“I have to–” she began, but the phone rang. “Herriot Veterinary Services,” she answered briskly with a smile on her face that she knew was conveyed through the phone; she had learned well back in Denver. She listened for a moment and then, “I can have the vet come out next week if you’d like?” She looked down at the calendar that also served as a blotter on her desk. “Say Tuesday? Is that convenient for you?” She listened some more and Fiona blessed the day she had met such an efficient person. “Okay, how many?” she further asked. “Our vet needs to know how many vials to prepare,” she explained and was mentally calculating what they had in stock and looking at the cabinets of supplies. “That should be no problem,” she stated. “Okay, Doctor Herriot will be out on Tuesday. Could you give me directions to your ranch?” She waited, scribbling furiously on a pad of paper as she nodded and then repeated the directions back to the caller. “Thank you. I’ll be sure Doctor Herriot gets all the details. Have a good day!”
“Are you always so cheerful?” she teased after her wife had hung up the phone.
“Yep, even when they are yelling at me to get you out there in a hurry.”
“You’ve been yelled at?” she asked, worried that someone had hurt her feelings.
“I point out that they expect your full attention when you are on their ranch or farm or in their home with an animal. It’s not too much to expect you to do the same with every one of your clients.”
“Good point.”
“And getting angry with them only inflames the situation. Besides, I tack a little on their bill for the inconvenience.”
“You don’t?” she looked up again, craning her neck before bringing her knees around and sitting up.
“Yes, I do. Depends on how rude they are. If they can’t be civil when I point out you can’t be everywhere at once, I add a few here and there for their attitude.”
Fiona grinned at that news. She was totally oblivious to the billing side of things since she’d turned it over to Allyssa. That reminded her. “I found a CPA in Sweetwater. You should make an appointment and interview him.”
“Great, get me his name and number, and I will.” She was relieved. The paperwork was building up and she wanted to be sure the accounting program she set up was working properly.
Continuing their earlier conversation, she started to ask, “Come with me for a ride?” but then the phone rang again. She sighed. She could see Allyssa was busy and she wouldn’t bug her just because she was off for the day. She got up, which had Rex standing up in hopes she was going to go do something or go somewhere and he could come. He waited for her. She waved at her wife who was already in deep conversation on the phone and headed out the door, Rex following her.
“Well, boy. What should we do?” she asked him as she petted between his ears and gazed out thoughtfully over their lands, the view worth stopping for. He had grown to where she didn’t have to bend at all to accomplish this. He was a happy boy too, with no sign that he’d had the severe injury he incurred as a pup. Realizing she should have fixed him long ago, she turned to remind Allyssa they needed to schedule his procedure too and found her wife staring at the phone in her hand. “Something wrong?” she asked, fear clutching at her stomach.
“That was my sister,” she informed her.
Surprised, Fiona waited.
“Apparently, my parents are getting a divorce,” she looked up and put the phone down on its receiver.
“What happened?” she asked, surprised. They had seemed to be living a good life. She hadn’t liked their pretentiousness, but it wasn’t her life and was none of her business.
“Apparently, my mother found out he was hitting on her friends and had had several affairs. She immediately filed for divorce and got an order of protection to keep him out of the house.” She looked up, shocked. “I guess I saw the beginning,” she added.
“The beginning?”
She explained what had happened with Juanita who had been with the family for years. “She quit on the spot. packed up her things, delivered them to her home, returned the car and her keys, and took the bus home.”
“Wow,” Fiona answered, impressed. “That really sucks.”
Allyssa nodded as she glanced thoughtfully at the phone.
“Are you okay?”
She nodded again, looking up at her wife. “I think this is going to be harder on my sister. She saw my parents’ marriage as perfect. She probably modeled her marriage to Derek after it. To find out my father is human, very human, probably is a shock.”
“Are you upset?
She shook her head. “No, actually I’m not. I’m sorry my mother had to find out like that, but these things have a habit of surfacing eventually, don’t they?”
Thinking about their own conversation the previous day, she didn’t want to critique anything about cheating. It was a touchy subject, so she just nodded, waiting for her wife to continue.
“My sister thinks if she and Derek had children, those grandchildren would be enough to get my parents back together. I told her it was a horrible reason to have children.”
“You’re right. The only reason to have children is because you want them and love them. And you should have them with someone you love,” she said meaningfully, looking directly at Allyssa.
Allyssa caught the nuance and smiled a little self-deprecatingly. They had discussed it one night, but decided to wait a couple of years until they had been on the ranch a while and saw where the business was going.
“Hey...” she started to change the subject. “Why didn’t that Toby guy leave a phone number?”
“Oh, he said he didn’t have one,” she explained.
“I wish I could remember why that name is vaguely familiar,” she commented.
“Well, you’ll have to ask around.”
She nodded. “Maybe my father will remember.”
Just then the phone rang again and Fiona turned to leave her wife to her work. She should stock up the truck anyway, so she went to the storage shed to see what Allyssa had done with the extra supplies. There wasn’t as much in there as she had thought there would be. The stuff they had used up and what Allyssa had put on the shelves of the cabinets had emptied a lot of the boxes stored in the cabin. It really looked impressive when you walked in. She hoped her family would be impressed. That was a first…she had never cared before. She looked around noting Allyssa’s touch—everything was orderly and labeled, and space wasn’t wasted. She smiled. Even with the re-ordering of supplies, Allyssa made sure Fiona double checked the list in case there was anything she had missed. With the truck constantly needing restocking it was important to keep up on these things. She grabbed a few things and wrote them down on her notepad as she put them in their spots in the truck, moving the older stuff to the front, so it would be used up first. That didn’t take long and then she really was at loose ends.
She looked around the ranch at the many jobs waiting to be done. The house site sat bare and empty. They had discussed whether they wanted a basement, a ranch style house, or an old farmhouse like the house that had sat there before. She’d shown her wife pictures of the place that she had in her boxes, pleased she had kept so many since everything her grandparents had was burned up in the fire. It still saddened her to think of so many memories burned up and gone. Still, her memories would be with her forever and she was making new ones. She smiled. She could clearly envision the farmhouse a little more modern and with long, wide porches on two or three sides, an enclosed porch on one of the sides, and at least two children running around it, playing with kittens and puppies.
That thought determined her next project and she spent the next hour setting up in the surgical room in the barn. There really wasn’t much more they could do on it as they were waiting on the surgical lights she felt they needed. The stainless-steel table, large and of the right height, was installed. Allyssa had suggested they install sheets of stainless-steel along the sides of the former box stall for ease of cleaning, which had
cost them extra. And there was a drain in the floor, so it could be washed down after a particularly messy surgery. By the time Fiona was done and Allyssa came looking for her, a tray of surgical tools on a stand was within easy reach and had a sheet covering it from any random dust. Rex announced her presence with the familiar thumping of his tail.
“Finished?” she asked, looking around the surgical theater as it was called, pleased.
“Almost…just the lights,” she said, pointing up. They had draped a white tarp over the top of the room to make it light and airy and to keep dust that was usually prevalent in a barn from entering this stall. The lights would also reflect favorably off it, and the room would really light up. “Any news on their delivery?” They had been waiting a while, which was another reason she had been procrastinating on their own pets’ surgeries.
“The definitive date is next week. They had to replace that first shipment that arrived busted.”
“Yeah, that was a real bummer,” she complained. She had gotten all excited to put them in and found they were all damaged. Someone had busted them good. The box had to have been dropped from a great height to incur that much damage.
“Still, this looks great,” she admired. There was one cabinet in the corner holding only surgical items, also stainless steel and glass. Any medicines they needed would be brought in with them, including the gasses needed in certain surgeries.
“It’s too bad,” she murmured, “we can’t use this more often.”
“What do you mean?” Allyssa asked. It had already taken too long to get this room ready.
“I mean, we won’t use it much,” she admitted, saddened, wondering at the cost and why they had gone to such expense.
Suddenly, getting an idea, Allyssa asked, “Why don’t we host an animal weekend where you provide low-cost spays and neuters to the district?”
“That is a good idea!” she admitted, looking at her amazing wife.
“Well, it’s not mine, but it would pay for this. If we have it like once a month it would really pay in the long run. It would get your name out there even more, and you’d pick up new clients we wouldn’t have had before. Maybe one day a week you could be ‘in house,’” she made the quotation marks in the air, “for small pets?”
“Yeah, one day a week wouldn’t be that bad,” she admitted. “It’s too bad the house isn’t built so we could move your office in there. We will have to put up a divider in the cabin...” she mused, thinking about the idea.
“Or we could add to the cabin too,” she pointed out.
As Fiona began to think about the expense, she realized she had no idea how much the check from her grandparents was going to be. They might not even be able to afford a house, much less expansion. Still, it was fun to dream. “Guess we’ll start with the low-cost spay and neuter to pay for this room,” she pointed out.
“I can get the word out. Say, in two weeks?” she asked to be sure, excited about making an online brochure and providing their followers with the news. “Can I send that to the newspaper and radio announcing it?”
“You’re the best. You always think about the angles,” she said as she approached her wife, taking her in her arms to give her a kiss.
“I’m thinking about your practice and how to make us more money,” she pointed out practically.
“Our practice,” she corrected.
“Okay, our practice,” she agreed with a smile and leaned down for another kiss.
It was then they heard a car coming up the driveway and Rex rushed out barking.
Chapter Eighteen
Keith Herriot looked exactly like Allyssa had expected, an older version of his daughter, but not nearly as pretty. His other son and daughter took after him too and amazingly looked like younger versions of Fiona. Rosemary looked like she had eaten something sour as she looked around the ranch almost proprietarily, which set Allyssa’s teeth on edge.
The two women came out of the barn, arms around each other as they went to greet their guests.
“Dad!” Fiona called from where they had stopped in front of the cabin.
He looked down the slight incline to the barn and saw his daughter next to a tall blonde girl. She was a lot younger than he would have thought. Still, she was pretty and she was game to be taking on this challenge his daughter had decided on. “Fiona!” he called back as he started walking towards her, his hand raised to wave.
They met in the middle with a bear hug. “God, it’s good to see you,” he said heartily, missing this first daughter of his. They didn’t see each other often enough. He knew why, but it didn’t mean he didn’t miss her.
“Dad, I’d like you to meet my wife, Allyssa,” she said by way of introduction.
“Hello,” Allyssa greeted him, hand outstretched.
“Naw, we give hugs,” he said, brushing the hand aside and enveloping her in one. She returned it, amused, looking over his shoulder at her wife who was grinning. He let her go, looking at her and realizing she was the same height he was. He turned back and made a come-hither gesture to the rest of his family. “Let me introduce you to the crew,” he said in a welcoming voice, one of his arms still around Allyssa. The younger Herriots came up willingly, almost eagerly, and exchanged hugs with their older sister, identical smiles on all their faces as they murmured greetings, insults, and good-natured teasing. Allyssa looked on with a smile, never having shared anything like this with her own sister. “Sean, Traci, this is Allyssa,” he said, introducing his new daughter-in-law.
The two young kids stood there awkwardly, not sure if they should hug the stranger. Allyssa understood. At their ages, she too was trying to get used to the social graces. She held out her hand to shake, leaning forward out of Keith’s casual embrace to do so. “How do you do, Sean?” She let him take her outstretched hand, squeezing it a little as she smiled. He immediately looked down at his shoes as he stood there awkwardly, limply shaking her hand and pulling it back as soon as he could. He looked up shyly when she smiled at him and moved on. “How do you do, Traci?” she smiled at the even younger girl who had to be Fiona in miniature. Neither of the children looked like their mother, Rosemary, who was shooing Rex away from her.
“Down dog, go away, shoo,” she kept saying and Rex, who had done a cursory sniff at the woman looked on, perplexed. He wasn’t doing anything to be shooed away, but she kept saying it. Fiona and Allyssa exchanged a look as the older woman joined their little group.
“Rosemary, come meet Fiona’s wife, Allyssa,” Keith said jovially. They all saw the woman flinch visibly at the word, ‘wife.’
“How do you do, Mrs. Herriot?” Allyssa said cordially, holding out her hand. The woman, after a glance at the tall woman standing before her, looked off into the distance as though she had intended to look at the mountains and ignored the hand. Allyssa finally pulled it back and stuck it in her jeans pocket.
“Well, the place is looking good,” Keith commented to cover up the embarrassment of his wife slighting the woman.
“Well, you can thank Allyssa for that. She’s the one that’s here all the time,” Fiona smiled at her wife, holding out her arm to put it around her as she took a step into her sideways embrace.
“I’m just grateful Fiona knows how to do things and is willing to show me,” she said modestly, remembering the learning curve on the backhoe and using the front-end loader.
“You have a garden?” Keith smiled. His mother had one for years in the same place.
“Yes, but I’m going to have to learn to shoot rabbits, or Rex here,” she petted the dog who had come up to sit behind his people, “will tear it all up in his desire to get at them.”
“Oh, look, Dad. They have horses!” the little girl said excitedly, pointing at the two that were looking on curiously at their visitors from the corral.
“Starting to look like old times,” he grinned at his daughter.
“Well, I won’t be running cattle or horses or sheep like Grandfather did,” she admitted wryly. “I ha
ve neither the time or the patience, and I don’t want to scare off Allyssa.”
“Scare her off?” he asked, trying to catch the joke.
Giving her wife a slight squeeze to let her know she was kidding, she answered, “Allyssa’s a city gal. I just got her started with a dog, cats, and now the horses. However, she did surprise me when she fixed up the ATVs I managed to wrangle.” She smiled up at her wife, showing her pleasure in her accomplishments.
Allyssa smiled back in return.
“You have ATVs?” Sean asked, suddenly sounding excited.
“Yeah, and you can’t go on them without an adult,” his older sister warned him with a smile and then chuckled when he looked disappointed.
“Can I ride one of your horses?” Traci asked eagerly.
“With supervision, and only if your parents say you can,” her sister told her, another smile enhancing her face.
“I bet that was a long drive,” Allyssa suddenly spoke up. “Why don’t I get us all some lemonade and we can sit out.”
“Where?” Rosemary asked, looking around distastefully at the large barn, the sheds, and the cabin.
“The cabin should do fine,” Fiona told her with a smile, but Allyssa could feel the tension in her body.
“I’ll meet you all up there,” Allyssa said as she made to go to the mobile home where they kept the small refrigerator. She’d made lemonade that morning with cold water from their spring house. It had set all that time and should be pleasantly cool and mixed. “Traci, Sean, will you help me with the cups and glasses?” she asked her new in-law siblings and received grateful smiles from both. She could bet they wanted to explore, having only visited their grandparents’ ranch a handful of times in their young lives.
Fiona was grateful to her wife for distracting the younger children and watched as Rex followed along eagerly, hoping to find new playmates since his humans only accommodated him occasionally, and the younger cats had learned to swat his tender nose with their claws.
“So, you are using the barn?” her father asked with a smile. “And you painted the fence,” he said in delighted surprise.
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