Chapter 41
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
Bailey looked up as Lark stuck her head into her office. “Hey, do you have a couple of minutes to go over these reports?”
Bailey sat away from the research she’d been doing on a rare type of cattle hoof fungus. One of the farms she’d been visiting in the last couple of months had been seeing it more and more, and Bailey hadn’t dealt with it since her vet school days.
“Yes,” she said. “It’ll give me some relief from these gross pictures I’ve been looking at online.”
She closed her laptop and smiled as Lark entered the office, sighed, and sank into one of the two chairs across from her desk. “You sound tired,” she said.
“Yeah,” Lark gave a half chuckle. “It’s been a little rough getting back to real life after the honeymoon.”
“I bet.” Bailey grinned at her, though she’d had no experience with such things. “You and Cash are all settled in at the new ranch?”
“Yeah,” she said. “We got Teresa moved down to Texas over the weekend. I flew back, and Cash is picking up his horses and driving them home.”
Bailey’s eyebrows went up. “Is that this week?”
“They’ll be here on Friday,” Lark said. “I’m pretty sure you have an appointment at our place to check them out.” She tilted her head, silently asking Bailey if she was still planning on going out to Cousins Creek Ranch to examine Cash’s new horses.
Bailey didn’t normally concern herself with Friday’s work on Monday afternoon, but she smiled and nodded. “That sounds right.”
Lark beamed at her. “Cash is like a little boy on Christmas Day getting those horses.”
“I think he sent me the listings,” Bailey said. “And they looked good.”
“Yeah.” Lark suddenly sat up and put a light blue folder on the desk. “Anyway, I’ve got all those reports for the blood samples for the cattle from the farms you service right here,” she said. “I’m not seeing anything abnormal, but I’m not a vet tech.”
“I’ll take a look at it.” Bailey pulled the blue folder in front of her. “You have a report for each farm?”
“Yes,” Lark said. “And I’m happy to get those emailed out later today if you’d like. I just need you to sign each one, and I can turn them into PDFs and get them done.”
Bailey looked at the first one for a small hobby farm with a herd of thirty-five cattle.
Lark hadn’t quite finished her animal science degree, and she toyed with going back to school to get her vet tech certification, but she hadn’t done that either.
Bailey had found her a great asset as an animal care specialist around the clinic.
She helped with all kinds of tasks, from entering data to weighing animals, to being an extra pair of hands, to being a daily staple in their doggy daycare, to prepping supplies and cleaning up surgical rooms after procedures.
Bailey suspected that once Cash had established his cutting horse operation, she’d lose Lark to that, as horses required plenty of care: moving them from pasture to pasture, stable to stable, cleaning out their stalls, feeding them a precise diet at an exact time.
Yes, horses were one of the most finicky livestock animals anyone could own, and someone with Lark’s skills would be invaluable to a cutting horse operation.
“These look great,” Bailey said. “I’ll get them signed for you in the next couple of hours, and you can get them out this afternoon.”
“Thanks,” Lark said, and she started to get to her feet as a commotion came down the hall.
Bailey looked that way too, and Lark paused to meet her eyes.
Then she darted to the open doorway. Bailey had worked in Helena at the beginning of her veterinary career before establishing her practice in Butte, and she dealt with plenty of unhappy farmers and ranchers—usually not on a Monday near lunchtime, but anything was possible when men’s tempers ran with beloved pets.
Lark wore a dark look for a moment. Then she said, “Oh, it’s just Reeves.” She turned and grinned at Bailey. “It looks like he brought lunch.”
Bailey smiled, though she hadn’t been expecting Reeves for lunch today. The man had had a very busy weekend, and he’d told her that he had plenty of computer work ahead of him to edit the camping-thunderstorm video.
He didn’t like giving away too much information about where he lived in the Teton Mountains, as there were a lot of small towns spread out between Jackson and Cheyenne.
His bio said that he lived in the “wilds of Wyoming” and nothing more, and Bailey liked that he’d kept so much of his personal life private.
“See you later, Bailey,” Lark said, and she made an exit only a few seconds before Reeves ducked into the office.
“Oh, good, you’re in here,” he said. He didn’t smile, and while he was carrying bags, they weren’t the kind that would hold something delicious for lunch. Alarms went off in Bailey’s head, only getting louder when Reeves removed the doorstop and let her door swing closed.
“What’s going on?” She nodded to the plastic bag in his hand, and he looked at it as if he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it.
He dropped it to the floor and sank into a chair, both hands moving up to his face, where he wiped them down his beard, and then removed his cowboy hat and pushed his fingers through all that glorious hair.
“There’s a swap meet down at the big red barn.” His eyes came to hers. “It had tons of stuff—tools, farm equipment, lawn mowers, all kinds of stuff from different ranches, stores, whatever.”
“Okay,” Bailey said, because she intellectually knew what a swap meet entailed, though she hadn’t known there was one happening at the big red barn.
“So I went,” he said. “Because I saw on social media that someone was going to have a big table saw, and I’ve been thinking about trying my hand at furniture making, and I’ve got another barn I want to build.”
Bailey waited, though she suspected she knew where this story was headed.
“Anyway, I got the saw, and I thought about stopping for lunch, but I pull off at the Sip and Stay, and they only have pastries.”
“Yes,” Bailey said, because she was well-versed with the coffee shop about a half-mile from the clinic.
“Anyway, I thought there were a couple of guys following me at the swap meet, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. Then they showed up at the Sip and Stay too.”
Bailey frowned and folded her arms.
Reeves wore a look of urgency on his face, and she sure didn’t like it.
“Anyway, I got my coffee and left, and then I realized that they came out only a few seconds later—no coffee, no pastries. So they were definitely following me, and since your clinic is right here, I just turned off and came in.”
He exhaled heavily, and no Bailey didn’t like this new development.
“I’m pretty sure they’re out in the lobby.”
Bailey looked toward her closed door, almost expecting someone to knock and demand to see Reeves. She lifted her phone and dialed one-two-one, which would take her to the front desk.
“Yes, hello, Doctor McAllister,” Leslie answered after only one ring.
“Do we have men in the lobby who shouldn’t be there?” Bailey asked, her eyes never leaving Reeves’s. She pressed the speaker button so he could hear Leslie.
“Yes, ma’am,” the receptionist said. “Kayla talked to them, but they said they didn’t mean anything bad. They just want to talk to Reeves.”
“I’ve already talked to them,” Reeves said, as
“She went to get Caleb,” Leslie added. “Because we’re not really sure what’s going on. Reeves sort of…just shouted as he ran through the lobby, but he said they were following him, and he didn’t want to go home, because he didn’t want them to know where he lived.”
“I’ll call the police,” Bailey said as calmly as she could. “Thank you, Leslie.” Her thoughts moved in a million different directions, because she’d only had to call the police one other time in her life. “Will you tell Caleb to leave it for now, please, unless they’re causing a ruckus?”
“No, ma’am, they’re not,” Leslie said, her voice lowering. “They’re just sitting in the cat waiting area.”
“Okay, then I’ll handle it.” Bailey barely heard Leslie say, “Thank you,” before she reset the receiver in the cradle.
She immediately picked it up again and had to move the light blue folder Lark had brought in with the blood test results to find the list of non-emergency numbers she’d taped next to her phone.
She saw some crazy things in her veterinary care, some of which she had to report to the police. She dialed the non-emergency number.
“I’m really sorry,” Reeves said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
Bailey looked at him again. “I wouldn’t want people following me home either.” The line rang. “Heck, I don’t want them following you home. I live right next door to you.”
He picked up his cowboy hat and stuffed it back on his head.
“Coral Canyon Police Department,” a woman said. “How can I direct your call?”
“I’m not really sure,” Bailey said. “This is Doctor Bailey McAllister out at the Red Bluffs Veterinary Clinic. It’s not really an emergency situation, but I’ve got a couple of men here who don’t have pets, don’t have appointments, and are refusing to leave.
I’m wondering if I can get a couple of officers to come out and remove them from the property? ”
“Sure thing, Bailey,” the woman said. “I can get a couple of officers out there in the next few minutes.”
“Thank you,” Bailey said, and the call ended. She nodded at Reeves. “You haven’t eaten, I’m assuming.”
He shook his head, and Bailey reached for the phone again. Reeves put out his hand and covered it before she could lift the receiver. “You don’t need to order lunch for me. Those guys will leave, and I’ll head home.”
Bailey pulled her hand back as she sighed.
“This is why I just stay hunkered down,” he said.
Bailey wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that. Surely he would’ve gone to the swap meet, whether he’d started dating her or not.
“Do you not want to go up to my parents’ tonight?” she asked.
His expression blanked, and then he frowned. “Why wouldn’t I want to go?”