Chapter 3
THREE
I’m just impressed with how ugly I’m willing to look in public these days.
—Holly’s secret thoughts
HOLLY
Four months later
“Holly!” Boone called from the OR.
I looked over at him through the glass windows, surprised that I’d heard him, and called, “Yeah?”
He gestured me closer with his chin, and I walked to the door and pushed it slightly open.
“Got a couple of house calls we need to make. Can you check those?”
I looked at the poor horse that was currently being held up by straps as he performed surgery on the front part of a horse’s chest and nodded, “Sure.”
“Thanks.” He gave me a brief smile, knowing that his presence made me uncomfortable.
I’d been working for Boone Windsor for four months now, and it wasn’t too bad.
Sure, I wasn’t always super happy with his style of work—all my way or the highway—but it was doable.
He also didn’t make me hate him like his uncle did. Though, I use the term “uncle” loosely seeing as they were closer in age to brothers than uncle/nephew.
I’d agonized for days on whether I should work for Boone or not.
I’d interviewed at four clinics, and all four of them had offered me a job.
However, Boone’s clinic was the only one that was in the same town that I wanted to live in, offered an office vehicle I could drive to appointments, and was within walking distance of the rental that I’d made into my new home.
He’d also offered an advance in money to pay for my apartment for the next few months, as well as promised enough work that I could easily make it on the salary he provided plus some if I wanted to work more.
I’d chosen the job with Boone despite the knowledge that I would be running into the one man that made me want to bash my head into the wall more often than not. Not to mention, I’d have to go out to his farm and play doctor to his livestock when the need arose.
And, apparently, the need arose today.
Fuck.
I looked at the call-outs and groaned.
Two for a farm just outside of Sawtooth, and one in Bear Pass.
Bear Pass being where I used to live. Where Denver now owned half the county land-wise.
Where I would be expected to go today to attend to a couple of sick cattle.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’d successfully avoided him for the last few months.
I’d seen him once since he’d kicked me out of my house while at work. That’d been where I told him that he was to call me Holly and not Georgina. He’d given me shit about the name change, and Boone’s new wife, Nettie, had told him that he needed to respect me and what I wanted to be called.
Which was funny, seeing as Sinclair wanted to be called Denver and Denver only.
He hated the name Sinclair—or so I’d heard through the Sawtooth gossip mill.
After that conversation with Nettie had happened, I’d made the switch in my brain to calling him Denver. Because she was right, if someone asked to be called something else, you should respect that.
Him going by Denver made him more impersonal to me, anyway. Made him become the man that’d stolen my hopes and dreams from me, not the one that’d helped my dad up off the floor after he’d fallen going to the bathroom.
The man that was the president of the Dixie Wardens MC, and not the nice neighbor that helped my dad out any time he needed it.
“You ready to go?” Young, one of the vet techs, asked.
“Almost,” I lied. “Give me a few to gather my bags and things.”
“Already got everything but you, girl.” Young mimed polishing his nails.
I liked Young a lot.
He was sweet and kind, gay as hell, and loved animals.
He was flamboyant and kind-hearted, and never missed a beat to make Denver uncomfortable.
I enjoyed hearing him needle the man.
Though he wasn’t doing it to be unkind.
He was doing it because he got supreme satisfaction out of making a man as hot and powerful as Denver uncomfortable.
I hopped in the truck with Young driving and told him where we were going first.
The first place we stopped was at the Dowry Farm and Petting Zoo to see a camel that wasn’t drinking and was so lethargic it could no longer stand.
Once we got him fixed up with some electrolytes and an eating regimen, we moved to the two bison that’d been attacked by some wolves overnight.
We, unfortunately, had to put both of them down.
By the time that we’d left that appointment, I was mad as hell.
Those bison had been suffering for hours, and the Kolders should’ve put the damn bison down the moment they’d seen the wolves had all but eviscerated the bison.
The Kolders were a little bit too soft, in my opinion, to own animals.
We got a call out to them several times a month because there was something wrong with one of their animals that they couldn’t handle.
This particular one took the cake.
There was no way those animals were surviving, and it pissed me off to no end that they couldn’t handle the hard parts.
Did anyone want to kill their animals? No. But they did it anyway to end the animal’s suffering.
My mind was going a million miles an hour by the time that I pulled up to the Windsor Ranch.
The youngest Windsor, DeeDee, met us in the middle of the driveway already on her horse.
“Hey,” she said subduedly. “Do y’all want to ride the side-by-side or a horse? Got two already hitched up. Dad thinks that you should ride the horse so not to spook the cows any more than they are right now, but he said to leave it up to you.”
I looked at Young who immediately caught one of the bags and slung it over his shoulder.
I did the same with the other and we mounted the horses.
Young wasn’t a natural in the saddle, but he’d done it enough now that he could pass.
I’d been riding since I was a young girl.
Young mounted his horse and was following DeeDee before I could mount the paint.
I cooed at the horse that I was riding and held out my hand, letting him sniff me.
He nudged at my jacket and I laughed, pulling out a small sugar cube left in there from the last horse I’d visited with yesterday.
“Ohh.” I smiled as I ran my hand down his neck. “You’re cute, aren’t you?”
He ate the sugar cube up, and I mounted him before tapping him lightly to get him going in the direction I could see Young and DeeDee heading.
I didn’t end up catching up to them until they were already at where Denver was standing.
But before I could get there, a thunderous bang filled the air, and I flinched.
The horses didn’t, though.
Which showed how well they were trained.
When I got up to the man holding the rifle in his hand, his face was grim and his shirt was covered with blood.
My stomach sank as I saw the five downed cattle.
“I guess I don’t need you any longer,” he sighed. “This one was the only one left that I thought might make it, but she went downhill pretty damn quick in the last half hour.”
I looked at the cow.
Then I looked at the man.
He looked pissed as fuck, and I felt bad for getting here as late as I had.
“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.
He shrugged. “Part of life.”
It was, but that didn’t mean that it didn’t still suck.
Ranch life wasn’t the easiest in the world. In fact, I would say that it was one of the hardest jobs a person could have. You couldn’t be soft like the owners of the bison that’d been euthanized earlier. You had to be tough…like Denver.
The sound of heavy equipment started up, and I turned to see a tractor heading our way.
Never waste.
That was the motto, anyway.
Since Denver knew when and how these cows died, they’d all be processed and eaten.
If you couldn’t sell them, then eating them was the next best thing.
“Do you need any help?” I asked, lazily running my fingers over the paint’s neck.
“Nope,” Denver replied gruffly, finally looking up at me. “Thanks for coming out.”
I nodded, hesitant to leave.
DeeDee, however, turned her horse around and said, “I’ll lead you back.”
She had no idea I knew her dad’s land as well as my own.
I used to trespass like a motherfucker.
Denver never said anything, and neither had Denver’s dad when he’d still been a part of the cattle operation side of the Windsor dynasty.
Meaning, I knew this land like the back of my hand and could navigate it probably better than DeeDee could.
I followed anyway, despite my desire to stay.
Though, I immediately scolded myself for thinking that.
Denver wasn’t anyone to me. Just because he was having a bad day, didn’t mean that I had to be nice to him. He wouldn’t do the same for me.
Though, that didn’t stop me from turning around and looking at him a couple of times on my way back to the main ranch house.
Every time I looked, he was staring down at the cows with a ferocious scowl on his face.
Except the last time.
The last time, when I looked back, that scowl was aimed my way.
As if he was pissed as hell I hadn’t gotten there faster…
As if my day couldn’t get any worse, when I got to my apartment later that evening, I saw a note on my door from the lady that owned and rented my apartment to me.
I’d been there four months, and I’d gotten a note a month.
Usually they were telling me that I was being too loud and needed to quiet down—which was hilarious since I spent more time out of the apartment than I did in it—but generally they were nothing to worry about.
When I saw the note pinned to the door like all the others, I didn’t worry too much.
But then I opened it up and saw what was inside.
EVICTION NOTICE
You have 30 days to move out of the property. Any remaining items left in the apartment after thirty days will be forfeited…
I read the rest of the note with my stomach in cramps.
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit!
This place was one of the cheapest that I could find that was close to my work and wouldn’t require me to drive more than a couple of miles.
My car, though working much better now for some odd reason after it broke down a couple of months ago in the vet parking lot, was still a little finicky and didn’t like to drive longer than a couple of miles at a time before it overheated.
And since I wasn’t really willing to pay for a vehicle that I barely ever used to get fixed, the apartment in town was imperative.
I was a mile away from the grocery store. A mile away from the vet. And a mile away from the library.
I could reach everything if I walked, even if it was the dead of winter.
If I had to move out of town, that would require my car to work. I would also have to get new tires. Put gas in it…
I ripped the paper in half and threw it on the counter, immediately going in search of my computer.
I frantically searched the classifieds for anything that would help while standing up at my kitchen counter.
The first one to pop up that was in my price range was practically an hour away.
The second through the fifth were the same.
But it was the eighth that popped up that caught my eye.
Small apartment available for rent. Rent free if you help with feeding animals every morning and evening.
Eight hundred square feet. Over a barn, so you have to be okay with the sound of animals.
Single occupancy only. No overnight guests allowed.
Must be able to climb stairs and lift over fifty pounds.
I hoped and prayed that it would do.
I immediately sent an email and hoped that they wouldn’t take too long to reply back.
Then I took the hottest shower I could stand and cried my eyes out.