“Very true.” She laughed. “Most of these people bring the dogs and cats in when they need a flea bath instead of just buying the medicine. It baffles me every single year.”
She stood there swaying back and forth for a couple of minutes before stepping forward and giving me a shy kiss. I smiled when she pulled away, and it made her blush and giggle. I didn’t care how many times she kissed me. It always sent butterflies through my stomach. It was having a first kiss over and over again.
“Well,” she sighed, clapping her hands together. “I better get going. I hope I see you soon.”
“You can count on it.” I smiled.
I watched as she walked over to the van and climbed in, waving at me with an embarrassed smile as she pulled out. I watched until the van was long gone over the hill. Then, I tapped the back of my SUV and smiled as I jumped into the driver’s seat. Everything felt like it was perfect, and I couldn’t imagine anything getting in the way.
Chapter 58
Sara
This morning, it felt really good to be back at work with life starting to settle down a bit. I spent most of the morning hard at work, seeing my scheduled patient and several walk-ins who heard I was in the office that day. They all seemed relieved to know I was okay, the horses were okay, and Ryan was okay. Everyone had really gotten used to the thought of Ryan being a permanent fixture in the community, and I had to say, the idea was definitely growing on me as well. When I was finally about to close the practice up at noon, I heard the bell jingle over the front door. I sighed, figuring it was just my luck someone would come up right when I was cleaned up and ready to go. But that was my job, and I needed to be there for the animals in need.
I headed out front and stepped behind the desk, looking up and frowning. It wasn’t a patient at all, but instead, it was Janson standing in my lobby, tracking mud in from his boots and looking around at the pictures on the walls. He was not the person I wanted to see at that moment or any moment, for that matter. He was the thorn in my side that I couldn’t reach or scrape off, and it was starting to really get to me. I took in a deep breath and cleared my throat, catching his attention. His eyes darted over toward me, and he started to move slowly toward the desk. I could see the muscle in his face already twitching. I could tell right away this was going to be a shitty conversation. I stepped out from behind the desk and walked up to him, not wanting him near my files and computers.
He didn’t say a word at first, only stood there with one hand on the butt of his pistol and the other twirling a toothpick around between his fingers. His face looked less amused than normal to be putting me in an uncomfortable position. The reality of it was, I had enough of his bullshit, and I knew if I didn’t say what needed to be said to him, I was going to burst. Before he could say a word, I stepped forward and launched into a tirade against him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I asked. “You need to understand something right now. You will respect my privacy and stop stalking me. I know you’re doing it. I’m not stupid. I see you around, your little cronies’ make comments, and you never seem to be too far away when something bad happens to me. I’m not going to spend my life being afraid of your big, dumb ass. You will no longer, under any circumstances, unless previously invited, step foot on my property, and that includes my house, my practice, and the horse sanctuary. If you think that badge gives you unlimited rights to do whatever you want, then you are dead wrong. You cannot come onto my property without proper paperwork. You are not welcome here. I don’t know how many damn times I have to tell you. You and me, we are nothing, not even friends, and I would really appreciate it if you got that through your thick skull. Coming here and harassing me won’t change that. On that note, you will stop trying to force me to take you back. I am in no way interested in you, and that is never going to change. You’re a disgusting human being who has berated and assaulted me over and over again, and I am done sitting back and just taking it from you. There will never be anything between us again. Never! I would rather live the rest of my life alone than ever get back together with you. I hope you’re hearing me clearly here because I’m not messing around anymore.”
I took a deep breath in and put my hands on my hips, waiting for his response. Deep down, I was feeling the fear, but I didn’t want him to know. I wanted to come off as strong, in charge, and ready to take whatever he had to throw at me, no matter how untrue that statement really was. I looked up at him as a cruel smile spread across his big, mean face.
“I don’t take orders,” he said through gritted teeth. “I give them.”
I shook my head and looked away, not knowing what to say next. He reached up and turned my face toward him. I pulled away, taking a step back.
“Now that you’ve told me what you think I’m supposed to do,” he said, taking a step toward me. “I’m going to tell you what you’re going to do.”
“Yeah, right,” I scoffed.
“You’re going to stop being such a little bitch,” he said. “You’re going to stop acting like a spoiled little brat, and most importantly, you’re going to stop being such a fucking whore, spreading your legs for money.”
“Fuck you,” I said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, you know what I’m talking about,” he said with a growl. “And if you don’t, well, you can expect a lot worse is going to happen to you and your little billionaire boy toy that you have chasing after you all the time. I promise you, Sara, you keep acting like this, you keep defying me, then I can promise you, you haven’t seen a bad day yet. You think you’re so smart, so pretty and sweet. Well, no one out here is going to protect you. I run this town, me, not you and not your little boyfriend. Get it through your damn head.”
I knew a threat when I heard one, and Janson was making it very clear he was on the path to doing something much worse than what he’d already done. I couldn’t just sit back and let him threaten me like that. I didn’t know what had gotten into me, but I was feeling brave, maybe even a little too brave.
“A lot worse,” I said. “Worse than the dead animals in my driveway that you left? Worse than burning the barn down and almost killing the horses inside? Worse than that?”
I was so livid, I couldn’t even see straight, but I knew Janson was smarter than to take that bait. He might be cocky and arrogant, but he knew how to play the game. He knew how to make things as difficult for us as he possibly could. He smiled, chuckling to himself.
“Gosh, Sara,” he said maniacally. “It sounds like you’ve had a rough couple of weeks.”
That was all he said, and instead of going further with it, he just stood there and stared at me with a strange smirk on his face. Visions of the dead elk in my driveway and the fiery plume that escalated over the farmhouse blew through my mind, sending goosebumps up my spine. He seemed to be even more dangerous than I had originally thought, and I knew it was getting time to end this.
“Just get out,” I said in a disgusted tone. “You’ve worn out your welcome here. In fact, it was worn out before you even parked in the parking lot. You know you did those things, and I promise you that the day will come where you see your world topple down around you.”
His face straightened, and he lunged at me, forcing me to jump to the side. I lost my footing on the edge of the rug to the waiting area and tripped. He reached out and caught me, instantly maneuvering me back into the corner. He pushed me hard against the wall, and I pulled forward just to have him do it again. I breathed deeply through gritted teeth as he got closer and closer to my face. I could smell that familiar stench of whiskey again, and I tried to turn my face to the side. He reached up and pinched my chin between his fingers, turning back toward him. His other hand came up, smoothing the air down on the side of my face.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” he said. “No need to get so hostile. You could accidentally hurt yourself, little miss.”
“Get off of me,” I growled. “Leave, or I will find someone who can take you down
a peg.”
“Shut your mouth,” he growled loudly, before easing his face again. “You really know how to get yourself into a pickle, don’t you? First, the auction, then New York, and now this. You just don’t seem to know how to get shit straight. Well, I’m going to do a little something for you. Consider it a gift from me to you. I’m going to tell you exactly what you need to do. You’re going to listen to me because, well, you belong to me. I will do whatever I damn well please with you anytime I want to do it. You’re not in control, you understand? You will stop thinking you can put me in my place because my place has already been chosen, and nobody can touch me there.”
Suddenly, the bell over the front door rang. Janson narrowed his eyes and stared at me for a moment before turning and looking over his shoulder. His hand squeezed tighter on my chin, and I breathed deeply in anger through my nose. I wanted to grab his gun and shoot him right then and there, but I knew that wouldn’t do any good. He had so many people loyal to him, they would string me up in the town square and stone me to death like it was the 1700s. I had to play it smart and catch him in the act because I knew at some time or another, he would mess up.
I tilted my head up, looking past him at the woman with her young son entering the building. He was carrying a little puppy who was whining loudly. The thing didn’t look like it was much older than four or five months, and I could tell from where I stood that it had an injured paw. I knew Janson wouldn’t fight me if I tried to get away. He might be bold but not that bold and not when others could be witnesses to him assaulting me. I knocked his hand from my chin and pushed past him, rushing over to see what I could do to help the pup. I kept my back turned to Janson the whole time, but from the wary glances the woman was giving him, I could tell he was standing there staring at me. I hurried to the desk and pulled out an intake form, pointing to what she needed to fill out. The puppy had a nasty cut on his foot and would need some stitches and a bandage, possibly even a shot or two. They’d brought him in as soon as it happened.
“Just fill out the pertinent information now and sign the consent form, and then we can go back later to fill in the rest,” I said. “Is the puppy up to date on shots?”
“Yes,” she said, pulling out his shot record. “We did the first ones ourselves, figuring we would have his six-month checkup with you, but he didn’t quite make it that far.”
“That’s all right.” I smiled. “We will take good care of him.”
I looked up as Janson finally turned to leave the building. As he reached the doorway, he looked back at me, casting me one last warning glance. I looked away quickly, not wanting him to see the fear in my eyes. He was dangerous. I knew this now better than ever before.
Chapter 59
Ryan
I spent Thursday in the hotel, not feeling like driving all the way out to the ranch that day. Work was back on, but the guys had been told the priority was to get the barn done for Alison. I spent my day with takeout, making calls to my offices back in New York City, and researching what I needed to do to move to Bonanza permanently. I was dead serious about it. Right in the middle of one of my house searches, I got a call from the energy ranch.
“Boss,” a voice said. “It’s Trevor. I think you outta head down to the ranch.”
“Why? What’s going on?” I asked.
“Someone smashed several of the new panels in the south field,” he said. “The damage is bad, and I don’t think they can be repaired. They were like that when we got here this morning, but I didn’t realize it for a couple of hours since the roving watch was trying to investigate it before calling. Sorry, boss. We’ve been short-manned lately.”
“Don’t apologize,” I said. “You’re right. You have been short with the barn going up. You’re all doing a great job.”
“Do you think I should call the cops?”
“No,” I said. “I can almost promise you that won’t do a bit of good. Were these already connected?”
“No, they were brand new and still had the plastic on them,” he said. “We hadn’t been in a hurry to connect them, but it was on our list for the week.”
“Man,” I said, shaking my head. “Did you bring them in?”
“Not yet. Figured we shouldn’t touch them in case you wanted to see or call the police or something,” he replied.
“Good thinking,” I said. “If you think they can’t be repaired, go ahead and put in an order to the main headquarters with my stamp of approval for two new ones. We might keep them locked up for a bit until we sort this all out, though.”
“Got it,” he said.
“I’ll be over in just a few,” I replied.
I hung up the phone and shook my head, feeling very frustrated by the fact that everything seemed to be crashing down around me. I’d just made the ranch my main project, the one I would be working closely with when I moved there permanently, and someone was already messing with me. It was frustrating, to say the least. The last thing I wanted to deal with at that moment was vandalism issues. There was enough going on between the barn being burned down and Sara back in town and our relationship starting to bloom again. I needed to focus on fewer things, but this was my dream, the project I had waited for, and I wasn’t about to let that slip away. I threw on some shoes and headed over to the ranch.
When I got there, I immediately went out to the field to inspect the damage done. He was right. There was no saving these things. That was a lot of money and time that just got flushed down the toilet. It looked like someone had taken a bat or a tire iron to the things, and they made sure to smash right to the plates and the box on the side that housed all the controls. I left the field and went back up to the offices where I locked myself in the spare office. I needed to take a look at the video footage. Whoever did this would most likely be on there. All my equipment was monitored by surveillance, something I was told I wouldn’t need, but after living in the city my whole life, I didn’t take chances with that kind of thing. I was smart about it, though. Instead of putting the cameras on the building, letting people know exactly where they were, I’d had them positioned in trees on the outskirts of the fields. That way, not only would I get more view room from each camera, they wouldn’t be seen and tampered with. I had put them up even before I brought in the first employee, so I was really the only one who knew they were there, and I had access to them from anywhere in the world.
I rewound through the tapes and saw figures at the device, though I couldn’t tell who they were at first because of the speed. It seemed the perpetrators had fallen victim to the video trap, something I knew they hadn’t expected. In this small of a town, it shouldn’t take long at all to get the guys, if the sheriff wasn’t friends with them, that was. I was most likely going to sue them as well, so even if legal charges weren’t brought up, I would see them in civil court. Then, I could explain why the sheriff didn’t charge them. I was already thinking ahead, knowing I had a hard road ahead of me for any legal issues that might arise while I was there.
When it got to the beginning, I pressed play and sat back, rubbing my hands together. I was trying to make a good impression in town, but I wasn’t going to turn a blind eye when someone purposefully attacked me. As the two men came into the picture, I zoomed the footage in, stopping as my mouth slowly fell open. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I sat up in my chair and leaned forward, blinking repeatedly at the screen. Not only had I caught the perps, but it turned out the crooks were no other than Sheriff Janson and his damn deputy, clear as day, smashing the hell out of the panels with aluminum bats. I rewound and played it over and over again, trying to make sure I wasn’t losing my mind and seeing things. There was no denying who it was, and he even looked right in the direction of the camera about halfway through.
I pulled the video footage and put it on a thumb drive. I had exactly what I needed, exactly what I had been hoping for this whole time. I knew that fucker was going to mess up at some point, and lo and behold, that was exactly what he’d don
e. He waltzed on to my land, destroyed my property, and did all in front of a state of the art, high-resolution camera system. It was like I had struck gold. I laughed for a minute, surprised at how easy it had become to catch the guy. Then, I picked up the phone and put in a call to the state capitol.
There was a state senator my office had consulted with in acquiring the land we’d bought in Bonanza. I knew he was a no-nonsense guy and definitely wasn’t up Janson’s sleeve. He was too important to give a shit about a sheriff in the middle of nowhere. He would, however, revel at the chance to help me out, especially since he got so much applause for allowing the ranch to be built there in the first place.
“Senator Gray,” I said, clearing my throat.
“Ryan,” he said. “How are you? How’s my ranch coming along?”
“It’s coming along really well,” I said. “Thank you again for all the hard work you put in getting us the permission to put the project here in Bonanza. You should come out sometime, and I’ll give you the VIP tour. We can call out some press and make it a thing.”
“I like the sound of that.” He laughed. “I am a politician, after all. So, what can I do for you today?”
“I have a bit of a problem,” I said. “Someone smashed two of our brand new panels, and the video footage caught the perp. The thing is, though, it’s the sheriff and his deputy. I can’t call state because he has friends on that force.”
“Wow,” he said. “Small-town problems.”
“I know, right?” I chuckled.
“Your best bet then will be to contact the state’s attorney general,” he said. “You can tell him I referred you to get you in the door.”
“Thanks so much,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
“No problem, and I’ll get up with your secretary to plan a tour,” he said.
“Please do.” I laughed.
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