And then he seemed contrite. “I’m sorry I missed your graduation, Ramona. I wanted to come, but Jake Sloan’s mare was having trouble giving birth to her foal and I couldn’t just leave her like that—”
“I know,” she told him, cutting his unnecessary apology short. He wouldn’t have been Doc if he’d left the mare in distress. And she wouldn’t be where she was if he hadn’t been that man. No way would she ever find fault with him. She dismissed the graduation ceremony with a few words. “It was just a couple of hours in a day. You were fighting to save the mare’s life. Rick told me,” she explained in response to the quizzical look the veterinarian gave her.
“Don’t get me wrong, Doc,” she continued quickly, in case he misunderstood. “I would have loved to have had you there, but I understand why you weren’t. You’re like a father to me. If it wasn’t for you, I would have never been able to go to college, much less on to veterinary school. And you gave me my edge. I was ahead of the class because you allowed me to trail after you, letting me learn firsthand how to successfully treat sick animals. I’ll never be able to even begin to pay you back for that.”
He gestured to a seat beside the receptionist’s desk and he sat down behind it. “You really want to pay me back?” he asked, studying her expression.
“You know I do.”
“Then come join my practice.”
Mona’s mouth dropped open. This was what she’d been secretly hoping for all along, but they had never discussed her coming to work with him after she graduated. She’d thought that maybe he would have preferred working on his own.
She had to ask before she let herself begin celebrating. “Do you mean it?”
Doc chuckled. “Why do you think I sent you to veterinary college? I’m getting on in years, Ramona,” he confided, leaning over the desk. “I’m not as young as I used to be—”
She cut him off. She didn’t want him dwelling on age, didn’t want to think about his ever getting old. She’d come to depend on the fact that he would always be there. Like Rick. It had been hard enough on her when her grandmother had died. There were times when she couldn’t get herself to accept that. It felt too much like being abandoned.
“Sure you are, Doc,” she told him with feeling. “You’re the youngest man I know.”
Doc grinned and it made him appear at least ten years younger. “Be that as it may, being the only vet in the area is really beginning to wear me down. I don’t mind saying that I could use help. The right kind of help.” He looked at her pointedly. “Your help. How about it? Are you game, Ramona?”
Unabashed enthusiasm throbbed in her voice as she told him, “Try and stop me.”
Amused, pleased, he laughed at her challenge. “You’re a force of nature, Ramona. I wouldn’t dream of ever getting in your way.”
Mona moved to the edge of the seat. “So when can I start?” she wanted to know.
He would have wanted her to begin yesterday. He really was swamped.
“I’d say ‘now,’ but realistically, how about right after your brother’s wedding? I’m assuming that you want to pitch in with the preparations,” he said knowingly. “From what I hear, Miss Joan’s got the food covered, but there are still the decorations and all that stuff I have no idea about that needs doing. I’m sure that Olivia and Tina will appreciate the help.”
Olivia and Tina. That would be her future sister-in-law and Olivia’s sister. She’d met them both just once, at her graduation. Both were initially from Dallas and, according to the brief explanation she’d gotten, Rick had met Olivia when she’d come looking for her runaway sister. Rick had brought them to her graduation, then dropped the little bombshell on her that he was getting married. And that Olivia was having his baby.
In all honesty, she was excited about the prospect of becoming an aunt, but not so much about becoming a sister-in-law. Or, more specifically, if she was being really honest with herself, she wasn’t all that thrilled about Rick getting married. Though she would never tell him as much, she didn’t want to lose him, or lose the connection they had. And wives had a way of doing that, cutting their man out from the herd and keeping him all to themselves.
For as long as she could remember, Rick had been part of her life. Even this morning’s protective big-brother display was all part of the deal, even though she bristled and made noises that she was irritated and that he was cutting into her independence. But if Rick wasn’t there to care about what she did, or who she did it with, she knew she would miss that terribly. Miss having him worrying about her.
Miss being the center of his world.
But now he was going to have a new center. Olivia was going to be his center. And she would be out in the cold.
Mona wasn’t all that sure how she would handle that reality in the long run. That was what she needed to work out. But even as she thought about it, she could feel a loneliness seeping in.
“And,” Doc was saying, “there’s something else to consider.”
She blinked. How much had she missed with her mind wandering? “What?”
“Well, it’s no secret that Rick was hoping you’d open a practice in Dallas or Austin. There’s a lot more money to be made in big cities like that. People have a lot more money to spend on their pets,” he told her. “I know Rick’s hoping that you’ll become financially secure. That won’t happen if you work with me.”
Money had never been her primary concern. She wanted to stay in Forever, wanted to work with her mentor. “Don’t worry about Rick. I doubt if he even remembers that he had any plans for my future,” she said dismissively. “My brother’s got more important things on his mind these days.”
Doc watched her for a long moment. Something about his expression told her that he’d heard more than she’d been willing to say.
“Rick always struck me as a very capable young man,” Doc said. “I’m sure he can handle having a wife and a sister.”
Was she that transparent, or was Doc just that good at reading people as well as animals?
Mona shrugged, doing her best not to look as if her brother’s ability to be a husband and a brother mattered to her one way or the other.
“We’ll see.”
Just then the chimes in the doorway sounded, interrupting the flow of the conversation. Mona turned around in her seat, fully expecting to see another of Doc’s patients being brought into the clinic.
Instead, Joe walked in.
“Thought you might be here,” he said. And then, as an afterthought, he nodded at the veterinarian, muttering Whitman’s title by way of a greeting. “Doc.”
“Why are you looking for me?” she asked. Suspicion crept into her voice. “Rick send you?”
“No, Rick left the office to see Olivia. Something about having to drive her to the next town for a doctor’s appointment. I just thought you might want to know that Mick towed your car in and he’s finished fixing your flat—and putting air into your spare,” he added. “Car’s waiting for you at his shop anytime you’re ready to pick it up.”
Mona nodded her thanks, then looked back at Doc. “Why would I want to go anywhere else?” she asked the older man. It was a rhetorical question. “Everyone takes such good care of me here. Besides, I do have that loan to pay back,” she reminded him pointedly.
Doc waved his hand at her words, dismissing them. “Wasn’t a loan, it was a gift. A scholarship, if you will. You don’t pay back a scholarship.”
“Doc, you don’t charge your patients much. You’re hardly rolling in money. You can’t afford to just give that kind of money away—even to me.”
“Now, there you’re wrong,” Doc told her. “It’s my money, which means that I’m at liberty to spend it any way I want. And what I wanted was to be part of creating the best damn veterinarian that this part of Texas has ever seen. You wouldn’t begrudge an old man his dream, would you?”
“I already told you, I don’t know any ‘old man,’ so there’s no way I could begrudge him anything. As for you, I kno
w that I owe you so much more than I can ever pay back. The money’s the least of it.”
“If it’s the least of it, there’s no point in even concerning yourself about it. Good, that’s settled,” Doc pronounced. “You’re not paying me back.”
Mona blinked, feeling a little dazed. Doc had somehow managed to twist her words. But this wasn’t the end of the matter. She would find a way to get money into Doc’s bank account without raising any red flags. Once it was there, he couldn’t just hand it back to her. She wouldn’t let him. His mentoring had been priceless and no way could she ever pay him back for sharing his time and himself with her.
But money was something she could return. And would.
“We’ll see,” she murmured.
Turning toward Joe, she asked, “Want to give me a ride over to Mick’s Garage?”
“That’s why I’m hanging around,” the senior deputy told her.
That said, Joe turned on his heel and led the way out.
“See you later, Doc,” Mona called out, following Joe.
“Later,” Doc echoed. And smiled to himself.
Chapter Six
They looked good together.
Sitting at one of the tables set up for the reception, Mona felt a pang. She was watching her brother and his brand-new bride dancing together. Wearing a beautiful floor-length gown with an empire waist that softly swirled about her as she moved, Olivia looked radiant. The statuesque blonde had a double glow about her because she was not only a bride, but a mother-to-be, as well.
It was ordinarily not the best of combinations, but Mona had to admit that Olivia carried it off with aplomb. When she first met her sister-in-law last month, Mona was completely prepared to dislike the woman who was taking her brother away from her. But Olivia was smart, sharp and witty—and obviously very, very much in love with Rick.
It was the last quality that carried the most weight with Mona. If she had to lose Rick, lose the man who’d been brother, father and mother to her as far back as she could remember, she wanted it to be to a woman who had stars in her eyes every time she looked at him. That described Olivia to a T.
And Rick, well, Mona had to admit that she’d never seen him look so proud, so happy. Oh, he’d displayed both emotions at her recent graduation, but this, this was something different, something more. This demonstration of pride and happiness came from a man very obviously in love, who clearly felt that the sun rose and set around the woman he had just promised to love and cherish in sickness and in health until death reared its dark head to part them.
She knew that her brother had never thought true love was in the cards for him—honest-to-God, gut-twisting love. And now, here he was, dancing before the whole town and seeing only the woman in his arms.
Here he was, Mona thought, in love and a husband.
Not just a husband but a father-to-be, as well. He was taking on a great deal in a very short amount of time. And while she was glad for him, truly, truly glad because Rick deserved every bit of happiness that came his way, deep down she was still very sad for herself.
She’d done her very best not to show it, to throw herself wholeheartedly into festively decorating Doc’s backyard—the veterinarian had generously thrown open his house because his was the largest backyard in the area and there were a lot of people who wanted to celebrate their sheriff’s nuptials—so that no one would suspect that she struggled to keep this growing feeling of loneliness from consuming her.
It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling.
Mona had struggled with it before. This was the same loneliness that had come for her when their grandmother had died so suddenly when she was in her second year at college. At the time, Rick had unknowingly made the loneliness retreat by promising that she’d always have him to rely on, that he would always be there for her, no matter what.
But today, his first priority had become his wife, as it should be.
However, who did she have? Mona wondered, suppressing a sigh as she twirled the stem of her champagne glass, hardly aware of what she was doing.
Yes, technically, to the outside observer, her family had just increased. She’d gained not only a sister-in-law, but Olivia’s sister, Tina, and nephew, Bobby, as well. Yet that gain was just on paper. In her heart, she hadn’t gained, she’d lost. Lost a very, very important person in her world.
She hated feeling like this, hated not being able to simply celebrate Rick’s happiness and just be happy for him.
Rick and Olivia had each other and she…she had Doc and the practice, Mona consoled herself. Doc had no other family. She was going to have to be his family, she reminded herself. And maybe, in time, that would become enough. For her, as well.
Rick caught her eye as he twirled Olivia about on the floor. He was grinning from ear to ear. Mona smiled broadly for his benefit, silently telling herself to stop being so maudlin. She loved Rick and she wanted him to be happy.
Larry looked from his friend, to the sheriff’s sister. Mona was sitting several tables away from theirs. With an annoyed sigh, Larry shook his head.
“So when are you going to make your move?” he finally asked Joe.
Preoccupied, Joe realized that the deputy beside him had addressed the question to him. Not that the question made any sense.
He blinked and stared at Larry. “What?”
Larry appeared ready to hit him upside the head. “Your move, man,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “When are you going to make your move?”
He was not going to encourage this. Turning away from Larry, Joe said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Larry did not cease and desist, the way Joe had hoped. Instead, he asked another question, one that was just as annoying as the first.
“God, you’re even thicker than a bale of hay, aren’t you? You’ve been staring at Mona for the last half hour,” Larry hissed. “If you stared any harder, your eyes would have fallen out of your head by now. She’s alone, you’re alone. Do something about it.”
He was going to do something about it, Joe thought. He would go home in a few minutes, but not yet. Right now, he just wanted to look at Mona a few minutes longer. Dressed in a deep green cocktail dress that accentuated her small waist and clung invitingly to her curves, she was a vision he was sealing into his memory. A vision he couldn’t get enough of.
“Maybe she wants to be alone,” he pointed out to the blond deputy.
“Then she’d be smiling, wouldn’t she?” Larry asked, gesturing toward Mona. “Is she smiling?”
Joe had a clear view of her profile. The corner of her mouth was not curving and she wasn’t given to lop-sided smiles. “No.”
“I rest my case.” Larry eyed him expectantly. When Joe gave no indication of moving from his seat, Larry shook his head and mumbled something about “hopeless.” “You’re going to die alone,” the deputy said to him. “You know that, don’t you?”
Frowning, Joe rose from the table. It wasn’t clear whether he would take the advice he’d been given or if he just wanted to get away from the giver, but Larry went with the positive and nodded his approval.
“Good, now just put one foot in front of the other until you reach her table. When you do,” Larry continued to coach, “you ask her to dance with you.” Joe shot him a dark look. “The band’s playing a slow dance. Everyone is capable of a slow dance. Even you,” he insisted. “Just pretend to move your feet. The object is to have an excuse to take her into your arms and hold her.”
But Joe remained in his spot. Larry’s thin grasp on his temper snapped. “Damn it, Joe, if it all depended on you, there’d be no Apache nation.” Larry scowled in frustration, but he was not about to give up. “Do I have to drag you over there?” he asked.
As close as Joe could figure, his friend had had three drinks at the reception so far and while that didn’t make the tall deputy drunk or dangerous, Larry grew agitated.
Afraid that the man might do something that would wind up embarrassing him or w
orse, embarrassing Mona, Joe weighed the options and decided that it would be more prudent just to ask Mona to dance. If she turned him down, he could tell Larry to back off. If she took him up on it, well, so much the better.
Like Larry had said, he knew how to move his feet back and forth and sway in time to the music. Not much more was required in a slow dance. And it did give him the opportunity to hold Mona without any consequences.
“Stay put,” Joe growled in a low voice. There was no missing the command in his tone. The last thing he wanted right now was a wingman, something he could see that Larry was more than ready to become.
Crossing from his table to Mona’s, he searched his mind, looking for words that wouldn’t instantly transform him into a fool.
Mona saved him the trouble.
Aware of the slight shadow that had fallen over her from behind, Mona turned in her seat and found herself looking up into Joe’s ruggedly handsome face. If her heart leaped just a little, she told herself it was because he’d startled her.
“Hi,” she murmured.
“Hi,” he echoed.
So much for groundbreaking conversation.
Glancing over his own shoulder, he saw that Larry watched him intently and that the deputy was moving his hands in a gesture meant to urge him along. To get on with it already. Joe had a feeling that if he didn’t progress any further, Larry would hurry to his side and take over like a frustrated puppeteer.
He turned back to Mona. “Feel like dancing?” he asked her.
No, what I feel like doing is sitting here, feeling sorry for myself. But maybe dancing might help me get rid of that feeling, she thought.
“Sure,” she answered. Her quick answer, she could see, surprised Joe. “Why not?”
Rising, she put her hand into his. Joe wrapped his fingers around it, turned on his heel and led her to the dance floor.
As he passed Larry, Joe deliberately refrained from making any eye contact with him. He sensed that the deputy probably congratulated himself on getting them together, as well as flashing some kind of sign meant to cheer him on. Larry had absolutely no handle on what was embarrassing behavior and what was acceptable.
A Baby on the Ranch: A Baby on the RanchRamona and the Renegade Page 21