Once and for All (2 page)

“How’d he get loose?” The shift in Jodie’s expression was brief, fleeting, but he caught it. “Did you forget to latch the gate?” he asked as he got to his feet. She didn’t answer. The reveal-nothing lawyer expression was once again in place, and he had to admit she carried it off well, even with mascara where it didn’t belong.

The horse was starting to make an effort to get back to his feet, and Sam assisted him all he could, pulling up on the lead rope to help the gelding keep his balance. Finally the animal heaved himself up, and all the stitches held. The first hurdle had been cleared.

“Is there a place in the barn for him?”

Stupid question. Most people didn’t have homes as nice as Joe Barton’s new barn. And Sam bet that this horse had his own stall with a brass nameplate.

“Will I need to give him any medication?” Jodie asked after they had slowly walked the horse to the barn and then released him into a large box stall used for foaling.

“Yeah. I’ll get that. And I have some written instructions for you to follow.” It was snowing lightly when they left the barn and headed to the truck. Sam was glad Mother Nature had held off for a while. Usually when she had a January blizzard in store, she made certain he was doing something critical in the middle of it.

Once they reached his vehicle, he opened a frosted utility panel and pulled out a bottle of penicillin. “He’ll need 20 cc’s twice a day the first couple days.”

“With a needle?” Jodie took a step backward, her hand rising to her chest.

“With a needle,” he agreed, holding the bottle out. She accepted it gingerly.

“Will you come back to give the shots?” Sam gave a small negative shake of his head and Jodie’s eyes went a little wild. “I can’t….”

“I’ll leave the syringes, too.”

“No,” she stated adamantly.

Under other circumstances it would have been amusing to see the calm, collected lawyer knocked out of her comfort zone by something as simple as an injection. But these were not ordinary circumstances and there was nothing amusing about the Bartons.

“When’s your father getting back?” He knew from the very efficient grapevine that Joe Barton had left the day after Christmas for a long vacation in Europe.

“Weeks from now.”

“How about your worthless foreman?”

Jodie didn’t even blink at the insult, which Sam felt totally justified in delivering. The arrogant SOB had tried to testify against him in the malpractice suit. He’d come off looking stupid—one of the few satisfactions Sam had had during the trial, with the exception of the not guilty verdict.

“Chandler quit just after Thanksgiving,” she said stiffly.

Thank goodness,
Sam thought, wondering if perhaps Joe had finally fired him. When the foreman had testified at Sam’s trial, he’d smugly announced he had degrees in human resources and agribusiness, but hadn’t said a word about being a ranching menace.

“What about the other hand?” Joe had hired a cowboy with some veterinary training when he’d come to realize that no vet in the area would service his ranch. For the big jobs he flew in a fancy vet from Las Vegas.

“Mike is in Idaho visiting family.” Her expression grew more hopeful. “But he’ll be back in two days. You’d have to make only a couple trips….”

Sam hated people who wouldn’t take no for an answer. “Lady, I’m not driving thirty miles to give an injection. Besides—”

“You know I’ll pay you,” she interrupted. “I’ll pay you right now if you want.”

“I have other clients that need my services.”

“But like I said,” Jodie replied significantly, “I’ll
pay
you.”

“Times are rough,” Sam snapped. He wasn’t going to have this rich bitch looking down her nose at his friends and neighbors who sometimes couldn’t make payments. “And I was about to tell you that Margarite can give a shot if she has to.”

“Really?” Jodie seemed shocked at the idea, though why, he didn’t know. Injections were common on a ranch and Margarite had grown up on a huge one up north.

“Yes.” Sam pushed back the edge of his coat sleeve and glanced at his watch. He might just make it back for the second half of his nephews’ basketball game. “I want to be paid now.”

“Don’t trust me?” Jodie asked sardonically.

“Don’t want to see you again.”

She stilled, but her expression didn’t change. “That’s to the point.”

Sam shrugged. “It’ll take me a few minutes to calculate the bill.”

“Calculate away.” She strode off toward the house, which was about twice the size it used to be now that Joe Barton was done pouring a boatload of money into it.

Sam charged full price and then some for the after-hours call. By the time Jodie came back with a checkbook he had the figures for her.

“What’s the damage?”

He held out the paper, which she slowly scanned, noting each item. Then she began to write. What would it feel like, Sam wondered, to write a check for that amount and not tell the recipient to please hold it for a day or two while he transferred funds to cover it?

“Thank you for coming,” she said briskly. Then her eyes traveled upward to the top of his head. To the Elmer Fudd hat.

Sam’s mouth tightened as he took the check, written on the ranch account. He hoped hers was one of the authorized signatures, since Tim Paulsen at the bank would notice. Jodie didn’t actually live at the ranch, but visited when the whim hit her. The rest of the time she spent in Las Vegas, practicing law.

“Thanks.” He folded the check once and shoved it into his pocket before walking back to the truck. Mission accomplished. Now he hoped he never had to set foot on the Barton ranch again.

Was it her fault that the horse had gotten out in the first place? She honestly didn’t know. The gate had been open when she’d found him, injured and bleeding, and she had used it earlier that day. Margarite had gone through it, too. One of them was responsible.

Even if it wasn’t her fault, Jodie felt like crap. She hated making mistakes. She pushed her hands into the pockets of the down coat and watched as the horse tucked his nose to his chest and closed his eyes. A few minutes later she left the barn. She needed to get some sleep.

Or try to.

Margarite was in the kitchen tidying up when Jodie walked into the covered porch. The woman’s charcoal-colored hair was rolled into pin curls—something Jodie hadn’t seen since her grandmother had passed away—and she was wearing a blue fuzzy robe that zipped from her ankles to her chin. Quite the look, but somehow Margarite managed to pull it off with an air of dignity.

“Do you want some tea or something?” she asked through the open door to the porch as Jodie slipped out of her boots and hung up the coat she’d worn over her pajamas.

“No. Thanks.” She padded into the kitchen in her stocking feet, ruffling her hair to shake off the droplets of water from melting snowflakes.

“Is he okay?” Margarite folded the dishcloth she’d been using to wipe down the counters, then adjusted the stools at the breakfast bar. The housekeeper liked everything to be just so. Margarite would have latched the gate all the way.

“So far.” Jodie hoped he stayed okay or she’d have even more explaining to do to her father.

“He’ll recover.” The housekeeper snapped off the kitchen light and both women walked through the dining room to the staircase.

Again Jodie felt a wave of guilt.

Margarite tilted her chin up to look Jodie straight in the eye. “Accidents happen on ranches.” Her voice was stern. “Understand?”

“Yeah.” Jodie pressed her lips together. “Are you sure you can give the shot tomorrow?”

Margarite’s face contorted into an expression of prolonged suffering. “Yes, I can give the shot if you can hold the horse. But the
very instant
Mike gets back, he’s taking over. I hate to give penicillin. It’s a very thick liquid and the needle’s big and it takes forever—”

Jodie held up a hand. “Thanks. I understand.” She gave a shudder and headed for her bedroom. So much for sleeping.

“What?” Sam stood up behind the desk. At fifteen, Beau was almost as tall as him, but was still very much a kid inside—a kid who wasn’t doing too well in school. “I thought you said you had your classes under control.”

Beau flashed him an angry look. “I thought I did have them under control.”

“Which one?”

“Guess.”

Sam didn’t need to. Math. As always. Beau’s twin, Tyler, didn’t have as much trouble with the subject as Beau did, but Ty couldn’t seem to explain the concepts to his brother. Heaven knew he’d tried, since Beau was six feet two inches tall and the top scorer on the basketball team. Ty was a quarter inch shorter and two points behind Beau in the stats. The team did all right with one brother, but with two, they were a force to be reckoned with.

“How bad?”

Beau swallowed as he glanced down, blond hair falling over his forehead. “A little lower than a D.”

“How much lower?”

“Fifty-five percent.” Beau dropped his backpack, which must have weighed forty pounds, judging from the sound it made when it hit the floor. “It was that last test.” He all but exploded as he said it. “I don’t get it. I studied the chapter and I thought I understood
everything.
”

Sam swallowed his anger. Beau was clearly upset, and the boy had spent way too much time close to tears over the past year and a half. “How’d Ty do?” he asked quietly.

“He passed. Of course.”

Sam moved out from behind the desk and crossed the room. He put a hand on the kid’s shoulder, then pulled him into a rough embrace. He didn’t know what else to do. How could he tell if Beau was honestly doing all he could to pass his classes, or whether he was putting in a moderate effort and hoping for the best? Sam had been in this parenting gig for only eighteen months, since his brother and sister-in-law were killed by a drunken driver while crossing a street in Las Vegas, and he’d received custody of their sons.

He let out a breath. He’d forgotten what hell the teen years could be, but he was reexperiencing them now in living color.

“What am I going to do?” Beau muttered before stepping back. He tipped his chin up, stared at the ceiling.

“You’re going to get your ass in a chair and work on math tonight. We have a couple days to raise your grade before the next eligibility check. Have you talked to the teacher?”

“No.”

“E-mail her. See what she has to say, what you need to work on. Then after supper we’re going over that test.”

As it turned out, though, Sam didn’t have the time. He and Beau had just settled at the kitchen table with pad, pencil and failed test paper in front of them when the phone rang.

“It’s the Taylor ranch,” Tyler called from Sam’s den.

Sam reached for the extension. One of the Taylors’ show mares had kicked its leg through a fencing panel and got hung up. The leg was swollen almost double and the owners suspected she might have a broken tibia.

He climbed into his canvas bib overalls, clamped the plaid wool hat on his head. “Listen,” he said in a low voice to Tyler. “Get your test and sit down with your brother and see what the two of you can figure out.”

“But—”

Sam had been a parent long enough to perfect The Look, which he now employed full force. “You want your brother eligible, right?”

“Right.”

“Then I don’t care if you have other plans. Help him out.”

“All right.”