by Roma James
“I’m not really in a position to speak for Dr. Black,” Jenny said, fixing me with a stern look that just reinforced what I already knew—that I should have never brought this issue to her in the first place, that I should have just kept my feelings to myself. “I will say that it’s part of her responsibility to her other patients—Rambo isn’t the only animal she’s taking care of, unfortunately—to make sure everything is in its place and accounted for.”
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I rocked back on my heels and considered Jenny’s words. She was probably right. Grace was probably just doing her job, just making sure things were taken care of.
But I saw that look. That guilty, suspicious look that I’ve seen so many times before on so many different faces.
There was no way either of them could just explain away that look.
And that was why I wasn’t in a hurry to apologize, even though I was pretty sure I had been an ass.
Okay, I was certain I had been an ass.
“So, what do you think I should do?” I asked, finally. “I get what you’re saying, but I feel like she and I are at odds now, and if the guys and I are going to be staying here for a few more days, I don’t want there to be any tension, you know?”
“What should you do besides apologize, you mean?” Jenny arched a manicured eyebrow. “Maybe just go easy on her. She’s got a lot going on, and she gives everything she’s got to these animals. Just a few days ago she was nearly in tears because she doesn’t have the time or money to start working on a kennel she had planned. She’s not out to make your life more difficult, so maybe just… don’t make hers difficult, either?”
“Hm.” I nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry I laid all of this on you just now. I know you’re busy here, too. But thank you, Jenny. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
Her expression softened as she gave me a polite smile. “Dr. Black and I are both here to help however we can. I know emotions run high when a pet is in pain. There’s nothing wrong with blowing off steam every once in a while, but please do try to keep in mind that she’s got feelings just like you do.”
“Got it,” I said, nodding again. “Thank you.”
I turned and walked out the front door, not sure where I was going or what I was doing. I just knew that I needed some air, some space. I really needed to be on the back of my bike.
Maybe getting out on the road for a while would fix my mood. And then, maybe I could see about making things a little easier for Grace.
A couple of hours had passed by the time I got back to our makeshift camp in the pasture. Ty and Cody each gave me a different version of the same curious look.
“Where the hell have you been?” Ty asked, giving voice to that look. “The way you tore out of here earlier, I would’ve thought you had a hot date somewhere.”
I gave a dry laugh and shook my head. “I fucking wish. But no, I just needed some air and a little time to myself. What’s been going on here? How’s Rambo doing?”
“The same,” Ty sighed and glanced back across the pasture toward the clinic. “Grace—er, Dr. Black—says it’ll still be a while before he’s ready to go anywhere, even under the best circumstances. Maybe a week or two.”
“A week? Fuck,” I cursed as I sunk down into one of the folding lawn chairs that had appeared around our campfire while I’d been gone. “Where did we find the furniture?”
“The doc’s grandma, Miss Amaya,” Cody spoke up. “And it could be two weeks, so I hope that seat is nice and comfy for you.”
Why was it that every time I turned around, this day got worse? I should have just stayed in bed this morning. That would have at least prevented some of the shit I’d already had to deal with.
Except that bed was actually a threadbare sleeping bag on the dry, rocky ground, and while the night air was tolerable, it got hot as fuck as soon as the sun came out.
Sleeping in around here was more like torture than an escape.
“The hell are we gonna do for two weeks?” I asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. “That wasn’t the plan at all. That’s gonna fuck up everything we were doing.”
“Not necessarily…” Ty began, then paused to look around quickly. There might not be another soul around for miles, but Ty was always the cautious one—one of the reasons why we were generally okay with letting him call the shots. “While I was talking to Grace earlier, I happened to overhear her assistant on a phone call.”
“O-kay…” I said, waiting for the part I was supposed to give a damn about. “And?”
“And I couldn’t help but hear her say the name of the person on the other end of the line—a Mr. Windram.”
“Garrick Windram?” I asked, my eyes going wide.
“What are the chances it’s a different Mr. Windram? It’s not like that’s the most common name out here.” Ty jerked his head in the direction of the clinic. “He has an appointment with Grace tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll be able to see for ourselves soon enough.”
“Ho-ly shit,” I said under my breath. Then a thought occurred to me. “You don’t think the doc is in on his little operation, do you?”
“Hell no,” Ty said, his face clouding with a dark expression. “I’d be willing to bet everything I own that she doesn’t have any idea what he’s up to. If she was a crook, I would have seen it in her eyes.”
I didn’t point out the fact that Ty didn’t own much worth betting on, aside from his bike and his dog. Still, he was a damn good judge of character—we all were, in fact—and I didn’t get that vibe from her, either.
If she was some kind of criminal, she was a damn good one. Or a really careless one, since she was letting us stay on her land and come and go from her clinic unsupervised.
Yeah, I’d say I had to agree with Ty’s assessment. There was nothing that really seemed suspicious about her.
I decided to direct the conversation back to the more pressing issue. “If Windram really is going to be hanging around here, at least we have a pretty damn good reason for also being in the area now.”
“Agreed,” Cody grumbled, nodding. “I want to keep as close of an eye as possible on that bastard.”
“I wish we had more of a reason to be at the clinic,” Ty said. “But now that Rambo is on the mend, I don’t know how much longer Grace is gonna be cool with us just wandering in and out of her back room.”
He was right. We needed an excuse, a cover, if we were going to be trying to get information about the human trafficking ring we suspected Garrick of running.
“I may have something that fits the bill,” I said, musing aloud. Both of their heads jerked up, and they waited, looking at me expectantly.
“Yeah?” Ty asked.
“Go on…” Cody added.
“Well, when I was talking to Jenny earlier, she mentioned something about a kennel for the clinic.” I paused, waiting to see their reactions, but was met with two blank stares.
“A kennel?” Ty’s brow furrowed.
“The fuck does that have to do with us?” Cody’s lip curled up. “We don’t know anything about babysitting dogs.”
I shook my head. “Nobody is going to be babysitting anything, because there’s no kennel yet. Grace was going to build one. But she had to scrap her plans because she ran out of money. She’s apparently really stressed about it.”
“We could build the kennel,” Cody said, his face lighting up as he finally caught on to what I was getting at. “The three of us. It would be the perfect cover, the perfect reason to stay close to the clinic.”
I nodded. “Yep.”
“And we sort of owe her,” Ty said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his chin. “That really could be the perfect thing for us. I mean, I know fuck-all about building a kennel, but how hard can it be?”
“The timing would be about right, I’d imagine.” I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about kennels, either, but it shouldn’t take that long. We’ve got the internet to help us with that part, and there’s
gotta be a lumber yard or a hardware store somewhere around here.”
“I think some of us wouldn’t mind the excuse to stay a little closer to the pretty doctor,” Cody grinned, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Ty.
“Fuck off,” Ty said. He shot Cody a stern look, but was completely undermined by the fact that the corners of his mouth were twitching. “It’s not like that…”
“It could be,” I said, joining in. “Don’t pretend like you haven’t seen the way she looks at you, Ty. I think she might not mind the attention.”
“No different than the way the two of you have been eyeing her up and down,” he said.
“She’s hot,” Cody said. “I’ll admit it. I’d treat her right, if she was interested. No doubt about it.”
“I would, too,” Ty gave a half-shrug. “If she was interested.”
They both looked over at me. I held my hands up in a mock surrender. We had never let a woman come between our friendship before.
“She’s hot, for sure,” I said. “But I don’t need to compete with you two. You can fight it out yourselves.”
“What if we didn’t have to fight it out?” Ty asked. “She’s a good woman. A damn good-looking woman. And we’re all good guys here. Why should we make her choose between us?”
My eyes flicked between Ty and Cody. I thought I could see where Ty might be going with this, but Cody looked completely lost.
“But if she doesn’t have to choose…” Cody began. “We can’t all three date her… can we?”
I felt a grin spread across my face. “I think that part is up to Grace, if I understand what Ty is saying.”
“Could be fun,” Ty said, sounding nonchalant even though I could see the wheels turning in his head. “Would sure as hell be interesting. Anyway, all I’m saying is that if she’s open to it, then I am, too.”
“We’re gonna be here for a while anyway,” I said. “She’s hot. She’s single. Owns her own business. I’m in. Any of us would be a fool to turn her down—if she was interested.”
“Well, fuck,” Cody said, grinning. “I’m not gonna let you two fuckers have all the fun. I’m in, too.”
“Okay,” Ty said, sitting up on the edge of his chair. “We’re staying to build the kennel. That’s decided, right?”
“Right.”
“Yep.”
“And if the timing is right,” he continued. “If Grace seems interested… we find a way to bring up the idea of spending a little time with the three of us. Right?”
“Works for me,” Cody nodded.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Looks like we might have a little fun in Grey Ridge after all.”
Now, the only thing left to do was to see if Grace was interested in any of us—or rather, all three of us.
With a little luck, we’d be able to mix business with pleasure while we were here.
Chapter 5 - Cody
The first thing I noticed when I pulled my bike into the parking lot of the veterinary clinic was the giant, gleaming, fire engine red horse trailer. The paint actually sparkled in the bright midday sun.
Without even knowing anything else about the situation, I would have been more than comfortable betting any amount of money that the shiny red trailer belonged to Garrick Windram.
I also knew without a doubt that no matter how expensive and well-bred the animals in that trailer might be, the biggest show horse of them all would be Windram himself.
A person didn’t buy a trailer like that unless they were trying to show off.
Or trying to compensate for something.
What I should have probably done was to ride straight past the clinic and out to the pasture where we had set up our camp. I should have reported back on my trip to town—that I had found a hardware store and lumber yard where we could get the supplies we would likely need for the kennel. And then I should have told them about Garrick Windram.
But doing what I should have had never really been my strong suit.
Instead of heading straight back to camp, I let my curiosity get the best of me. I was honestly just going in for a closer look at that shiny-ass trailer, but as soon as I pulled up to it, I could see that I wasn’t alone in the parking lot.
I had just assumed Garrick would have been inside with Grace, but nope. They were both right there behind the trailer, standing next to each other and apparently deep in conversation, judging from the serious looks on their faces when I approached.
At least Grace’s expression softened when I got closer, a smile spreading across her lips as she shielded her eyes from the sun.
“Cody,” she waved me over, stepping away from Garrick and leaving him scowling over her shoulder. “We were just finishing up here. Was there something you needed?”
My gaze flicked between them and I couldn’t help but feel I was missing out on some key piece of information.
It wasn’t necessarily a surprise that Windram looked annoyed. I didn’t know him, after all, and I was interrupting whatever they had been discussing.
Grace’s reaction was the more surprising one. She seemed a little too happy that I showed up and interrupted.
Or maybe it wasn’t so much happiness as… relief?
“I didn’t really need anything,” I said, shrugging as I stopped and turned my attention to the trailer. “I just thought maybe the rodeo had come to town.”
Or the circus.
Grace started to laugh, but caught herself and covered it with an unconvincing cough.
“Do you think you can go ahead and get my mare stitched up, Doctor Black?” Garrick asked, his tone cold and low. He was talking to her, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off me. “Perhaps your… friend,” his lip curled up into a sneer as he continued, “could take a step back and let you do the job I’m paying you for.”
She looked like a deer caught in headlights for a moment as she stood there between us. I took a step toward her, ignoring him for the moment.
“Are you okay here?” I asked. “Am I interrupting? I don’t want to be in the way.”
“You’re not in the way,” she said, shaking her head quickly before turning back to Garrick. “And I’ll be able to suture the cut as soon as Jenny gets back out here with the med kit. I understand that you’re probably distraught right now, but the wound isn’t a deep one, luckily.”
Even though I couldn’t fully see her face when she turned toward him, I could tell just from the way she set her jaw that she wasn’t going to take a whole lot of his shit.
Which was good, because I probably would have decked the guy if he had kept talking.
The three of us turned toward the clinic as Jenny walked out through the front door, an old-fashioned black doctor’s bag in hand.
I looked over at Grace, ready to make a joke about her med kit being from the 1950’s, but her face was still set in that same stony, no nonsense expression. And while Garrick might be just the kind of asshole to push her buttons, I definitely didn’t want to.
Still, even with this harder look, there was no denying how damn good-looking she was. With her light blue eyes and jet black hair piled high on her head, she was the prettiest woman I had ever seen.
Maybe part of it was that she didn’t seem to care about being pretty. She had a natural, easy beauty that even a shapeless white lab coat couldn’t cover up.
“Sorry that took so long,” Jenny said, pulling me from my thoughts as she stepped in close to hand off the medical bag. “Everything okay out here?” she asked, sort of under her breath.
I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who thought Garrick might be a little sketchy.
“Everything is great,” Grace answered with a terse nod. She didn’t waste time with any other words, though. Stepping inside the trailer with her bag, she went right to work, leaving the three of us standing there avoiding eye contact.
Well, Jenny and Windram were avoiding eye contact. I was more than happy to give him and his trailer a good once-over, trying to take in as many details
as I could in case I needed to recall anything later.
For someone who clearly spent a lot of money on his horses, I wondered how much actual time he spent with them. His black leather boots were as shiny as that trailer, and there wasn’t a spot of dirt on his jeans or button-down shirt. Hell, there were still crisp creases in the sleeves where it had been pressed.
He might haul these horses around, but there was no way in hell I’d believe he actually handled them.
Probably didn’t even ride them.
“All done,” Grace said, emerging from the trailer with a slight frown. “Did you want to settle up today, or should we invoice you, Garrick?”
“That was fast,” he said, still looking annoyed and pointedly not answering her question. “Are you sure you got her stitched up good?”
Grace’s shoulders stiffened and she inclined her head just a little. Was it wrong that I thought she was somehow even sexier when she was getting pissed off?
“Quite sure,” she answered, clipping each word. “Like I said before, the cut wasn’t deep. You got lucky. You’ll just need to have your regular vet follow up with it in a few days to make sure there’s no infection.”
He nodded and made a grunting sound that could have maybe passed for agreement, then waved a dismissive hand. “That’ll be all, then. You can send the bill to my office.”
The three of us stood and watched as he locked up the trailer and then walked around to the front of his truck, climbed in and started it without another word. Only as he was pulling away did he even glance back in our direction, the glare on his face unmistakable as his eyes zeroed in on mine.
“What an asshole,” I muttered, before I could stop myself.
Grace snorted and Jenny laughed, then shook her head. “I don’t even understand why he stopped by,” Jenny said, turning her attention to Grace. “We’re not good enough to treat his horses regularly, but he just happened to be driving by when his mare needed stitches?”
“That’s the thing,” Grace said, looking off in the distance as Garrick’s trailer disappeared from view. “He doesn’t ever come here unless he wants something.”