go through to her phone’s voice mail system, rather than trying to answer it for her.

A few minutes later, it rang again, and her voice mail picked up that call, too.

Ten minutes later, she received another call. Mitchell frowned at her purse, wondering if the lawyer-boyfriend was trying to reach her. If so, he was either very persistent, Mitchell decided, or else some sixth sense was warning him that his girlfriend was ignoring his calls because she was straying with another man. Gazing at her purse, Mitchell envisioned a prosperous, middle-aged attorney who’d probably been physically attractive when Kate first met him years before, but who was now getting fat and out of shape—and becoming desperate to maintain his hold on a much younger woman—one who, he feared, might be tiring of her role as his “plaything.”

Mitchell had witnessed that scenario often enough in the past to be certain he was right, but this time he reminded himself to feel a little gentlemanly compassion for the lawyer. After all, the poor son of a bitch had spent a small fortune to take her on a vacation at a premier spot in the Caribbean, and while he was stuck in Chicago, Mitchell was about to take her to bed.

He looked up as Kate emerged with the vet, who was repeatedly patting her arm in a way that struck Mitchell as being rather inappropriate. “I’ll take some X-rays of Max’s head and shoulder just to be on the safe side,” the vet promised. “I’ll dip him for fleas and give him all his shots. If you want me to board him again tomorrow night, just give me a call. In the meantime,” he added as Mitchell rose to his feet, “I’ll get all the papers ready so you can take him back to the States.”

Mitchell stared at her in amused disbelief; then he picked up her suitcase from beside his chair and handed her purse to her. “Instead of calling an ambulance for Max last night,” he joked as he held the front door open for her, “I should have bought him a plane ticket.”

Kate accepted the gibe with a quick smile and explained her decision. “I have to take him home with me, or he’ll end up being euthanized.”

“Is that what the vet told you?” Mitchell asked as he stepped off the cracked sidewalk in front of the vet’s house and flagged down a cab turning the corner.

Kate nodded. “He said there’s virtually no chance of finding a good home for him here or on Anguilla. Max is a stray, and because he’s large, he’s expensive to feed.”

A battered gray Chevrolet with the word taxi on the door stopped in the street in front of them, and when they were both inside, Kate elaborated and Mitchell gave the driver instructions. “I phoned my friend, Holly—the vet in Chicago—this morning,” she clarified. “Holly told me the treatment for rabies isn’t a big deal anymore, but on rare occasions, the rabies injection has serious, even fatal side effects for some people. That physician last night was already in a panic even though rabies isn’t a problem on the island. Instead of quarantining Max for the rest of the ten days, the physician can euthanize him and find out immediately if Max had rabies. And I think he’d decide to do exactly that.”

She was probably right, Mitchell knew, so he changed the subject. “You had several phone calls while you were with the vet.”

“Probably from Louis at the restaurant and Holly,” Kate said, already reaching for her purse. Forgetting that she’d turned the volume on her phone up to its maximum, Kate pressed the button to retrieve her voice mail messages while Mitchell politely pulled a tourist booklet from the pocket on the back of the driver’s seat and glanced through it.

The first message wasn’t from Louis; it was from Evan, and he sounded so concerned that Kate felt a stab of guilt. “Kate, why didn’t you return my phone call last night, honey? I called you again at the hotel this morning and left a message, and I still haven’t heard from you. I’m getting worried. Are you feeling ill? Are the headaches back?”

Evan’s second message made Kate feel even worse. “Honey, I just called Holly and she said she talked to you yesterday and this morning, and you’re feeling fine. Evidently you’re so angry with me for not being there that you won’t even take my calls anymore. I miss you terribly, Kate, and I’m tired of having to go away with you so that we can spend all our days and nights together. We should be able to do that right here in Chicago. We’ve been together for years, and we know we make each other happy. We both want the same things—a home, children, and each other. What else matters? I—”

Unable to bear another word, Kate snapped her cell phone closed without listening to the next message. She stole a sidelong glance at Mitchell, relieved that he seemed to be engrossed in reading the tourist pamphlet he was holding, but he was frowning and his jaw looked tense. After a moment of uneasy silence, Kate said brightly, “Everything is fine.”

In response to that he stuffed the pamphlet back into the seat pocket and directed a challenging brow at her. “Your boyfriend seems to think otherwise.”

“You heard?”

“I couldn’t help hearing it. Is he married?”

“No, of course not! Why would you think such a thing?”

“For one thing, you said you’ve been together for years, but from what I heard him say just now, you apparently don’t live together. How old is he?”

“He’s thirty-three. Why do you—” A realization hit Kate and she twisted toward him in the seat. “Are you under the impression I’m some sort of”—she hesitated and then settled for the least awful of the descriptions that came to mind—“a kept woman?”

“I haven’t dwelled on the possibilities, but that was the most likely one, based on what I know of similar situations.”

“Do you have a lot of experience with ‘similar’ situations?”

He leaned back, stretched his legs out, and hesitated; then he looked at her and said bluntly, “Yes.”

Before Kate could recover from that statement, he changed the subject: “Why did the vet call you ‘Mary’?”

“Because I filled out his questionnaire with my legal name, which is Mary Katherine. Until I was a teenager and could make them stop, everyone called me Mary Kate. My father never stopped calling me that.”

“Mary Kate,” he repeated a little grimly. “Very cute. Perfect, in fact, for an Irish choir girl.”

Startled by his tone, Kate said, “I was never a choir girl in the way I think you mean. In fact, I was a wild child.”

“Good,” he said tightly.

Kate turned her head and gazed at the foothills of the mountains on her right while she tried to come up with an explanation for his attitude. Something he’d heard in the last few minutes was bothering him, but she couldn’t figure out exactly what it was.