Once and for All

by Jeannie Watt

  “What’s that?” Sam asked, meeting the older man’s gaze dead-on.

  “Do you have anything to do with Jodie not returning my calls?”

  Sam couldn’t hold back the disbelieving snort. “I think that’s all you, Joe.”

  Not what he’d wanted to hear. His thick black brows drew closer together. “I heard you two were…involved.”

  “It’s none of your business if we were.”

  “Damn it!” Joe exclaimed angrily. “I want to know if that’s why she won’t talk to me!”

  “No!” Sam shouted back. He ran a hand over the side of his head, telling himself to cool it. A yelling match in the clinic wouldn’t do either of them any good, and shouting was Joe’s modus operandi. Be scarier than the guy coming at you. Then he’ll back off. Sam had known other people like Joe and refused to play that game.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “So what do you think I did? Poisoned her mind against you?”

  Joe didn’t answer, probably because the accusation did sound stupid when spoken out loud.

  “It likely has something to do with you yelling at her for calling me out to your place.”

  “I’ve yelled at her before.”

  “Maybe she’s had enough.”

  A shadow crossed Joe’s features, as if he’d wondered that himself. “She’s never done this before.”

  “She’s thirty years old. Maybe she’s tired of being a good girl, tired of trying to live up to your demands for perfection.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Sam gave Joe a withering look. “What do you think I’m talking about?”

  “I never demanded perfection.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  Joe looked surprised, so surprised that he forgot to appear intimidating, and for a brief second Sam was treated to a glimpse of a confused and concerned old man. “Explain what you mean.”

  “She’s tired of you demanding that she be the best in everything. She’s tired of having to live her life without making mistakes.”

  “What in the hell are you talking about? I never told her she had to be the best, that she couldn’t make mistakes. I wanted her to do the best she was capable of.”

  “That wasn’t what she heard,” Sam replied flatly.

  Joe ran a hand over the lower part of his face, then gave Sam a lawyerlike glare. “Are you being truthful? Or just trying to get back at me for suing you?”

  “If I’d wanted to do that, your gelding would have bled to death in the snow and you’d be short about five healthy calves.”

  Joe planted his hands on his hips, glanced down at the floor, then back up at Sam. He shook his head and walked out of the clinic without another word.

  Sam watched him go, feeling both anger at the man’s arrogance and stubbornness, and a twinge of empathy because he now had an idea of just how damned hard it was to raise a kid, how many mistakes there were to make. It seemed as if Joe had made his share, too.

  Sam went to his desk, sat in the chair and leaned back. He didn’t doubt for one moment that Joe had wanted Jodie to be the best, but his trip here must have cost him his pride. He’d come to ask what the deal was from the guy he despised most in this town. Yeah, that had to be tough.

  It didn’t make Sam like the guy any more, but he could better understand Jodie’s relationship with her father.

  And perhaps why she was doing what she was.

  Jodie thought love was conditional. Screw up and love was gone. That was how Joe had motivated her to be the best. Affection for the winner, a cold shoulder for the loser.

  Successfully defending Colin Craig had made Jodie a loser. She’d been truthful when she said she expected no forgiveness. She hadn’t had a lot of that in her life. Instead of forgiveness, she’d won back affection by achieving.

  Good thing Joe had left, because Sam was feeling a strong urge to throttle the man.

  THE BOYS CAME HOME after school, since there was no basketball practice.

  “I want to talk to you guys. About Jodie,” Sam announced. Their expressions instantly changed.

  “What about her?” Tyler asked.

  “I care about her. A lot.”

  Tyler stared at him. “That’s cool, Sam. Really cool.” He spoke with no warmth in his voice.

  Sam’s control snapped. “People make mistakes, you guys!” He had certainly made his share and he was probably making one now, but he didn’t care. It couldn’t mess up the situation any more than it was now. “I make them. You make them. Jodie makes them. She didn’t kill your parents any more than I did when I talked your dad into taking my place at the conference, so I’m to blame, too. She’s just an easy target because she doesn’t put food on your table and a roof over your head.”

  Tyler swallowed, but didn’t look away. Beau was staring at the floor.

  “She can’t make what happened to you right,” Sam continued in a gentler voice. “No one can.”

  The boys gave no response, but he hadn’t expected one.

  “I want you guys to think about what your parents would want you to do in this situation.”

  That got their attention.

  “Do you think they’d be happy knowing you two were determined to hang on to the anger and let it eat you from the inside out? That you were generating hate on their account?”

  Beau shifted his weight, propping a hand on one hip, and Tyler continued his critical stare, but other than that, both remained disengaged. No more than Sam expected, but he had to give it a shot, hope that someday his words might make sense. That obviously wasn’t today.

  “That’s all,” he said in defeat. “I have a call. I won’t be home until late. Do your homework.”

  He grabbed the keys off the peg and let himself out the back door, crossing the lawn to the clinic with long strides, not thinking about what he’d just said, because frankly, he didn’t believe it would do much good. The boys were taking comfort in their anger and they now had someone tangible to direct it at, rather than some faceless guy in prison. Or maybe they just felt betrayed, because like him, they’d fallen in love with Jodie. The only difference was that he still loved her and didn’t know what to do about it.

  Sam ended up spending a good chunk of the night at Kade Danning’s place, trying to save a horse that a pack of dogs had made run through a wire fence. Kade’s wife, Libby, whom Sam had once dated, was furious, since she’d made complaints to the authorities about the owner several times and nothing was done. Now one of their mares was a bloody, stitched up mess. But she would pull through.

  As Sam worked he couldn’t help reliving the night he’d broken his vow to himself and gone to the Barton ranch to sew up Joe’s gelding for Jodie. He’d had no idea what a life-altering event that would turn out to be, and now he wondered how it was all going to play out.

  It was beginning to look less than hopeful.

  Kade and Libby offered Sam a bed when he’d finished stitching, since it was after midnight, but he declined the offer. It was only an hour back to Wesley, after all.

  He could barely stay awake. It seemed the nights he was able to sleep were interrupted by emergencies, and the nights he didn’t have calls he lay awake, his gut tied in a knot.

  Something had to give.

  The next morning he felt like crap. His head was pounding and he couldn’t seem to get enough coffee in him, so of course the call from hell came in.

  “Sam, it’s the Barton ranch.” There was something in Katie’s voice that kept Sam from telling her he wasn’t available. “Margarite.”

  He took the phone and gave a curt hello.

  “Sam, Joe just had a heart attack pulling a calf. The ambulance should be here any minute…. Sam, that poor cow is going to die and Lucas can’t finish the job. And we have two more cows down.”

  “Be right there.”

  Katie was wide-eyed when Sam handed the phone back to her. “Joe’s had a heart attack. I need to go help.”


  “With the heart attack?” Katie asked in a bewildered voice.

  “With the cows. He was pulling a calf when it happened and two more are about to give birth.”

  He was out the door before the last words left his mouth. He might think Joe Barton was a son of a bitch, but he didn’t want him to die, didn’t want Jodie to go through the anguish of losing him while they still had unfinished business.

  The Beast pulled in just as Sam was getting into his truck.

  “What’s up?” Beau asked.

  “Joe Barton just had a heart attack.”

  “Is he alive?” Tyler asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Beau snorted. “Too bad Jodie won’t find out what it’s like to lose a dad,” he muttered darkly.

  Sam’s hand froze on the door handle, then he slowly turned back to face his nephews. Beau swallowed when he saw his expression.

  “Is that what you want? Really? You want Jodie to feel what you felt? If so, then I feel sorry for you.”

  Beau’s color started to rise.

  “Tell you what, bud. You can hold on to your bitterness for as long as you want. I don’t care. I’m done, because nothing makes a difference. But do not ever spout that shit around me again. Got it?”

  After a stretch of heavy silence, both teens nodded, then Beau looked down at the ground, scuffing the toe of one sneaker on the ground self-consciously.

  “And you know what? Your dad would be damned embarrassed right now. He raised you guys better than this.”

  Sam didn’t say another word. He got into the truck, started it and backed out of the driveway, leaving his nephews staring after him.

  He saw the ambulance approaching him on the road leading from the Barton ranch, its red lights flashing. Sam pulled over, thinking that the lights were a good sign. The medics didn’t bother when it was too late. Right behind the ambulance was a fancy sedan, with Margarite at the wheel and Nadine Barton sitting beside her.

  Was Jodie on her way up north right now? Had they called her? Or were they waiting until they had more news?

  Lucas was in the barn. He shook his head when Sam approached.

  “You lost the cow?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah. It just took too long.” He indicated the two cows in separate pens, both down. “She’s probably going to be fine, but that one’s a heifer and Joe used that big bull.”

  Damn Joe and that black homozygous bull of his. “Well, let’s see what we can do to help her out.”

  After a brief examination, Sam knew he was looking at a C-section. They put the heifer in the squeeze and Sam started shaving the left flank.

  “Are you staying on?” he asked Lucas, making a stab at normal conversation.

  “I guess. Me and Joe seem to be doing all right.”

  “Glad to hear it. Is he hiring more help?”

  “The usual summer hires for when he turns the place into a glorified dude ranch, but nothing right now. Calving is keeping me busy. I wish I had more time for the fences now that the snow’s melting. They’re sagging bad and I’m afraid we’ll have an escape before I get them all tightened.”

  “Who’s been doing the vet work?”

  “Eriksson when he has time to come. Pretty much Joe’s been helping me pull the calves, and other than one C-section that Dr. E did, we’ve been lucky.” Lucas handed Sam the Bentadine and Sam swabbed the area of the incision before handing it back. “That black bull? Died of red water. Eriksson did a swab to make sure.”

  “How’d Joe take that?” Sam checked the rafters for pulleys in case they had to draw the calf out of the incision with chains.

  “Joe’s been pretty darned quiet about that.”

  “I wonder if he apologized to Jodie.”

  Lucas snorted. “I haven’t seen any flying pigs lately.” He was quiet for a moment while Sam readied himself to make the incision. “I kind of wonder if worrying about Jodie didn’t…you know…lead up to the heart attack.”

  “Straining on a calf probably didn’t do him any good, either.”

  “Self-loathing’s a bad thing,” Lucas replied, sounding as if he was talking from experience. “If Joe lives through this, I hope he figures that out. Makes some things right.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said as he began his operation. “Me, too.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  WHEN SAM GOT HOME, the boys were gone.

  He was getting so damned tired of this stomach-in-a-knot feeling. Was anything in his life ever going to go smoothly again? The only positive thing was that Margarite told him Joe had been stabilized and Jodie was on her way to the hospital.

  Sam walked through the empty house, looking for clues, such as a note, before he dialed the twins’ cell and heard it ringing in their bedroom. Cool. He snapped his own phone shut and went to find theirs, lying on the dresser next to Beau’s wallet. Okay, wherever they went, they weren’t going to spend a lot of money. Although Beau was not the greatest at math, he was the brother who managed his money best and had the most. Tyler was always broke.

  Sam looked down at the phone, then shook his head. He’d have to see about getting them each a line instead of making them share. A year ago he’d figured it was a waste of money since the brothers were usually together, but now it didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  He sat on Tyler’s bed, which was as neat as Beau’s was rumpled, closed his eyes, breathed in and out. In and out. He and his nephews had not parted under the best of circumstances, and now he was afraid they’d done something stupid out of anger and spite.

  He hoped they were stronger than that.

  They would be back. He needed to get a grip and go catch up on his office work. If he could focus that long.

  IF FLYING TO WESLEY WERE easy, Jodie would have done it, but there was a twice-daily flight into Elko and an hour drive after that. She’d already missed the morning flight when she got the call about her father, so she’d climbed into the Spitfire and started driving. She’d also done the unthinkable—she’d abandoned the cases she was working on. But one of the office vultures would snap them up, and maybe this idea that was playing in her head about moving to another city, working for a smaller firm with less stress, would become a reality, whether she wanted it to or not.

  Right now she didn’t care. She needed to get to her father before it was too late. The last she’d heard, about an hour out of Vegas, was that the doctors were going to perform bypass surgery. Another hour had passed. Surely no news was good news.

  Focus on the road. All her mother needed was another emergency to deal with. Jodie made an effort to slow down to the speed limit. Focus, focus, focus.

  She was eighty miles from Wesley when her cell phone rang. She was almost afraid to answer it.

  “Jodie, it’s Margarite. Your mom is with your dad. He made it through all right. He’s weak, but…well, he’s doing okay.”

  “I’ll be there in an hour,” Jodie promised, and then hung up, feeling like a bit of the weight had lifted. But she and her father still had some stuff to work out once he was strong enough. She just hoped it wasn’t too late. That she hadn’t screwed things up too badly by refusing to talk to him. What if she was the reason he’d had this heart attack?

  No. If that was the case, she would have given him one a long time ago. She’d disappointed him enough during her life.

  But she’d never before walked out on him.

  The Wesley hospital was small, so Jodie was astounded that her father had had his surgery there. Her mother’s car was parked in the lot. Margarite was sitting in the waiting room just inside the door.

  “Your mom is in with him.”

  “He’s conscious?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you better sit down.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “The nurse will tell the doctor you’re here.”

  Jodie slowly sat. Margarite reached out and patted her knee. “Does Sam know you’re here?”

  “No.”

  “Things are not so good ther
e?” Jodie just shook her head. “That’s too bad.”

  Yes, it was, but short of changing the past, there wasn’t much Jodie could do about it.

  The big silver door leading to the ICU opened and Jodie’s mom came out, accompanied by a doctor wearing green scrubs. A second later Jodie was in her arms.

  “It looks like he’ll be okay,” Nadine said in a teary voice. “There’s still the chance of infection and pneumonia, so he has to stay here.”

  Jodie pulled back, looking down into her mom’s face, then up at the doctor who approached them.

  “Can I see him?”

  “Briefly,” the doctor said. “He’s probably going to conk out in a few minutes.”

  Jodie went into the room to find her father surrounded by machines that all seemed to be blipping and beeping. Lying in bed, he looked smaller than before and his color was off. But he opened his eyes when she came close to him and touched his hand. The corners of his mouth tilted up and he managed to give her hand a slight squeeze before his eyes drifted shut again.

  “He’s going to be out for a while,” the surgeon said from behind her.

  “I’ll wait for him to wake up.”

  Jodie spent the next several hours with her mother, who insisted on checking into the motel a block away from the hospital.

  “It makes more sense than driving back and forth.”

  “I’ll stay there with you.”

  “Do me a favor,” her mother said. “Go back to the ranch and see how your father’s cows are doing. I know he’ll ask, and an eyewitness report will make him happy. Then pack me a bag for tomorrow and bring it to me. I’ll call if there’s anything you need to know.”

  “Couldn’t Margarite—”

  “She’s staying with her sister here in town.”

  “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

  “Right now…honestly, Jodie, I’d rather be alone.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very.”

  Jodie searched her mother’s face and could see she was telling the truth.

  “Call if you change your mind. I’ll be here in half an hour.”

  “I know.” Nadine hesitated, then stunned Jodie by asking, “Will you see Sam while you’re here?”