Vetted Again

by K'Anne Meinel

  Allyssa had stopped in their clinic to get messages off the machine. They’d had quite a few, but they’d received an equal number of cancellations. That was an unusual occurrence, and she didn’t understand it, but she forgot about it as she and Fey got busy again, this time washing the house. They got out ladders, so they could rub down the upper stories of their beloved home.

  “Wonder if the sheriff told people we’d house the animals?” Fey asked as they finished up that night. Her arms were killing her from holding up the brush and the water hose.

  “Yeah, and the phone has been really quiet. I wonder if the lines are down?” Allyssa mused. They went in and washed up, enjoying their shared shower as they celebrated being alive and being in their home together. They tried to muffle their giggles as they dried off, then they dressed to go down for dinner, enjoying their family almost more than they had before.

  “My numbers are down,” Allyssa murmured as she checked the internet. She had checked, and the phones were working fine too.

  “What do you mean?” Fey asked her. She was trying to get Molly to sleep and the nearly one-year-old little girl was resisting.

  “It’s like people have unliked my blogs or unfollowed them,” she murmured, switching Erin to her other arm as she got up to walk with the little boy. Tom was already upstairs in bed.

  “You keep track of the numbers?” Fey asked, surprised.

  “Well, not really,” she admitted, “but when the numbers go down hundreds of people, yeah, I’m gonna notice that.”

  “Hmm, maybe it’s a glitch in the system?” she asked, not knowing much about computers or blogs. After all, that was Allyssa’s forte, something she had been very grateful for when they started this business together. She did the field work and her wife did the office work, and Allyssa had done it very well, thinking of ways to promote them that wouldn’t have occurred to the vet.

  “There’s an odd comment or two as well,” she said, frowning as she scrolled through them.

  “Like what?” she asked, pleased to see Molly growing tired enough to close her eyes.

  “Someone wrote ‘murderer’ on the blog, but it’s signed Anonymous, so I don’t know who wrote it.”

  “Murderer?” Fey asked, amused. “Probably some kook.”

  “That’s what I thought, and then I saw another comment on the other blog.”

  “Also anonymous?”

  “No, it’s from one of your ranchers.”

  “Really? Who?”

  Allyssa told her and then watched as Fey stared at her in consternation. It was one of the big ranchers she had done a lot of work for. He paid his bills promptly and had always been a nice guy.

  “What the heck?” she asked, and her anger must have translated to Molly because she woke up and started fussing again.

  “Here, switch,” Allyssa offered, handing Erin to Fey and taking Molly in her arms. “Hi, there,” she said with a smile to the little girl. They didn’t continue their conversation until both babies were asleep in their cribs.

  “Do you think something is going on?” Fey asked. She’d just sent Traci and Sean to bed, and the house was quiet. Lexy was in for the night and Rex was sleeping on one of the porches they had cleaned.

  “I don’t know, but I don’t like this at all. No one has ever been this negative, and I’m getting a bad feeling,” she admitted.

  Over the next few days, they discovered they were being shunned. Only one person took them up on their offer to keep their horses out at the ranch, and that person confessed if they had somewhere else to go, they would have. As Fey started making her rounds, she was asked to leave a couple ranches, which shocked her. She finally asked what the hell was going on, and one farmer told her to leave or they were going to get a shotgun to remove her from their place.

  “Here,” Gretchen and Lorna showed Allyssa a message board she wasn’t aware of. There were messages where people had chimed in about the Herriots, their ranch, and their behavior over the past couple years. They felt there had been one too many ‘murders’ at their place and people questioned their behavior, not because they were lesbians but because no charges had been brought against the couple. Wasn’t it convenient that all the witnesses had ended up dead?

  “How dare they?” Allyssa gasped, starting to cry at the unfairness of it all.

  “We know you aren’t a murderer,” Gretchen told her, “but they don’t, and since you didn’t make a public statement about what happened, and nothing appeared in the newspapers, someone is making up stories about you and ruining your reputations.”

  “That’s why Fey is losing clients,” she gasped.

  Lorna nodded. “Whoever is behind this, they are doing a good job.”

  As Sean and Traci started school, they began to feel the fallout of the stories too. They were getting into fights with their friends and classmates at least once and sometimes twice a week. The school put the two women on notice. As legal guardians of the siblings, the school held them responsible for the children’s behavior.

  “That’s not fair. I didn’t start it,” Traci said when Allyssa attempted to talk to her about a fight she had gotten into.

  Allyssa eyed the girl. Her eye was a little puffy and her bloody nose needed washing. “Well, you did finish it, and I’m proud that you stood up for yourself, but you can’t fight. No matter what these kids say to you, you cannot react. You will get a reputation as a bully or a fighter, and that won’t win the argument.”

  “But I didn’t–” she began, and Allyssa stopped the SUV to look over the babies in the middle seat at both Sean and Traci. She’d had to pick them up from school because of the fight Traci had been in this time.

  “Look, we don’t know what’s going on here and–” Allyssa started but Sean interrupted.

  “They say you are a murderer and got away with it.”

  Allyssa blinked. It took her a moment to take in the comment, then all she got out was a strangled, “What?”

  “Yeah, that’s what the kids are sayin’. They say you killed the rustlers to defend the ranch, and then, you made up some story about an attempted rape to kill my brothers. When one got away, you shot him again, and the fire was your way to cover that up.”

  Allyssa couldn’t believe what was coming out of the teen’s mouth. She stared incredulously at her in-laws, looking from one to the other. Finally, she had to ask, “Do you believe any of that?”

  They both shook their heads instantly, but then, Sean hesitated and asked, “You didn’t, did you?”

  “Didn’t what?”

  “Start the fire?”

  “You shot my brothers,” Traci said at the same time and then glanced at Sean and back at Allyssa.

  “You both know what happened. I didn’t want you to know what your brothers were up to, but they were trying to get custody of you two for the trust fund your dad set up. Fey and I agreed they shouldn’t get a dime. Your dad put all the money from your mom’s life insurance into that trust. They tried to bully him into giving it to them. It was all about intimidation and the money, nothing more.”

  “But if he started the fire, he would have killed us if we hadn’t gotten away,” the boy pointed out.

  “That fire was much more than killing us. Look at all the land they destroyed. How many people would have died if he had succeeded?” she asked logically, not knowing if she was telling the two youngsters too much. They needed to know the truth, and she hoped Fey would agree with her telling them now. They couldn’t defend their family if they didn’t know the full facts. Had the fire gone on, it would have spread much farther than the Herriots’ land.

  “You know how your brothers treated you. You are welcome here. This is your home, and Fey wants you to know the same joy on the ranch that she experienced growing up. She feels it’s a part of your legacy. Your family has been on this land over one hundred and seventy years. We want the threesome to feel the same love for the land and animals. I don’t think people like your brothers and–”
she started to say mother but stopped herself because they had never put Rosemary down in the presence of the two siblings, “others like them understand that type of family or legacy. They only see dollar signs. The ranch isn’t about the money, it’s about a home and what we have together. We want you with us because of who you are, not the money. You will use the money to go to college. They didn’t know how much money it was, and people like that will always assume it’s more than it really is because they are greedy and selfish...” She stopped her tirade, feeling herself becoming angrier and angrier over the unfounded accusations.

  “I defended myself and my family. I am sorry those people are dead, I truly am, but Peter was hurting my son and might have hurt him more.” She wanted to say he might have killed him but didn’t want to upset the two young people further. “Trever attacked me, he attempted to rape me, and I shot him in self-defense. There is nothing wrong with that. And after what he tried to do with the fire, I’m sorry he’s dead, but I think the fates gave him what he deserved. You don’t have to defend me, and you don’t have to defend your sister. You owe no one any explanations, but you have the truth from me, and Fey will tell you the same.” She stopped herself. She had worked herself into quite a state, but to have them getting into fights at school over something that wasn’t their fault was ludicrous. Now, Allyssa was beginning to understand the lack of business and people treating them like they were guilty. The gossip must be horrendous. Something needed to be done.

  Allyssa discussed it with Fey that night. Their new interns were due to arrive in the next couple of days, but they really didn’t have enough business to justify keeping them there; people simply weren’t calling the vet.

  “But what can we do? Tell everyone every detail of our lives? It’s no one else’s business!”

  “This is a concerted effort by someone to turn everyone against us, and we can’t afford for you to lose your large animal practice. I was thinking we should have the low-cost clinic again, but really, why bother, if no one will come. I’m sure there are people out there defending us, but it doesn’t appear they are the majority. The few people calling to make appointments are the brave ones. They are the ones sticking by us. It isn’t for the titillation of having a murderer come out to their property, it’s because they don’t believe the rumors.”

  “How do you know that?” Fey asked, amazed at what Allyssa had been telling her. She agreed one hundred percent with what Allyssa had told her siblings...they needed to know the truth to defend themselves and to decide whether they needed to respond to those who were taunting them and bullying them. Those kids were just repeating what their parents were saying at home.

  “After Gretchen and Lorna showed me the message boards, I started searching around and found other chats. Some of them went back to the original shootings here on the ranch. I found where someone had started a chat about the fact that Erin was a woman, not a man, and she had fraudulently obtained the land. Sound familiar?”

  Fey nodded, remembering how weird it had been to appear in court with all their paperwork under the frames. The judge had been very interested in it, but no more than was necessary to try their case. Talk about undue influence! That argument had no legal standing. If there had been any fraud it would have been addressed when Tim or Ben inherited the property. There was a clear title on all the land, and now, Fey and Allyssa owned it outright. “Should we be talking to Henry?”

  “Who can we sue, the public, who have an opinion on this? People have the right to their opinions about us and our actions.”

  Fey had to admit that was right. “Why can’t they just ask us?”

  “Whoever started the rumors chose to pick apart the fact that we weren’t forthcoming, saying it appeared we got away with murder, not once, not twice, but three times. Speculation will always make it worse. It’s me they are after, not you. You are collateral damage because you are married to me.”

  “You aren’t leaving,” Fey gasped, jumping to a conclusion. She held her wife, fearful that all the bad thoughts she occasionally experienced on her rounds were coming to fruition.

  “No, I’m not leaving. We’ve built this place up after your grandparents’ deaths. It’s our place, and I’ll fight for it. I’ll fight you for it,” she promised her wife with a grin. “I love you, I love our family, and I love our home. I’m not leaving,” she emphasized.

  “How do we fight this?” Fey despaired, loving the feel of the woman she likened to a sleek, young, colt in her arms. “Sometimes I think we should just sell out and start over somewhere else.”

  “We have a home here. This home has been in your family for one hundred and seventy years,” she reminded her with a smile as she tapped her on the nose with her finger. “You married me, and I embraced your family and our future family. We are still building that future family, and we won’t let some asshole ruin it for us.”

  “Without our reputations and my business, we are going to have a hard time keeping afloat. I guess we could tap into the trust funds if we have to...” she mused, trying to brainstorm.

  “We won’t have to,” she promised. They had just gotten the check for the cell tower. Brock had come to discuss the fields he wanted to rent for the next year, but only if there were signs in the spring that indicated they’d get enough rain. He hoped Allyssa understood. He’d taken a powerful hit when he got nothing out of the fields this year for all his hard work. He hoped they would allow him to pay the rent at the end of the season this next year, not at the beginning. So, that source of income had dried up, even if it was only temporary.

  “Do you have a plan?”

  Allyssa had been thinking, a lot, and she was going to consult Henry, so she didn’t make any mistakes. She knew she was young, but she was educated and had done well for their businesses so far. “I want to do an interview with the newspapers, with the local TV stations, and post on my blogs. We will tell everyone exactly what happened here with the rustlers–”

  “We already did tell everyone, at least the papers and TV told them.”

  “I know that, but people need reminding, and they need to hear it from us. They want the titillation, the drama of it all. We will also tell about the assault and my killing of Peter, which they really don’t know about other than the report from the newspapers that he had been killed out here, that I shot him, and no charges would be filed. It’s that line about no charges being filed that aroused a few suspicions, then someone fanned those flames. Anonymous found a real cool way to keep those suspicions alive, and of course, got people talking about it as well as writing about it. This way, we get to tell our side of things. In fact, taking a leaf out of Erin and Molly’s journals as it were, let’s write the whole thing down and give it to Henry to approve, so we don’t implicate ourselves or put our feet in our mouths. After all, I did nothing wrong. I simply defended myself. The idiot killed himself with the damn fire he intended for us.”

  Fey had to admit that was smart. She thought her wife’s suggestion was brilliant, but she also acknowledged that whoever Anonymous had been, they had made some smart moves against the two women. She’d seen the boards too, now that she knew what to look for. “How’d you get so smart?” she asked her wife, grateful Allyssa had accepted her proposal so long ago in that diner.

  Allyssa smiled as she leaned in for a well-deserved kiss. “I’m just observant,” she replied softly, observing in that moment that her wife was very attractive to her, she was in her arms, and it had been a while since they made love. She intended to fix that situation right now.

  Fey was surprised but willing and immediately responded to Allyssa’s kisses. She loved this woman so much. They were in this fight for their lives together, and Allyssa had made it clear she was going to stay. The rest of the world could go to hell. So long as she had her wife and her family, they could fight this battle together. Slowly, she began to caress the younger woman, someone she never really thought of as anything but a true partner. She was no longer that young
thing she had married, hoping she could learn to love her someday. They were equals, had always been equals, and she was so grateful to have found her. Some people might see their love as being mushy, but if they realized how hard the women worked together for their goals, they might be jealous of this intense love. Right now, though, she wanted to express that love, and as she began to undress her wife, she prayed their babies wouldn’t interrupt.

  Slowly, piece by piece, they removed each other’s clothes, smiling into their kisses as one or the other struggled to remove a garment. Fey’s attempts to get her wife onto the bed were thwarted. Her wife wanted them both completely naked as she danced in her arms, feeling her up and down as she teased her.

  Fey smiled, loving it. Her wife might lament the fact that she had a small paunch now, the result of being pregnant with twins, but that didn’t matter to her, it had never mattered to her. She was like a sleek horse to the vet, and her hands appreciated petting her wife as she caressed every inch she was able to reach.

  Allyssa’s nipples puckered. They were begging to be touched and caressed with fingertips, then lips and tongue as she teased her wife. She sighed in supplication as her wife unconsciously obliged her needs. She returned the favor, avidly, enjoying the feel of Fey’s ample breasts, a bonus of childbirth that she hadn’t lost after she stopped breastfeeding. Her breasts were much bigger than they had been, and Allyssa liked that. It wasn’t that she hadn’t enjoyed her small-breasted wife before—neither of them had perfect bodies, they never had—but the changes since they had both given birth surprised and delighted the other. Any insecurities they had about their own bodies were ignored by the other woman as they explored and enjoyed their differences.

  Fey finally captured the teasing woman in her arms. She held her buttocks firmly in her hands as she buried her face between her breasts, teasing the nipples and enjoying the sounds of her wife’s gasps. The warmth they were sharing was becoming positively hot, and Fey wanted to take her wife, not just make love to her. Her nose told her that her wife was wet with desire and her hand slipped down her wife’s body heading for that saturated area.