Once and for All (4 page)

Margarite came into the dining room and set a list on the table beside Jodie’s coffee cup. “I thought of a few more things I need in Elko, if you don’t mind.”

“Trust me. I don’t mind.” She was looking forward to getting out of the house for a few hours, and had volunteered to go on a grocery run to town. While she was there, she’d stock up on books, see about a manicure, get the Spitfire serviced.

She called her law office as she drove north, and talked briefly to Penelope, the receptionist, who told Jodie that since she was on sabbatical, she needed to focus on things other than work. Besides, there was no gossip and no new cases of note. Things were running smoothly, but yes, they would run more smoothly once Jodie got back. And then Penelope had hung up on her.

Okay.
Jodie dropped the phone onto the passenger seat. Point taken. No obsessing over work. She was on leave. She was supposed to relax and come back refreshed. No telling if that would actually happen, since she hadn’t wanted to leave in the first place.

She reached for the phone again and called Gavin, the associate who had taken her unfinished cases. She enjoyed a few minutes of conversation and discovered the status of each case before he had to go. Jodie hated being away from the office, hated waking up in the morning with nothing to work on, no strategy to plan. But…at least her sabbatical had gotten Joe onto the airplane. The smile on her mom’s face as she’d followed him into the security area had been worth the long empty hours Jodie was spending on the ranch.

When she arrived back in the late afternoon, the trunk of her small car loaded with groceries not available in Wesley’s much smaller stores, she knew something was wrong. Lucas and Margarite were in the kitchen, talking in low voices, when she came in through the mudroom. The top of the housekeeper’s head barely hit the tall cowboy’s shoulder, but there was no doubt as to who was controlling the conversation. They turned in unison as she closed the door, and Jodie instantly knew she wasn’t going to like what she was about to hear.

“I think we’re going to need a vet,” Lucas said before the door latched.

Jodie stared at the couple in disbelief. “Oh, just shoot me now.”

“It’s that new bull your dad bought before he left,” Margarite said, her expression grim, as well it should be. Joe had spent a ton of money on that black bull because it was homozygous, whatever the heck that meant.

“I found him standing hunched up in the corner of the pasture, and brought him in,” Lucas added. “I think we should have someone take a look at him fast.”

Jodie felt like beating her head against the wall. “Maybe we can have Dr. Eriksson fly in from Vegas?” The vet had his own plane and often flew to the ranch for routine veterinary work. It cost Joe a bundle, but it was the only way he could get services. So far it had worked, because so far there hadn’t been a pressing emergency that Mike couldn’t handle. No. That had waited until Jodie was here and spineless Mike was gone.

“Already checked. He’s on vacation.”

“This isn’t happening.” Jodie rubbed her hands over her face in a gesture of frustration. “What do you suggest?” she asked Lucas.

“I’m no vet, so I suggest we get one.”

“Let’s go take a look at the bull,” she said.

Not that she knew a lot, but Jodie wanted to see how sick the animal was. Two minutes later she had her answer. Real sick. Lucas had herded him into the west end of the barn, opposite the stall where Bronson was recovering, and he was now in a small pen, standing with his body contorted into an oddly hunched position. He either didn’t care or was unaware that Jodie and Lucas were there, a few feet away from him. His eyes were half-closed, his breathing labored.

“What are the odds of two emergencies in one week?” she asked in a defeated tone.

Lucas snorted. “On a ranch, it’s more like what are the odds of
not
having two emergencies in one week? Your father has been damned lucky so far.”

“Well, it’s catching up to him now.” Jodie patted the metal rail of the enclosure with an air of finality, and then started for the barn door. “I want you to call all the vets within driving distance and see if any will come out here.”

“All right.” Lucas’s tone said it all. No, they wouldn’t, and he hated being the guy who had to ask. But he had a better chance at talking them into it than she did.

“Just give it a try, okay?”

“Sure. We’re going to need more penicillin for the gelding, too.”

“Can you get it at the feed store?” Jodie asked. She was amazed at what the store stocked. Whereas human vaccines were regulated substances, many animal vaccines were readily available to whoever was gutsy enough to give an injection.

“You gotta get it from a vet.”

“Figures.”

“I’m going to check on the horse before I go back to the house,” Jodie told Lucas as he started for the door. Actually, she didn’t have the stomach to listen to him get shot down.

The gelding nickered as Jodie approached. “Hi, Bronson.”

She and the animal had become close over the past few days. He didn’t move much due to pain, but when he saw her coming without Margarite, his ears tipped forward and he limped over within scratching range. Jodie alone meant the itchy spots would be addressed.

“Feeling better?” she asked, rubbing his nose and stroking the thick winter hair on his jowls. As she studied the long crisscrossed lines of sutures across his chest, she felt the now familiar twinge of guilt.

She hadn’t asked Sam about the stitches—didn’t know if they dissolved or needed to be taken out. Lucas probably knew. He’d better.

“I’ll find out about those stitches,” she told the gelding. “And when we get them out, you’ll be as good as new.” Although she doubted her father was going to agree after he saw the poor animal’s scarred chest.

Jodie patted the horse and went back to the house. Lucas was still on the phone when she passed through the kitchen into the dining room, his back to her. She’d hoped the local vets would be more receptive to him, but he didn’t look like a man who was having a lot of luck.

Five minutes later he walked into the dining room, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck in a helpless gesture. “I can’t find a vet.”

He left the room as Margarite came through the doorway that led to the living room, broom in hand. The woman stopped dead when she saw the melting globules of snow and mud on the tile floor. Her dark gaze shot to the kitchen entryway just as the door clicked shut.

She let out a breath and started sweeping the snow out of the dining room and into the kitchen. Jodie followed the damp broom trail, glad she’d slipped out of her boots in the mudroom.

“You’d think a man his age would know how to wipe his feet,” Margarite grumbled.

“Yeah,” she agreed. “But he’s here, so maybe we can put up with the mess for a while? You know, just in case another animal needs shots?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Jodie picked up her coat from the chair where she’d tossed it.

“Going somewhere?” Margarite asked.

“I’m going to see Sam Hyatt in person.” Even though he’d killed the horse last year, he’d done all right with Bronson. And he was better than no vet at all—although she doubted her father would see things that way.

Margarite shrugged philosophically. “At least that way he can’t hang up on you.”

Beau’s mouth worked for a moment, poignantly reminding Sam of his brother, Dave, who’d never been good at spitting things out. Now, instead of coaxing his brother into telling him what was going on in his head, he was coaxing Dave’s sons into spilling their guts.

“I didn’t pass.”

“You did. I saw the test.”

He’d managed a C, which raised his grade to passing.

“I got turned in for cheating.”

Sam’s jaw went slack. “Did you cheat?”

Beau looked everywhere but at him.

“Did you?”

“Yeah,” he muttered at last.

“You cheated.”

“I cheated,” Beau said in a stronger voice that almost bordered on a shout. “I didn’t understand the problems. I cheated. I need to play.”

“Well, you aren’t playing now, are you?”

Oh, man.
How did he handle this one? Sam wondered. What would his parents have done? They’d experienced the whole gig from diapers through college. He’d been dumped into child rearing during the boys’ adolescent stage. Logically, Sam knew that parenting teens wouldn’t have been that much easier had he raised the kids from birth, but at least he would have had some experience to fall back on. He could have eased into the traumas of the teens after dealing with small problems like not getting invited to birthday parties or going up the slide backward.

“No,” Beau snapped. He gave Sam a frustrated scowl before glancing out the window at the car pulling to a stop in front of the clinic. It wasn’t just any car. It was Jodie De Vanti’s classic Spitfire, and despite his obvious turmoil, a look of pure envy crossed Beau’s face. Sam knew how he felt. A second later Jodie opened the clinic door and Beau took advantage of the moment to make his escape. He hefted his heavy backpack with one hand.

“I’m going to go get something to eat.” He nodded at Jodie, then walked around the counter, heading toward the rear exit. Sam watched him go, really wanting to call him back but knowing he had to deal with the rich chick first.

He turned back to Jodie, having no illusions about what prompted this personal call.

“Is this about the bull?” Sam asked, knowing it had to be. Katie had fielded a call from the Barton ranch before she’d gone home.

“Yes.”

“Sorry. Can’t help you.”

Her blue eyes flashed, but her demeanor remained remarkably calm as she said, “Damn it, Sam. I can’t have my father’s animals dropping like flies.”

“Your father got himself into this situation.”

“My dad felt justified in bringing suit against you or he wouldn’t have done it…but that’s not an excuse,” she added, as if remembering her mission was to finesse him, not beat him in an argument. “Just an explanation.”

“Feeling justified and
being
justified are not the same,” Sam felt obliged to point out. “Or maybe it is for you legal types.”

“We legal types understand the difference,” she said patiently, even though she was obviously annoyed at his remark. “He lost a thirty-thousand-dollar horse. Surely you can understand—”

“The horse couldn’t have been saved.”

“The professor from the UC Davis disagreed, which was why my father brought suit.” She met Sam’s eyes, her expression candid. “You can’t fault him for that. He sought the opinion of an expert and acted on that opinion.”

Ah, yes. The star witness, who’d been working with twenty-twenty hindsight and after-the-fact information.

“Your expert didn’t convince the judge, did he?” Sam reminded her. And the expert hadn’t been there the night the horse died, either. Sam had been, working his ass off trying to save an animal with a twisted gut. And he’d done everything he could, everything he’d been capable of…although it had happened only a few weeks after Dave’s death and Sam had still been suffering from shock. Hadn’t been thinking all that straight. But he’d gone over his responses a thousand times in his mind, logically reviewing what he’d known at the time.

He hadn’t made a mistake, and he truly resented Joe for coming after him at such a time in his life.

“No,” Jodie agreed.

“Because I was right,” he replied. And it felt good to say that out loud to a Barton. He put his palms on the counter that separated them and leaned closer. “And that is why you can’t get services. People don’t want to deal with your family.”

Sam wasn’t buying her argument. Hell, even she wasn’t buying it. She’d sat in court with her dad, which made her pretty much a party to the action, even if she hadn’t been the one to file suit.

“I am not going to be responsible for killing my father’s prize bull.”

“He killed his bull,” Sam said stubbornly. “Not you.”

“The animal is still alive, Sam. You could keep him that way.” She’d barely gotten the last word out of her mouth when the phone rang.

Sam glanced at the caller ID. “It’s my nephew. I have to take this.”

“
Will
you come to the ranch?” Jodie asked before he got the receiver to his ear, and was horrified to hear a tiny crack in her otherwise even voice. What next? Sobs?

Instead of answering her, Sam said into the receiver, “What is it, Ty?” He bent his head as he listened.

Jodie knew she’d hit her breaking point then. Her mission was futile. The bull was going to die. Her father would come home to a dead animal and missing a vettrained cowboy. His blood pressure would skyrocket. The vacation would end up being wasted time….

Not on her watch.

“Thanks so much, Sam,” she said sarcastically, glad that her voice remained strong even as her eyes started to burn. “You probably would have killed the bull, anyway,” she muttered, too low for him to hear.

She turned and walked out the door before she did something both embarrassing and useless like bursting into tears. She felt them building, ready to seep out of the corners of her eyes, but they were tears of frustration and anger, not of self-pity. One spilled down her cheek, fueling her anger, as she yanked open the door to the Spitfire. She wiped it away with a jerky swipe of her gloved hand, muttered a single socially unacceptable word, then started the car.

She could see Sam through the window, still behind the counter where she’d left him, watching her drive away. It was all she could do not to flip him off. She made another swipe at her damp cheeks with the back of her hand.

She wasn’t done. Not by a long shot. But she had to do something fast, and dithering around with Sam wasn’t going to cure her sick cow. Bull. Whatever. She’d wasted a lot of time coming here, but at least she knew now that she wasn’t going to be dealing with Sam anymore. The guy was impossible. And hardhearted.

Her next step was to drive the fifty miles down to Otto and meet with Stan Stewart, the vet there. Lucas had already talked to him on the phone, but maybe she could finagle a deal with him in person. They’d danced before at a social function in Otto and he hadn’t seemed exactly immune to her. Perhaps one on one…

Jodie pulled into the gas station two blocks from Sam’s clinic and got out of the car, wishing she’d fueled up at the ranch. But she hadn’t thought of it in her hurry to get to town and try to rustle up some medical help. She slipped her credit card into the slot, punched the buttons, then almost kicked the machine as the computerized gizmo took its own sweet time validating her card. Finally, gasoline started flowing into her tank.

She leaned back against the side of her dark blue car, not caring for once if she scratched the paint, and pressed her gloved palm to her forehead, feeling the heat of her flushed skin through the thin leather. A truck pulled to a stop on the other side of the pump and Sam got out. Jodie’s mouth almost dropped open.

“Did I leave before you were done lambasting my family?” she snapped, even as a small part of her wondered if she might regret the words.

His mouth tightened ominously at her sarcastic tone and Jodie made an effort to control herself. “I don’t have your cell number, so I couldn’t call you,” he said.

“Why would you need to?”

Sam shifted his weight self-consciously. “Do you want me to phone Stan Stewart and see if he’d be willing to examine your bull?”

Jodie frowned suspiciously. This was a big about-face. “May I ask why you’d do that?” The numbers on the gas pump whirled by. Her baby was thirsty.

“Because I hate seeing animals die just because they have the misfortune of being owned by an asshole.” There was not an iota of apology in his voice.

Jodie met his eyes, which looked almost silver in the fluorescent lighting above the gas pump. There was more to it than that. She had the oddest feeling he felt sorry for her. But as much as she hated that, she was more than willing to go with it. Anything to keep that flipping bull alive—if it wasn’t already too late.

“I’d appreciate it if you did that.” The words came out stiffly.

The pump mechanism clicked off and Jodie removed the spout from her tank, slapping the nozzle back into place.

Sam pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pressed a single button. A moment later he was talking. Jodie wrapped her arms around her middle, focusing on the oil stained concrete beneath her feet as she waited for a verdict and tried to keep from tapping her toe. Less than thirty seconds into the conversation, she knew the answer would not be in her favor.

Deep breaths. Deep, deep breaths.

Sam clicked the phone shut. “Stan can’t make it.”

Jodie didn’t say a word. What could she say?

Her mouth tightened as she studied the ground at her feet for another few seconds, trying to come up with an alternative plan to save the poor animal that was going to die because her father was an asshole.

“I’ll take a look at the bull. Unless you’re afraid I’ll kill him.”

Jodie’s eyes flashed up. “I’ll pay you well,” she replied automatically.

“Damned right you will.”