Chapter 2
Chapter Two
TIMOTHY
Buck’s weight dragged my arms down on my sprint into Vision Veterinary Hospital and Emergency Center. The wiggly hundred-pound Labrador was still trying to wag his tail—stupid, trusting thing—like this was any normal day and not…not this.
Blood flicked across the floor with every thump of movement. I felt his blood everywhere. On my shirt. My hands. My throat. This was my fault.
“Help,” I heard myself say.
The receptionist—young, polished, all clean edges—looked up like I’d dragged disaster in with me, which I had.
“What room do I… Where do I take him?” I kept my tone in business mode since I was good at hiding the effects of fear.
She stared at the blood. I was sure her mind jumped through calculations on how many rooms she wanted to clean blood off the walls. Her face drained. “Uh… I think maybe the back? Just go straight back!”
I didn’t wait. I pushed through the swinging doors hard enough that they slammed behind me.
The world changed from lobby brightness to fluorescent chaos, metal crates, antiseptic air, the low chorus of anxious barking dogs, and chirping machines pumping in fluids or monitoring heart rates.
Several dogs had IV lines. One lay on a recovery bed while a tech worked beside it, hands steady and face unreadable.
A few heads turned as I passed, but I barely saw them. All I saw was Buck.
“On the table,” someone said.
I hauled him up onto the exam surface, which was a metal grate over a sink. My grip slipped a little. Blood smeared under my palms, warm and real and wrong.
I threw a discarded towel over his tail on instinct to stop the flicking spray.
“Dr. Stevens will be here soon,” someone said.
I didn’t look up. “Who is Dr. Stevens?”
No answer followed that question. I knew this place inside and out since I’d helped install the HVAC when they built it two and a half years ago.
I wanted Erika, my sister-in-law and owner-director of the small animal ER.
Or my brother, Josh, who managed the entire veterinary complex.
I wanted the calm certainty of someone who knew exactly where to press and what to say and how to make this not feel like my life was splintering apart in real time.
Instead, I got strangers, fluorescent light, and Buck’s blood everywhere.
Bonnie—yeah, I knew her—stepped in. She was a capable technician who had been a rock for years with the practice. “I’ll hold him for a minute if you need to call someone.”
Call Dad. This wasn’t just a dog. This was his dog. I was the idiot holding him when everything went wrong.
“Good idea,” I managed. “Thanks.”
I stepped back, turned away enough that no one could see my hands shaking. I dialed. It rang once. Twice. My chest tightened harder with every tone. I’d tried to call him on the way here, but he hadn’t answered.
“Pick up,” I muttered out loud under my breath.
Third ring.
“Talk to me,” Dad said.
Hearing his voice cracked open the guilt inside me.
“It’s Buck,” I blurted. “I’m at the clinic. Something happened.”
Silence. Which was worse than yelling.
“What happened?”
I swallowed, but it didn’t go down right. “I—There was an accident. I had an accident with him.”
That pause again. The kind where I could practically hear him recalibrating the entire world. “Are you okay, son? Is Sofia okay?”
“Yeah—yes, I mean, yes, sir. Sofia’s fine for now.
” My words tripped over each other. “I dropped her off at preschool, I just… Dad, Milly left. She actually left this time. I know she’s been threatening for months.
She took off for Oregon with whoever that shithead is she’s been dating.
She left Sofia, not that she wanted her to begin with.
It’s done. I don’t know how I’m supposed to tell Sofia that her mom is gone.
And I just heard my new hire for the HVAC up and quit.
Who walks off the job site one hour into training—”
“Timothy!” His voice cut through me. Sharper now. Anchored. “Son, I need you to focus. My dog. What happened to my dog?”
I looked down at myself. Blood streaked up my arms, spattered across my shirt like I’d been through something I shouldn’t have survived.
“I slammed his tail in the truck’s door.” It came out hollow. Guilty. “I’m used to Bagel who’s fast on the jump up. I didn’t see Buck jump in later than usual. I was distracted and—Dad, I didn’t see him—there’s blood everywhere. I’m covered in it. I hope he doesn’t lose his tail. The clinic—”
“I’m coming,” he said immediately.
“Dad, you don’t need—”
“It’s going to be fine. I’m on my way.” Click.
Shit. I did everything possible to reduce Dad’s stress so he wouldn’t have another heart attack.
Not that Mason Hurst listened to me or slowed down.
I managed both family businesses. I did all the lifting, fixing, and what I could of animal care to keep him clear of all of it. This…wasn’t going to help.
For a second, I stood there, phone still pressed to my ear like it might restart this day if I held it long enough.
A voice cleared behind me.
I turned—
All the chaos inside me stopped. Full, dead, complete halt.
That face shouldn’t have existed here. Green-blue eyes.
Freckles splattered across the pale skin of her nose and cheeks.
Perfect pink lips just a little fuller on the bottom than the top.
Reddish brown hair pulled back like she’d tried to make herself smaller, neater, less…
everything I remembered. I felt transported back to a time I’d worked hard to forget, a moment in my life when things sort of made sense. Until they didn’t.
My mouth opened before my brain caught up. “Gia?”
It came out like I’d swallowed glass.
Her expression flickered with shock first, then something carefully locked down. “Hey, Rye. I’m Dr. Stevens now.”
Hey. Hey?
She said “hey” like we were bumping into each other at the feed store? Not like she’d disappeared from my life and left a hole I’d been pretending wasn’t there ever since. She’d never tried to reach out to explain why she’d left or where she’d gone.
She didn’t get to waltz back into my life this many years later and say, “Hey.”
There were faint lines at the corners of her eyes—proof time had touched her, even if it hadn’t dared take much. She was still the same height. The top of her head would still brush under my chin like it used to, but everything else had changed.
She had curves now. Soft, impossible, distracting curves.
She was so damn beautiful my already overloaded brain…
quit. It couldn’t process the fact the girl who wrecked me long ago was standing here looking like that.
And saying “hey.” She wore blue scrubs, a white lab coat, and had little golden cat earrings in her ears.
My gaze flashed to her hand—no wedding ring.
Didn’t mean much, since many people took off their rings to work.
Her gaze dropped to my arms, my shirt, and then to Buck.
A flash of something crossed her face. Focus snapped into place.
“Let’s take a look,” she said instantly, already moving. No hesitation. No softness. Just veterinary confidence. It somehow made the mess inside me worse.
Her gloved hands were steady as she palpated, checked, and assessed. Her touch was efficient, practiced. There wasn’t an outward sign to indicate she cared that she’d slammed back into the wreckage of my existence.
“He’s going to be okay,” she announced. “We’ll sedate him, clean it up, and close the wound with a few sutures. The blood makes it look worse than it is.”
“What the hell are you doing here?” The words came out sharper than I intended.
She didn’t look up right away. Just kept working to clean away blood.
“Filling in,” she said as she sorted bandaging material. “I’m better with large animals, but they needed ER coverage today.” She said it so casual and controlled. “I fill in where they need me.”
How could she be so calm and dismissive when I was actively falling apart at the edges? Then it hit me, sharp and ugly—the truth.
She was back because of the papers that had been served to my family, the Hurst family, last week.
The heavy cream envelope had displayed my family’s name across the front like a target.
Inside were pages and pages of legal bullshit from the McClary’s lawyer.
Some ancient document had been dug up from the grave, claiming half our land had always been theirs.
That we’d been “stealing” it for seventy-five years.
Everything, from our dairy farm to the crop fields that we’d built from nothing, was being called theft.
Everything we owned was in danger of being stolen.
My gaze narrowed onto her. That had to be why she’d returned. Not fate. Not coincidence. She was here to join the fight to take us down once and for all. She wanted her piece of the pie.
Something inside pulled me into battle mode—Buck bleeding on the table, my dad on his way here, Milly gone, and Sofia waiting for a version of me, her father, that knew how to explain any of this to a three-year-old.
On top of all that, Gia was back like a ghost risen from the dead, ready to twist the knife deeper into my back.
“Is Erika here?” My words came out clipped. “No offense, but my dad is on his way, and it’ll go a lot better for all of us if you’re not the one working on his dog.”
She stilled for half a second. Barely noticeable. I noticed.
“If things go south,” I added, my voice dropping, “he’s going to be real pissed. I’m not interested in watching him sue you. Our families seem to like litigation these days, don’t they?”
Her hands didn’t stop moving to finish the bandage on Buck’s tail, but something in her shoulders tightened.
I leaned in enough that no one else could hear me. “A lot’s changed since you left.”
I expected her to flash a guilty glare, but she didn’t.
She didn’t snap back. Didn’t flinch. She gave this light, almost dismissive huff of a breath. “This is easy peasy.”