Chapter 7 #2
Hailey laughed, but it didn’t stick for long. She sobered, shifted, and cleared her throat. “You should know that I was fired from my last job,” she said. “For suspected theft. I was even arrested.”
Lila Mae’s heart fell into her stomach.
“But none of the allegations were true, and it was proven that it was the owner’s nephew who stole the money.
I still lost my job, and there’s still all of…
that stuff that happened, and I just feel better about disclosing it up front, instead of having you find out later and think it was something major when I was innocent and nothing was my fault. ”
Lila Mae nodded. “Thank you for telling me.” She took a breath, ready to make some confessions of her own.
“The General Manager position here might sound a lot like a secretary. I’ve got Scarlett, who’s doing the intakes right now, and she’ll answer phones, and she can handle questions about adoptions and surrenders.
She and I do all of that right now, but I need someone who can do all of that, but also who can help me build schedules, who can help with payroll, who can schedule deliveries, who can oversee the construction of the individual cat houses, who can take notes for veterinarians, and who will generally manage this place the way I do. Basically, you would be my number two.”
“I can do it,” Hailey said. “I was the daytime manager at Rockefellers for five years, and frankly, it’ll be nice to not have to deal with the scent of onions and garlic.” She grinned, and Lila Mae returned it.
“There might be some worse smells out here.”
“I welcome it,” Hailey said. “Especially since I’m going to be doing all the vet tech classes as well. I think it would be great experience, and I have to do an internship, and I might be able to do that here.” She looked so hopeful, and Lila Mae wanted to make all of her dreams come true.
“I could get another job managing another restaurant, or even working on my family’s ranch, which I’ve been doing for the past few months. But I’m ready to move out of my momma and daddy’s house and start living my own life again.”
Lila Mae met her eyes, something powerful bonding them together. “I know exactly how that is,” she said quietly. “What’s your family’s ranch?”
“Shiloh Ridge,” she said. “I know you’re new in town, but everybody’s heard of Shiloh Ridge.”
“Sure,” Lila Mae said. “The veterinarian I’m interviewing tomorrow was recommended to me by Smiles Glover.”
“Of course,” Hailey said. “Everyone in the world knows Smiles.”
“I wanted him, but he said he’s had a job at Shiloh Ridge since the day he was born.”
“Yeah,” Hailey said with a smile. “A lot of boys come back to their family ranches after they get their vet degrees.”
“I guess one of his friends has been working odd jobs around the farms and ranches in Amarillo and would like somewhere permanent.” Lila Mae nodded because she also understood the dynamics of a family business and dynasty. “So you’re one of Smiles’ cousins?”
“Through marriage,” Hailey said. “My Daddy married his aunt. My momma died when I was real young.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.
“Moving here was a brand-new start for both me and Daddy,” Hailey said. “And as I’m kind of going through trying to turn another page in my life, I remind myself that I’ve done it before, and that my daddy did it and modeled it for me, and that good things can come out of heartache.”
Lila Mae once again found herself tearing up, so she simply nodded.
“I’m sure you have other interviews,” Hailey said. “But I’d be really good at this job, Lila Mae, and it feels like a perfect fit for me.”
Lila Mae took a moment to gather her emotions and swallow them down.
“It feels like a really good fit for me, too,” she said.
“So I don’t need to do any other interviews.
You have the job, and I’ll get the paperwork together.
If you want to come in tomorrow and get it signed, you can start right away. ”
A relieved sigh fell out of Hailey’s mouth, and she grinned. “Thank you so much,” she said. “This is going to be so great.”
Lila Mae smiled too, because she wanted to work with people she felt a connection with and who understood what she was doing here at Feline Friends. She walked Hailey out with the promise of the woman returning tomorrow to sign her intake paperwork.
Lila Mae made it through the vet tech interview and hired that man as well. Then she helped Scarlett close down the Intake Center, and she bid her good-night before going to check on the cats.
They could roam around the room and sleep in cat towers, or their beds, or kennels, as she would lock the door behind her when she left.
By the time she’d finished cleaning their litter boxes, checking their food and water, and making sure Cleopatra wasn’t going to be a problem with the gray tabby cat, it was close to six.
“You be good to the kittens,” she said to Cleo, her Bengal cat. Cleo usually stuck to Lila Mae’s side, but she’d enjoyed being with the rescue cats, and she found both new kittens curled into Cleo’s side. Her Bengal slitted her eyes at her and purred, and Lila Mae could only smile back at her cat.
After she’d locked the door and headed for the exit, Lila Mae started thinking about dinner. And that made her think of Trap.
She moved out onto the front porch and looked right, down the dirt road that went toward the stables. Her heartbeat thumped when she saw Trap’s big gray pickup truck parked out front.
He was here.
The stables only sat two hundred yards from the house, and while the evening held the heat of the whole day, Lila Mae could walk in the shade most of the way.
She did, telling herself she needed to ask Trap a question about the construction, though, for the life of her, she couldn’t come up with one.
She certainly hadn’t made the walk in the heat just to see him, but as she pulled open the stable door and entered, she knew she’d been lying to herself.
“Trap?” she called.
He always responded with a “Heyo, I’m back here,” and she could follow the sound of his voice. Today, only silence greeted her.
The door she’d come through entered a big, open room in the stable, with a tack room off to the side that Lila Mae had already designated for her veterinarian’s office.
It had twelve stalls, six to the right and six to the left, which Lila Mae and Trap had designated as cat patient rooms, with the largest one being an operating room.
Trap’s job was to clean everything out and put in walls and flooring that would be sterile enough for a hospital. She’d work with his interior design partner, Ruby, on the custom cabinets and medical equipment needed for the hospital, but they hadn’t gotten that far yet.
Lila Mae moved past the office and stood at the junction in the stable, looking first left and then right, hoping a whiff of Trap’s cologne would come from one of the directions and tell her where he’d gone.
“Trap?” she called again. He didn’t give her a minute-by-minute schedule of his work, and he seemed to be out at the ranch every day. If he wasn’t, Jason or Sawyer was, and they definitely knew what they were doing to move the project along toward completion.
Lila Mae turned right and headed down that row of stalls, looking left and right into each one. They had been cleaned, and Trap had started laying flooring and adding walls. This side was done, and Lila Mae retraced her steps and continued down the other arm of the stable.
“Trap?” she called again. He still didn’t answer, and Lila Mae’s heartbeat skipped and jumped around in her chest.
These rooms had had flooring added as well, and when she reached the end, she peered inside, already turning around to go check the outdoor area that was attached to the back of the stable.
A gasp flew from her mouth when she saw Trap collapsed on the floor, unconscious.
“Trap!” She ran toward him, her shoulder knocking against the edge of the door frame. She barely felt anything as she dropped her knees onto the hard flooring that he had clearly been installing. “Trap, you’ve got to wake up.”
She had already sent Scarlett home, and there was no way she could lift this broad-shouldered cowboy. He had to be twice her size and built with muscle.
She finally reached out and put one hand against his chest. He radiated heat, and she looked around and found a gallon-sized water jug only a few feet away.
All of the warnings about heat stroke and heat exhaustion ran through her mind, and while Lila Mae had paid attention to them, she certainly wasn’t a medical doctor and didn’t know how to treat it.
Still, she reached for the water jug and twisted off the lid. When she found the jug almost full of ice water, she dumped it straight onto Trap’s face and chest.
“Trap,” she said. “Wake up.”
He groaned, his eyes fluttering open. “Come on,” she said. “Get up. We’re going to get you to your truck and go get help.”
He moaned something that was probably words, but Lila Mae didn’t understand them. He did manage to stand, and Lila Mae held him under his arm, and he leaned on her heavily as painstakingly, they moved step by step down the aisle and out of the stable.
She got him in the passenger seat and fished in his pockets for his keys. When she got behind the wheel, he looked over to her and said, “Please don’t take me to the hospital. My momma will kill me.”
Lila Mae swallowed, realizing how very hot it was in the truck, which had been sitting out in the heat for who knew how long. She gripped the steering wheel, nodded, and made her decision.