“Yeah,” he said, sliding the papers closer and flipping through them as if he had a clue what he was reading. “Probably a good idea to get it checked out. I’ll give you a call later about a start date, if that’s okay. I’m trying to take care of some stuff up at the ranch while I’ve got the time off.”
“A’ight. Take your time.” Doc cleared the last bite of pie from his plate, taking a moment to savor it before speaking again. “Damn, I love Monday pie.” He picked up his hat from the vinyl bench beside him, rolling the brim between his fingers before stretching out one hand to Ethan.
Ethan stood up and shook Doc’s hand, smiling and nodding and generally trying to give the impression he was pleased with the situation. Before Doc let go, he donned his hat and clapped Ethan on the shoulder with his free hand, squeezing for a second before releasing him.
“I know it’s a big step. And I want you to be sure before we sign off on anything. But I have to say, Son . . . I couldn’t be prouder if you were my own.” Then he cleared his throat and clomped out with a nod to the young woman behind the counter.
Ethan could’ve sworn he saw Doc’s eyes glimmering with tears. So much for poker face.
He was choked up himself as he sat back down, and he wanted it to be because his life was turning out almost exactly as he’d always wanted. Or rather, he wanted to be rejoicing in that, instead of feeling like his stomach was about to toss the pie out on its ear.
Doc wanted him to be sure? How could he be anything else?
Since the age of eight or so, when he’d first met Doc Taylor over the heaving flank of a birthing mare, Ethan had known what he wanted to do with his life. From that time forward, he’d done everything with a single motivation: to join Doc’s practice. Once he was old enough to realize Doc had to retire sometime, he’d dreamed of taking over the practice. He was the most capable unlicensed vet tech imaginable once he was old enough to work with Doc as a teenager. He’d pushed himself to excel in science and math, then flouted the family tradition to get his undergraduate education at Texas A&M instead of the Hill family alma mater, The University of Texas at Austin. But he’d aimed even higher, finally earning his DVM at UC Davis. Back to A&M for a year-long large animal internship, a once-in-a-lifetime practicum at the Royal Veterinary College in London, then an associate spot at a practice near San Antonio. Always in the back of his mind was the certainty that he would end up back here in Bolero, prepared to take the reins from Doc Taylor.
Eight-year-olds from small rural towns don’t know much. But Ethan wasn’t a wide-eyed kid anymore, and he knew the world was a lot wider than Bolero, Texas. Maybe he should have questioned himself sooner, let his dream evolve along with his perspective.
Toying with the crust of his pie, Ethan thought about Victoria. How she’d thrown caution and her plans to the wind, given up just about everything she’d known, and rebooted her life from scratch with practically no safety net. It had been hard for her at first, but she’d taken what came along and worked with it. Refused to stay in unacceptable situations and worked hard to make the best of the acceptable ones. Figured out how to handle things, mostly. And it hadn’t turned out so disastrous after all—she’d trusted her instincts, and now her risk seemed to be paying off in ways she’d never anticipated. When he’d left that morning, she was talking about applying for jobs she might not have even considered with a degree before. Jobs that paid better, jobs in a wider range of industries.
Maybe he needed to do that for a while, to broaden his horizons. Roll with the flow and see what happened. Be afraid of the unknown but willing to take what came.
That had never been his jam, either in kink or in the vanilla world. But maybe . . . maybe he should think long and hard before putting down even deeper roots in Bolero. That was definitely a factor he hadn’t considered as a kid, but now he saw the town through adult eyes. He’d seen other places now, met other kinds of people.
Bolero was home and he loved it. He even recognized its strengths. . . But damn, was it small. Provincial. Backward, even. Returning to Texas after living in California had been a serious culture shock, and Bolero sometimes seemed like the epicenter of all that was problematic about Texas. It was that old uncle at a family reunion who seems like the most charming guy in the world until he suddenly makes a racist joke. He doesn’t seem that bad when you’re a little kid, but when you grow up and learn some things, you cringe whenever he comes over because you know that stuff is just not okay.
On the other hand . . . Ethan studied the contract Doc Taylor had left with him, a graduated buyout over five years, at the end of which time Doc would retire outright and Ethan would own the practice. To allow Ethan more time at Hilltop in the first few years, he’d be working a smaller percentage of time proportional to the percentage of his ownership interest, with compensation similarly aligned; then the workload and compensation would shift during the third year to allow Doc to ease into retirement in stages. It was the only contract of its kind he’d ever seen or even heard of, and it seemed incredibly thorough. The cover page included the name of the lawyer who’d apparently drawn it up, from a big-name firm in San Antonio.
“More coffee, hon?” Doreen swung the pot near his cup, waiting for an okay to pour.
He nodded, watching the dark roast fill the white enamel as if he could divine answers in the swirling depths.
Doreen lingered after the cup was full, her weight on one hip, her head tipped to the other side. “Everything okay? You and Doc T. looked like things were gettin’ pretty serious over here.”
Ethan shook his head with a rueful smile. He’d tell it here and by morning everyone in Bolero would know. “Doc finally asked if I want to buy my way into his practice, Reenie. Become the new vet at Creekside Large Animal Clinic.”
“Oh, congratulations!” She put the pot on the table and bent down to give Ethan an enthusiastic hug, leaving him awash in a cloud of rosy perfume, spray starch, and eau du deep fryer. “I can’t believe you’re coming back for good! First Logan, then Mindy Valek, now you. Who’s next?” She might have said she couldn’t believe it, but apparently it never occurred to her Ethan might do anything but accept Doc’s offer.
“Good question.” A whole lot of kinksters, he thought but didn’t say. Of course those were only temporary visitors. Not permanent residents, like he would be. “I haven’t signed anything yet, by the way. Have to think about some things first.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to look over your papers, then. But congratulations again! That’s such excitin’ news.”
She sauntered down the aisle to the corner booth, where a handful of teenagers had trundled in and ordered a ridiculous quantity of food. FFA kids, judging by their caps, jackets, and boots. They were obviously taking advantage of the period they should be spending in the barn to grab an early lunch; Ethan had done the same thing in high school. For the juniors and seniors, the ag teacher and the constabulary always turned a blind eye as long as the privilege wasn’t abused and nobody got into trouble in town.
If he started working with Doc, he’d probably get to know all their names before the school year was out; they’d be gearing up to show their steers or goats or hogs, worrying about how to get those last few pounds on their animals. At his practice in San Antonio, he had never had to deal with poultry and rabbits, but he would see all those animals and more working with Doc Taylor. Even a few farm dogs and barn cats. It would make for some nice variety.
One of the boys shoved half a double-sized burger into his mouth, and Ethan looked back down at his coffee to avoid seeing any more horrors. His foot started to bounce, his body signaling it was ready to go, to do, to act. He ignored it and picked up a straw wrapper instead, smoothing the thin paper and then carefully folding and looping it back on itself to form an intricate woven knot. Something that might look perfect centered over a breastbone or as the central waist piece of a karada. Maybe at the next Giddyup weekend he would find a willing rope bunny and try it out. He never had a s
hortage of volunteers, it seemed.
“Sign me up,” Ethan murmured. He tugged too hard on one end of the wrapper, tearing the paper and ruining the symmetry of the knot. “Crap.” There was only one volunteer who interested him, and she would be gone before the next Giddyup.
Just like the poem. “Nothing Gold Can Stay.”
He started whistling softly as a cover, in case anyone had noticed him talking aloud to himself. “Don’t Fence Me In.” Couldn’t go wrong with the standards. Except the song’s antihero, Wildcat Kelly, always made him think of his brother, whose scene name was Wildcat. Perhaps a different selection from the Cole Porter songbook was called for.
His leg was on a mission to escape from tedium. Ethan reluctantly picked up the sheaf of papers and scooped his hat from the seat beside him. He slid from the stall and started to drop a ten on the table but, after eyeing the goofy FFA crowd, decided to walk it over to the counter instead and hand it to Doreen directly. She headed his way after dropping off more slices of pie for two women at the far end of the counter.
“Thanks, sugar. And congrats again!”
He nodded and spun on his heel, but even before he was out the door he could hear the women asking her what the congratulations were about. Yep, the grapevine was already in action.
Let them spread the news if they liked. The grapevine was wrong as often as it was right, and Ethan still hadn’t put his signature on Doc’s contract.
* * *
Compared to a hotel maid, Victoria knew she had it easy. A dozen cabins, plenty of time to clean them thoroughly, and two people to divide the work between. It was still hard work, though, and two cabins’ worth of guests hadn’t left until that morning, so she would need to do another round of laundry that afternoon in order to get everything ready for the handful of folks expected on Tuesday.
As she finished up the bathroom of the last cabin, Victoria patted herself on the back for one thing: If nothing else, by God, she knew how to clean a toilet now. And if she could ever afford to stay in a hotel or motel again in her life, she planned to tip the hell out of the cleaning staff, because they deserved it.
That old privilege was creeping in again, though. She’d realized it that morning while working and thinking about how to prepare for the Skype interview in the afternoon. All the jobs she was looking at—even the ones in fashion that paid “nothing”—paid more than most hotel housekeepers made. For that matter, Logan and Mindy were paying her more than that hourly right now. Her least promising options were better than somebody who really did this work as a long-term job, but she was already eyeing some openings askance because the salary or benefits package didn’t look great, or she wasn’t sure she’d like the commute to work from wherever she was most likely to live in a given area.
And she hadn’t done anything in particular to deserve any of that opportunity, other than be born into the right family at the right time.
“I should volunteer somewhere,” she muttered to herself.
A spider scuttled from behind the commode, and Victoria rose from her knees enough to free one foot and squash it. A quick spritz of disinfectant and a wipe later, the scene of the crime was spotless again. Just like the rest of the cabin. It was a rewarding feeling—a very specific set of tasks, for a very specific and useful purpose, accomplished in a reasonable amount of time and checked off the list. It had a clearly defined beginning and end. She would probably miss that when she found a job in her chosen field, where often the only hard-and-fast thing was a deadline.
Victoria lugged the cleaning supply caddy and mop bucket back out to the UTV and hoisted them onto the bed, then climbed into the driver’s seat and steered the vehicle along the bumpy trail back to the main house. Her stomach started grumbling as she pulled up to the back-back door. Sadly, there was no sign of Robert in the laundry room as she unloaded the dirty linens and started several loads of wash. Nor was he in the kitchen, which probably meant he was still shopping—so she would have to forage for lunch.
Ugh. She’d gotten spoiled by his cooking, and by his using her as a guinea pig for the stuff he wanted to rotate into his menu for the guests. The refrigerator yielded nothing promising in the way of food to test, only a sadly depleted stock of lunch meats. She settled for folding a few slices of ham into a piece of bread, then grabbed a banana and a water bottle as well. The weather was still nice, and there had been a breeze earlier. If the front porch was still in shade, the swing there would make a nice place to sit and eat while the washers ran.
Juggling the fruit, water, and sandwich, she struggled to get the front door and screen door open; she had already closed the screen behind her before she saw the man standing by the porch swing. Startled, she gasped and dropped her sandwich.
“Shit. Um. Sorry.” Wait. She was a grown-up and she had earned her quiet break with that ham sandwich. And he wasn’t even supposed to be here. “You know what, Daddy? Never mind. I’m not sorry at all. Shit.”
Chapter 16
Her father eyed the sandwich like it was the main problem and stuffed his fingers into his pockets. Dad jeans, a striped golf shirt, boat shoes with no socks. Weekend clothes. At least he’d made himself comfortable for the drive down.
“Hi, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to . . . lose your lunch. So to speak.”
Victoria was closer to that than he realized. Her stomach had knotted itself so tightly, the idea of introducing food was completely off the table now anyway, so the loss of the sandwich wasn’t that big a deal. “Why are you here? Did Alex . . . Oh my God, she told you, didn’t she? She swore. I’ve been working my ass off to get stuff lined up by her deadline.” No wonder her dad couldn’t look her in the eye. He thought she was working at an illegal den of iniquity. “I’m not leaving here with you.”
“I don’t . . .” Thomas Woodcock shuffled a toe, then looked up, finally meeting her gaze. “I’m not planning to take you anywhere. Alex didn’t tell me where you were. You said it in your email, Vicky. Hilltop Ranch. It was easy enough to look up. Damn . . . Well, your mother said this was a bad idea, but I figured if I came right away, you wouldn’t have time to realize you’d forgotten to ask us not to.”
“Did I forget?” She tried to remember the exact wording of her email, but she was still trying to wrap her mind around the sudden realization that her father thought she’d been blaming Alex for giving her the address. Was it possible he really had come on his own and knew nothing about Giddyup?
“Yep. I’m glad to hear you’ve lined up some interviews, though. Or . . . I assume you meant interviews. I know, I know.” He held up his hands, as if she’d protested aloud. “I need to stop assuming. Hey, you look good. Alex said you were a wreck. I don’t know what I was expecting.”
“I am good.” For the first time in a long time, she truly meant it.
Her father nodded, then shrugged. “Little too thin, maybe.”
“Don’t let any of Mom’s friends hear you say that, please. And I’ve been working really hard, so probably I’ve lost some weight. I have no idea.” She hadn’t done it on purpose, at any rate. Lord knew she’d been eating enough to choke a horse.
“Yeah. You’re the cleaning lady and stable girl around here? That’s . . . I didn’t mean to say that like it’s a bad thing. Alexandra said it was—ah. Anyway.”
“Oh. No.” Victoria strode to the porch rail and put down the banana and water bottle so she could cross her arms while she faced her father. She had never seen him this way—conciliatory, quiet, unsure of himself—and it was throwing her off. “No, I really want to hear what Alexandra said. I wonder if it’s right in line with what you said.” Not how she’d planned to bring up that topic, but what the hell. If people were going to barge into her life when she was trying her best to distance herself, they deserved whatever they found there.
“Before or after she chewed my head off?”
“Alex chewed your head off?”
“Yes indeed. Do you wanna get off your fee
t, Peanut?” He gestured toward the swing.
She didn’t want to sit beside him, swinging, relaxing, growing to feel at ease. She didn’t want to hear Peanut. Even from here, she could smell his aftershave, the familiar dad smell of her early childhood. It made her kind of want him to scoop her up in a hug, tell her it would all be okay, the way he had when she was five or six and had faced a setback. Skinned a knee, gotten a noseful of water while learning to swim, failed to do as well at a horse show as she’d hoped. Instead of steeping herself in the fragrance of memory and old patterns of behavior, she stepped back to the rail and hopped up, perching there with her legs wrapped around the posts.
She waited for him to sit down on the swing before speaking again. “Yes. I’m cleaning cabins and occasionally mucking out stalls. Doing some baking. I go on shopping runs, help serve the guests at meals sometimes. Basically, I lend a hand wherever anyone needs it.” She censored out most of the Giddyup-specific duties but offered up one relevant tidbit. “I’m even getting to do some textile work here. They have an old-fashioned ropewalk and handmake a lot of the rope they use around the place. Plus, they demonstrate that process for the visitors. So I’ve been able to help with that, and also show Ethan—one of the owners—different ways to dye the ropes. He sells handmade halters and bridles and stuff. And is a vet. A veterinarian, I mean, not the army kind. He’s the large animal kind.” I’m not babbling; you’re babbling. She bit the inside of her cheek, shutting herself up. The less her dad knew about her sort-of employer with kinky benefits, the better.
Her dad lifted his eyebrows, displaying none of the disinterest or indulgence he usually did whenever she started talking about what she was studying or doing in her spare time. “That’s some good, practical stuff. The rope and whatnot. The other work, too. It reminds me of . . . did I ever tell you this? I think I told Alexandra about it one time. The job I used to do in summertime, when I was in high school?”
Wary of a father who was suddenly into fond reminiscences, she shook her head.
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