Rescued by Dr. Rafe by Annie Claydon

nestle against his chest.
    Gingerly he got to his feet. Tommy seemed quite happy where he was now and was trying to eat his sweater. Rafe climbed the bank, back up to the road, and saw Mimi, sitting in the front seat of the car, her head bent over Tallulah, who was lying in her lap, wrapped in Mimi’s ambulance service jacket.
    â€˜Poor little thing; look...’ Mimi was wearing a pair of surgical gloves and had his surgical scissors in her hand. She looked up at him and frowned. ‘You’ve got wet leaves all over you.’
    â€˜Yes, I know. Spare me the details. What are you doing?’
    â€˜She’s got a piece of plastic wrapped around her leg. Look, it’s bleeding.’ Two pairs of wide brown eyes were trained on him and Rafe frowned. This was an unfair advantage.
    â€˜You’re not a vet, Mimi.’
    â€˜I know that. We’re Good Samaritans.’ She snipped the tight plastic away from Tallulah’s leg, exposing a red raw wound. ‘There. That’s better, isn’t it, sweetie.’ She bent down, allowing Tallulah to lick her cheek.
    There was no point in telling her that it wasn’t a good idea to allow random animals to lick your face, or to mention that the scissors would have to be sterilised now. He had another pair somewhere. ‘All right, so where is this petting zoo, then?’
    â€˜Half a mile along that track.’ Mimi pointed to a new road that branched off ahead of them, leading into the trees.
    â€˜Right. We’ll get them back there as quickly as we can.’ Rafe wasn’t about to admit that the large eyes and little shivering bodies of the goats had made him wonder whether taking them back to his house was an option. He got into the car, depositing Tommy at Mimi’s feet, where he nuzzled against her legs.
    â€˜Drive slowly. We don’t want them flying around...’
    No. Flying goats were the last thing he wanted. ‘If we get a call...’ If they got a call, he wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to do. People before animals always, but Rafe was not sure that he could bring himself to dump Tommy and Tallulah.
    â€˜We won’t.’ Mimi hugged Tallulah close on her lap. ‘It won’t take us long.’
    * * *
    He drove slowly into a large paved area, surrounded by low buildings. A woman appeared from one of them, jogging out towards the car. When she saw Tallulah in Mimi’s lap she smiled broadly.
    â€˜Thank you so much...you’ve brought her back.’ She opened the car door and Tommy jumped out, nuzzling at her legs. ‘And Tommy, too.’
    Rafe couldn’t help grinning at the little creatures’ obvious joy at being back home. He’d meant to just drive away and leave them, but instead he got out of the car, opening the passenger door so that Mimi could carry Tallulah.
    â€˜Do you have to go yet?’ The woman looked at the ambulance markings on Mimi’s jacket, and Mimi looked up at him imploringly.
    â€˜Not for a minute. We’re on a meal break.’
    â€˜Well, come inside and eat. I’ll make some tea.’ The woman smiled up at him. ‘I’m so grateful you brought them back. The rain washed away some of the fences last night, and some of the animals escaped. We’ve tracked down all the others, but we couldn’t find Tommy and Tallulah.’
    â€˜They didn’t get too far.’ Mimi followed the woman inside the building. ‘But Tallulah has a wound on her leg, where she got caught in an old plastic bag.’
    The woman gave a tut of disapproval. ‘I wish that people would think before they leave those things lying around in the countryside. You wouldn’t believe the number of animals that are injured by them one way or another.’
    She led the way through to a room that was kitted out with examination benches, not so different from a hospital surgery, only generally speaking the hospital didn’t have cages for