Tennessee Vet

by Carolyn McSparren

  “Write it all down for me, would you, Stephen? So I have something tangible to present to the board? Say, before Christmas break?”

  “Will do. Thanks, Jerry. I should have done this before now. I’ve been thinking about it seriously, but I wasn’t ready to talk about it to you.”

  “Ah, but the lovely doctor was not on your horizon before.”

  “Come on, Jerry, it’s not serious.”

  Of course he was serious, but he didn’t plan to discuss his depth of feeling for Barbara with his dean or anyone else. Not even Barbara. Too much risk to his fragile heart.

  The dean burst out laughing. “The devil it isn’t. I saw the way you two look at each other. Go for it. You deserve it. For all I know, so does she.”

  * * *

  IN THE FIRST moment after meeting Elaine, Barbara knew she shouldn’t have come. Both women, Anne and Elaine, had inherited Stephen’s height, bone structure and fast metabolism, but their mother had contributed real physical beauty. Anne might take hers for granted. Elaine didn’t.

  Anne wore an oversize rust-colored turtleneck sweater over skintight beige riding britches and dusty tall boots. “Sorry,” she said, “I’ve been out at the barn since breakfast.”

  Her straight, chin-length brown hair shone but needed a trim every bit as much as Barbara thought hers did. When she shook Barbara’s hand, Anne’s felt as calloused as Barbara’s.

  Elaine, on the other hand, wore a pair of strappy fuschia shoes with heels that must have topped five inches and screamed Choo or Manolo. Her handbag had cost some reptile his life before he’d been ignominiously dyed to match the shoes. Her makeup was perfect. Her hair might be as straight and brown as Anne’s in its natural state, but it had probably not faced the world unlayered and unhighlighted since she’d reached puberty.

  In those shoes, Elaine was as tall as Stephen. Which meant she came close to dwarfing both Anne and Barbara, both of whom were above average height.

  Dressed to kill, Barbara thought. Works, too. I’m scared to death.

  Elaine’s simple black wool sheath fitted so perfectly that constructing it must have required a course in calculus.

  Oh, wow! She’s wearing fuchsia stockings and fuchsia fingernail polish!

  Barbara guessed the double string of pearls at her throat was real. Not quite as big as golf balls, but she could shoot marbles with them.

  Anne was effusive about Barbara’s job and immediately peppered Barbara with esoteric questions about new treatments and new medications. Thankfully, Barbara knew the answers and had applied most of the treatments on her clients’ horses.

  Elaine sat back, smiled with perfect teeth and let her sister keep the conversation going.

  Barbara refused wine in favor of unsweet tea and ignored the hot popovers the server sat on the table, although she was so hungry she could have devoured the whole basket before their order was taken, with a half pound of butter.

  Anne and Stephen ate. Elaine nibbled.

  Over the Coquilles St. Jacques, a specialty of the restaurant, Elaine launched into stories of her life. The others were too busy eating to chat.

  Stephen had been right. The occasional “how interesting,” and Elaine was happy to babble on. Anne tried to draw Barbara into a discussion of new treatments for ringbone and sidebone, diseases that lamed older and heavier horses, but Elaine talked over her.

  Eventually, the party—or whatever it was—broke up. The girls hugged their father, shook hands with Barbara and marched off to different cars. Anne drove an older, dirty Land Rover with muddy tires. Elaine drove a shining black Lexus that was probably waxed every night.

  Both women had laughed over Stephen’s new red truck. “Are you finally going to send the sports car to what amounts to the elephants’ graveyard for cars?” Elaine had said. “It is not only an embarrassment, it is obviously dangerous.”

  “Don’t go there,” Anne had whispered. “Come on. I’m due at the barn in forty minutes.”

  The minute Barbara settled into the seat beside Stephen, she felt the tension in her shoulders loosen. Whatever Anne thought, Elaine didn’t like her. Her father deserved better...class? Money? Whatever, she’d made it quite clear that Barbara did not fit in.

  Stephen laid his hand on her thigh as he pulled out of the parking lot. “That wasn’t so bad, now, was it?”

  As compared to a month in an iron maiden or being tossed into the arena with the lions?

  She gave him what she hoped was a fulsome and forthright smile and shook her head. “Anne is a sweetie. She sounds like a conscientious trainer.”

  “She is. Elaine was on her best behavior. I think she likes you.”

  Barbara turned in her seat to gape at him. How, then, did she treat people she hated?

  “Would you mind if I ran by my house before we drive back to Williamston?” Stephen asked. “Anne is living there and swears everything is fine, but since we’re so close, I should probably at least stick my head in the door.” He turned to see the effect his words had on her. “Anne won’t be there, by the way.”

  She managed to keep her face composed. But would Elaine? “Of course. As long as we’re home in time to feed the animals, I’m fine.”

  She didn’t know what she expected, but Stephen’s house was an early twentieth-century Tudor-style mansion in the Garden District. Stephen pulled into the long driveway and cut the engine.

  “If you’re just going to check on things, Stephen, I’ll be happy to wait right here.”

  She was surprised when he merely nodded as though he understood. He strode to the front door, unlocked it and disappeared inside.

  She did not want to go inside the house that Stephen had shared with his wife. Her presence would be an intrusion into his past.

  She had changed very little in the apartment she had shared with John. She’d replaced the broken dishwasher and added sit-arounds her children had given her, but little else. She hadn’t created a shrine, but after the craziness at the clinic, her apartment was a refuge.

  Ten minutes later, Stephen came out onto the stoop, pulled the massive door closed behind him, ran down the steps with barely a limp and climbed into the truck.

  He leaned over and kissed her. “I didn’t mean to abandon you.”

  “Everything okay?” she asked.

  He started the truck and backed out onto the road. “Fine. Anne’s not there long enough to mess things up, and I have a lady who comes in once a week to get rid of the dust kittens. So, any errands you need to do in town, or can we get on the road for home?”

  “Home, please.” She was worn out from sheer tension. She watched his profile, the practiced ease with which he drove.

  Whatever she tried to tell herself, she had to admit he was more than a friend.

  He pushed her, irritated her, dragged her away from her safe life and scared her with feelings she thought she’d outgrown, yet, somehow, she’d fallen in love with him.

  And she didn’t want any part of it.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  THE SUNDAY BEFORE Thanksgiving Barbara and Stephen drove Orville to Reelfoot Lake. Each afternoon after office hours they had flown Orville in the flight cage. Each afternoon he’d grown stronger and more difficult to handle.

  At last they agreed it was time. Barbara checked with her ranger friend for directions to the place he recommended for the release. Neither of them could manage to eat any breakfast, nor did they feed Orville.

  “Better he looks for prey as soon as possible,” Barbara said.

  The closer they came to the lake, the more fog they encountered. “Is there something called lake-effect fog, like lake-effect snow on the Great Lakes?” Barbara asked.

  “Looking at the way the fog is drifting from the direction of the lake, I would assume so. It should dissipate with sunshine and breeze. Not supposed to be any rain. Jus
t dreary.”

  Barbara shivered. Orville’s cage filled the whole back seat of Stephen’s truck, but they had agreed that he would be chilled in the truck bed. Barbara had covered the cage with a blanket to keep him quiet. So far it had worked. Driving three hours to the lake would have been unendurable if Orville had decided to give them a shriek-fest on the way.

  Barbara kept an eye peeled for the side road that led to the spot recommended as a release point for Orville. She was shaking and was afraid she was going to throw up. If Orville flew free, then Stephen could drop his emotional and physical baggage and see himself as a whole man again.

  If Orville failed...

  She’d have to convince Stephen that failure was a temporary setback. She’d say that his wing was not yet strong enough.

  In the flight cage, he had managed to steer and snatch his prey. He ought to be ready for release.

  If he wasn’t, she refused to allow Stephen to despair. She hadn’t interfered in Stephen’s physical growth because he seemed to be doing fine on his own. If Orville didn’t fly, then both he and Stephen might need an intervention. She’d find the time to walk with Stephen and train Orville more frequently. She’d make Stephen realize that Orville’s success or failure did not translate into Stephen’s success or failure. He’d never discussed how important a symbol Orville had become to him, but she’d seen the way he watched Orville, glowed with every success, worried with every failure.

  And if he did fly? Would Stephen fade out of her life? What else did they have to hold them together? She knew how important he had become to her, but was she really more than the latest woman in his life?

  * * *

  “WHAT IF HE DOESN’T FLY?” Stephen whispered. The closer Orville came to being released, the more personally invested Stephen became in his success. He should never have equated his own recovery with Orville’s, but he had, and he was stuck with it.

  “He’s been flying in his cage, Stephen. According to the X-rays, his wing is completely healed. We’ve both watched him fly from one end of the flight cage to the other. He’s picking up his meals off his perches. He’s stronger every day. It is time.” She laid a hand on his thigh. “I warned you. It’s what we do. It’s like children—if you do your job right, they leave you.”

  “The children come back occasionally to visit.” He craned around to look into the grill at the front of Orville’s cage. “He won’t.” The bird was hunkered down under the blanket they had thrown over his cage and seemed to be asleep. “Is he strong enough for long flights over water? If he crashes into the lake, we can’t rescue him. Once he’s out of his cage, he’s not about to come back. He’s not a puppy. He won’t come if we clap our hands and whistle.”

  “He’s going home. All we can do is let him go. What happens to him after that is out of our hands. That’s the way it always is for rehabilitators. The creatures we help are not members of our species. They have their own regulations, their own etiquette, lives very different from ours. If we do our job properly, they leave and we never see them again.”

  “So you keep telling me.”

  “There’s a gravel road up there to the left. I think that’s the one leading to the field where we’re going to toss Orville.” She reached into the satchel between her feet and pulled out a pair of heavy leather gauntlets long enough to cover her arms to the elbow. “Pull in. It’s one of the work roads the rangers use that leads to the edge of the lake, so we shouldn’t be disturbed.”

  “I’ve never been up here. Always wanted to come, but there never seemed to be time.”

  “It’s a beautiful place, but it’s also eerie. The eagles don’t generally come back en masse until December and January, although some of them stay all year round. They occasionally wander off the way Orville did. We’re a little early for the largest number of them.”

  “Should we take Orville back to his flight cage? Come back here after Christmas?”

  “Chill, Stephen. Look, the fog’s blowing away. I love this place, but it makes me nervous. I keep expecting to see ghosts. Come on, let’s do this.”

  They parked on the grass a quarter of a mile from the leafless cypress trees that squatted on their fat knees in the water. Between the fog and the cold, the lake was still and totally quiet. Barbara shivered in her parka.

  Stephen hauled Orville’s cage out of the back seat, removed the blanket and handed it to Barbara, then set down the carrier with the door facing the lake.

  She pulled on her heavy gauntlets.

  As if he recognized the place, Orville shrieked.

  From far across the water came an answering call.

  Both of them jumped.

  “Welcome home, my friend,” Stephen whispered. “How do we do this exactly?”

  “You stand back beside the cage, unhook the door, open it and get out of the way. I reach in, grab Orville in the blanket, move away from the cage, dump the blanket and launch him.”

  “Launch him?”

  “Throw him up in the air as high as I can. If we’ve done everything right, he’ll lift off and keep going.”

  “What if he falls into the water?”

  She shrugged. “It’s his lookout. Have faith, Stephen.”

  Stephen stopped breathing. He felt as though his chest was paralyzed. Barbara nodded. He unhooked the door of the cage. Barbara swung it open and reached in with both hands.

  Orville shrank toward the back of the cage and regarded her with his mad eyes.

  She did not plan to get her face anywhere within talon or beak range. “Good boy,” she whispered. “Come to Mama.” She wrapped her hands around his body in one smooth motion and walked him toward her.

  “Orville, you’re fat!” She turned with him held between her gloves, took two steps toward the lake and tossed him up and away.

  He dropped. One moment he was in the air, the next he was flailing around on the ground.

  “Fly, dammit!” Stephen shouted. At the sound, Orville twisted his white head to look back over his shoulder. For a moment, Stephen thought he might slip back into his sanctuary. He took one hop forward, then another, like an airplane getting up speed to take off. He was coming dangerously close to the edge of the water.

  He gave one final leap, wings beating. He was up! Too close to the surface of the water to suit Stephen, but flying.

  He seemed to realize that he was free. He gained altitude, banked left, used his tail as a perfect rudder, gained more altitude and soared.

  His screams now sounded like exultation.

  “Look, Stephen,” Barbara whispered. From the leafless trees across the lake another bird flew toward him. “It’s a female.”

  “Don’t tell me it’s his mate.”

  “Of course not. That would be ridiculous. Anyway, if it was, we’d never know. Oooh!”

  Orville folded his wings and plummeted toward the water.

  “Stephen!” she gasped.

  “Barbara, he’s stooping.”

  A moment later his talons swept the surface of the water, then he rose clutching a good-sized fish in his talons.

  “Better than frozen mice, huh, buddy?” Stephen shouted to him.

  Together they watched him until he disappeared in the fog that still hung over the far end of the lake.

  “Barbara, my love, are you crying?”

  “Darned straight I’m crying! Now do you see why I work with the rehabilitators?”

  “I always did.” He turned her to face him. “Barbara, will you marry me?”

  “What? Where did that come from? Of course I won’t marry you. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I swore that if Orville could fly, so could I. Marry me. Mate for life. Soar with me...”

  “Eat live fish and frozen mice with you?”

  “I’m serious.

  “You can’t be.”

  �
��Just listen to me. Hear me out.”

  * * *

  “I HEAR YOU, but I don’t heed you. You can’t be serious. Why would I marry you?”

  “Because you’re in love with me.”

  “Who says?”

  “I says. Also because I am in love with you.”

  “Stephen, don’t joke.”

  “Who’s joking? Can you deny that you are in love with me?”

  “Stop this right now! How can I be in love with you? I’ve only known you a few months. It’s not even Thanksgiving. Why on earth would you want to marry me? I’m a hardworking woman with calluses on my palms and two children. I live in a barn seventy miles from where your job and your house and your children and your friends are. I don’t own a pair of designer jeans. Half the time I am covered with dirt and mud, the other half I’m covered in blood and worse. I do not fit in at your faculty club. We don’t match up. Marriage is about property and children. It is not about love.”

  “Who says? Swear you don’t love me.”

  She turned away. “I’ll do no such thing.”

  He clapped. “Hah! You do love me. Your earlobes are bright red. I can see the pulse in your throat throb, and I suspect your blood pressure just went up. I am in love, and if you’ve got the gumption to admit it, so are you. You can’t deny what we feel.”

  “I managed fine before I met you. I was content with my life...”

  He grabbed both her hands. “No, you weren’t. Neither was I before I knew you. There’s living, and then there’s what you and I were doing. Not the same thing.”

  “What on earth has that to do with marriage? Be sensible. You came up here to write a book and rehab your leg. Then you’re going back to your real home and your real life. For you, this is time out. For me, this is the only life I have. I like it. I want it to continue just the way it is. If you hadn’t hit Orville, we might never have met, except over a glass of wine at Emma and Seth’s. Maybe not even then.”

  “I never thought of Orville as Cupid, but he qualifies. The point is, we did meet. And however it happened, we did fall in love.”