Veterinary Partner
Page 15
Chapter Eighteen
Lauren cleared her throat before she answered the phone. “Dr. Lauren Cornish.” She worried for a second that it might be Callie calling because the Krugers were at her house again. The interview with the police the day before had shaken her and made her reexamine her priorities. Callie and Becky needed protection and it was irrelevant what other people thought of her staying with Callie. After lunch she’d pack a bag and drive out to Poplarcreek and try to wheedle an invitation to stay in the spare room.
“Dr. Cornish? Are you there?”
“Yes, sorry.”
“A man is on his way to Prairie Veterinary Services with a cow requiring surgery. He didn’t give his name.”
“Thank you.” Lauren hung up and groaned when she read the clock. It was two a.m. on Sunday morning, and she’d been hoping to sleep in until ten and then phone Sam. It had been three weeks since the first phone call and they were speaking a couple of times a week. Sometimes William even joined for a few minutes. She didn’t want to mess that up.
“Well, kitten. Another long night for me.” Digit jumped off the bed when Lauren stirred. While she dressed, he wove between her legs and meowed. “Somewhere in your little cat brain you think you’re helping. Too early for breakfast, sir. We’ll eat when I return.” Lauren dressed and kissed Digit on the top of the head. Attracted by the commotion, Elsa padded over for a kiss too.
Lauren pulled on her coat and stumbled into the frigid night air. After a short drive, she arrived at PVS, coded off the alarm, and jogged through the clinic. She pushed the button to open the ten foot by ten foot door through which large animals entered. Lauren stepped outside and, in the semidarkness, observed a man getting out of the truck. “Hey, cold night. Sorry the main floodlights are out. We need to get them fixed. Please straighten your trailer and back up to the lower chute. Then we’ll run her inside.”
The man didn’t respond, just continued to walk in her direction. Hair prickling on the nape of her neck, she walked to the trailer and peered in. It was empty.
Lauren backed toward the clinic, but the man swaggered closer. He lurked in the shadows and she couldn’t see his face. He wasn’t a big man, but he was bigger than she was. He seemed to be waiting, but his eyes never left her. She jumped when a second truck tore into the parking lot spraying gravel. She couldn’t see who was behind the wheel.
“Who are you?” When the man didn’t answer, Lauren whirled, sprinted into the clinic, and slammed the button to power the automatic door closed. Adrenaline pumping and struggling not to panic, she wasted time deciding whether to race through the building outside to her truck or hunt for a weapon to defend herself. Her self-defense training taught her to flee, but she balked. Criminals tackling her from behind and dragging her to the floor wasn’t an option. She would meet them face-to-face and if they wanted a fight, they would get one.
Lauren snatched a covered scalpel from the surgery tray and jammed it in her pocket. Then grabbed a shovel and raised it to shoulder height as she hid against the wall beside the door. “You’d better stay out or explain why your trailer’s empty,” she yelled.
The door crept closed, and she almost screamed at it with impatience. When it was two feet from the floor, an arm poked underneath. The door hit the arm hard, and the impact triggered the door’s safety mechanism. It reversed direction and opened again. Then the first man entered the clinic with the second man close behind.
“Kyle and Tommy Kruger.” Lauren struggled to keep her voice steady. Mitch had warned her she was in danger, but she hadn’t thought they’d make a move so soon.
“Hang on, Doc.” Kyle sneered, holding his arms high. “What ya gonna do with the shovel? You gonna dig a hole? Or are you scared of us? We scare you?” Kyle focused on the larger man. “Tommy bro, we scared the doc.” Tommy remained quiet, his eyes locked on Lauren and an inscrutable expression on his face.
Still clutching her weapon, Lauren glared at Kyle. “What do you want? Your trailer’s empty.”
Kyle crept toward her. He had one hand in his pocket and the other scratched his chin. “We got no animal with us, Doc.” The cigarette hanging from his mouth, combined with his scruffy beard and slimy demeanor caused Lauren to go cold.
When Kyle was six feet from her Tommy laid his huge hand on Kyle’s shoulder and stopped him. Kyle glanced at Tommy. “S’kay, bro, I only wanna talk to the doc.”
Kyle faced Lauren, his expression cunning. “We had a stuck calf, but right after we called the answering service, we winched it out. Thought I’d slide over and let you know so you weren’t waiting.”
Bullshit, but I’ll play. Lauren kept the shovel against her chest. “Good to know. Thanks.”
“Sorry we scared you. Guess you’re alone tonight.” Kyle scratched his chest and smirked. “What you need is a man at home to notice when you go missing. If something happened to you, like a broken leg, nobody’d find you until morning.”
“I’m okay the way I am, thanks.”
“You know, maybe you’d be better off back in Ontario with your own people where it’s safe. Not sure you fit in around here. In Thresherton, people have learned to mind their own business and keep out of our way. They’ve learned not to go running their mouths.”
Tommy grabbed Kyle by the shoulders and started to pull him out of the clinic.
“See ya, Doc. Hope you enjoyed the lesson,” Kyle said. He brushed Tommy’s hands off and looked at Lauren. His cold gaze landed at her chest again. Lauren recognized the tactic as an attempt at intimidation. It was designed to prey on a woman’s insecurities and zap her confidence. Kyle had tried this trick one too many times, and she was unaffected.
“Well, night, Doc. You should watch out, you know. There are lots of dangerous criminals in the dark.” Kyle laughed. “Let’s go, Tommy.”
Lauren watched them exit through the automatic door and she punched the button the moment they were past it. After the door closed, she lowered the shovel to the floor and returned the scalpel to the surgery tray. She staggered backward until her back hit the wall. Her legs buckled and she slid down, landing on her butt on the cold cement floor. She buried her head in her arms as she hugged her knees to her chest with shaking hands.
The threat was clear. Stay out of the Krugers’ way or move back to Ontario. And if she did neither? An attack in the dark? Assault? A broken leg or worse?
Light-headed and nauseated, Lauren remained there for several minutes, listening to a dog bark. “Enough cowering, Cornish, and your butt is freezing.” Lauren took a deep breath and dragged her feet under her. She crawled up the wall and teetered on wobbly legs. Still dizzy, she staggered for a step, before walking into the small animal wing of PVS.
Taking care of animals calmed her, and right now that’s exactly what she needed. Lauren opened a can of dog food and grabbed an antibiotic pill. She entered the dog run and dropped to sit beside Max. “Hey, Max. You’re a good boy.” Lauren fed him the pill wrapped in a ball of canned food and he wolfed it down without chewing. She stroked his head while he ate the rest.
After he finished eating, Max crawled toward Lauren and laid his head on her thigh. “Everything’s okay, Max. Nothing to fear, big guy. The snakes have slithered away.” As she cuddled the dog, Lauren pretended she was reassuring Max, but anybody who saw them would have realized it was Max comforting her.
What was she going to do? Callie and Becky needed protecting, but Lauren could hardly protect herself. She was a weepy mess from one threatening interaction. Suddenly, showing up at Poplarcreek as Callie’s knight protector seemed like a dumb idea. All she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed with Digit. She should get Callie to reconsider Mitch’s offer. Mitch would protect Callie and Becky, just as Liz would have. The best thing she could do right now for Callie and Becky was to leave protecting them to Mitch. She’d never felt so useless.
After a cuddle and a kiss on the top of his head, Lauren left Max. She closed up the clinic and headed home. She parked
in her driveway for a few seconds and then with a deep sigh, backed out and drove to the RCMP detachment. Lauren waited at the front counter not sure if she wanted Mitch to be working or not.
“Dr. Cornish?” Mitch said, coming out from behind the counter.
“Can I speak with you?”
“Are you okay? Are Callie and Becky?”
Mitch’s mask slipped and Lauren spotted real warmth and affection for Callie and Becky. The cop wasn’t a block of granite after all. “Everyone’s fine, but there was an incident at the vet clinic tonight.”
“Follow me.”
Mitch led her into an interview room and set a bottle of water in front of her. Then she fished a pen from her pocket and opened her notebook.
“Kyle Kruger lured me to the clinic tonight.” Lauren told the story and resisted the urge to downplay how scared she’d been. Now wasn’t the time for ego, and any woman would have been frightened.
When Lauren finished, Mitch wrote for another minute, then closed her notebook. “The threat is clear. Time for me to have another talk with Kyle. What will you do?”
“Do?”
“Are you going to move away?”
“No, well, at least not now, and not because of Kyle.”
“And Callie? She needs someone to stay with her.”
Lauren drew circles in the condensation left by her bottle of water.
“Are you going to stay at Poplarcreek?”
“You should do it.” The meekness in her voice made Lauren shudder, but she couldn’t protect Callie and Becky. One slightly threatening visit from Kyle and she was a mess.
Mitch planted her hands flat on the table and leaned forward. “She said no to me. I already told you that.”
Lauren shrugged and looked up. Mitch was studying her as if she were something unpleasant that needed to be scraped off the bottom of her shoe.
“I’m sorry,” Lauren whispered.
Without another word, Mitch showed her out. At home, Lauren turned on all the lights, stripped off her jeans and jacket and crawled into bed. She pulled the pillow over her eyes to block the light. “Digit. Here, Digi.” When the soft furry body crawled into her arms, she pulled him close. She loosened her grip when he squirmed and meowed. “Sorry, Digi. I’m a big suck.” She kissed the top of his head.
Callie and Becky needed protection and she should be doing it. She should be staying at Poplarcreek, but instead she was hiding. Hiding in bed with her cat. Next, she’d be sucking her thumb like when she was three. Lauren groaned, thoroughly disgusted with herself.
Maybe she should go back to Ontario. Tuck her tail between her legs and run. Her feelings for Callie were confusing enough, and now there was a real threat from the town bullies. Why not leave? It was the sensible thing to do…or was it cowardly? She wasn’t a coward, but this was about self-preservation.
Chapter Nineteen
Callie jumped when the phone rang and grabbed it on the second ring. She’d been hoping to hear from Lauren. It had been three days since she’d last seen her, during an awkward exchange at the police station, and she hadn’t even had a text since then. Maybe all her crap with the Krugers had scared Lauren off?
“Hello? Lauren?”
“Hi, Callie.”
“Oh, hey, Mitch.” Callie struggled to contain her disappointment.
“How are you? Everything good?”
“We’re fine, Mitch. How are you?” Callie smiled. Mitch was a good friend.
“Callie, you need to let me stay with you for a while. You need an extra person in the house to dissuade visits from the Krugers.”
“No, thanks. We’re fine.” It would be too much like having Liz in the house again, and although she was afraid of the Krugers, she wasn’t about to give up control again.
“Just for a few days.”
“How about I call you if I change my mind? Okay?” Callie listened until Mitch ran out of reasons for her to stay at Poplarcreek. Then she hung up after promising to think about it. Mitch made some good points. Maybe she should get a big dog like Martha suggested? The ringing phone pulled her back to the present.
“Hello? Lauren?”
“Hello, Catherine. Were you expecting Dr. Cornish?”
Callie went cold as she recognized the mean little laugh. She should have looked at her call display. Everyone was calling except the person she most wanted to speak with. “What do you want, Heinz?” Forget any semblance of polite. He was a criminal and he was going to jail.
“Why so hostile, Catherine? I’m just being neighborly. Calling to chat.”
“Do you have the money for my two cows?”
“Ah, women. You’re too impatient to be in business.”
“Should I talk to a lawyer? I can prove how much my two cows were worth.”
“These things take time, Catherine.”
He was a patronizing asshole and she was two seconds away from telling him that. Callie took a deep breath. “Heinz, what do you want?”
“Have you gotten your big tractor out for the spring? It’s never too early to check that it’s working properly.”
“Did you mess with my tractor?”
Heinz laughed. “No, but I know it’s very old. I doubt you’ll get another season out of it. And have you looked at how much they cost?”
“Go away, Heinz.”
“Let us know if you need help this spring. You’ve been telling lies at the police station, but I’ll forgive you. Women are so emotional.”
“They’re not lies. Bye, Heinz.” Callie hung up and stared at the phone. Now she was worried about getting her big tractor going. Without it she couldn’t plant any seed. How did Heinz know it was old and failing? She’d had Mark over every week to tinker with it and help her nurse it through last season. Now, given her finances, she’d have to do it again. Heinz was an asshole and knew just what buttons to push.
Callie slammed out of the house and grabbed her snow shovel. She violently shoveled her walkway and watched for a truck. Callie leaned her shovel against the porch and approached the truck that pulled into her yard. She rolled her shoulders to shake off the bad mood and find her smile.
“Hi, Mark. Thanks for helping me today. How’s Tracey doing?” Mark and Tracey Renfield were Callie’s neighbors on the other side of her from the Kruger Farm. Mark was always willing to help her when she broke something, and any other time she needed help.
“Trace is doing well, thanks. The C-section zapped her energy, but she’s healing. Amanda and Sally are old enough to help after school, and Hughie is behaving himself. We’ve decided Jenny will be our last baby.”
As they walked to Callie’s drive shed, she said, “Four children are a decent number.”
“Yeah, four is enough. Six was the plan, but we’ll stay at four.”
Callie pointed. “The small tractor’s broken, again. I tried to fix it myself but no luck. And wouldn’t you know, it’s the one with the snowblower so I need to get it going. Sorry to bother you, again.”
“I don’t mind. I’ll come over anytime I’m asked.” They lifted the cover and Mark inspected the engine. He adjusted items as Callie handed him tools.
“Four kids,” Callie said. “You know you have to put your children through university or technical college, if they want?”
“We’re already saving money, and it helps that you’re renting land to us.”
“I have my hands full with five hundred acres, the house, the cattle, and Becky. I have no time to cultivate all my land and I’m too slow at it anyway.”
“Slow?”
Callie laughed. “I have to keep the tractor speed to a crawl if I want the rows straight. Doug wouldn’t let me plant the rows along the highway because I didn’t make them straight enough.”
“Hilarious. He wouldn’t have wanted the neighbors to think he couldn’t drive straight. Hey, but what did he expect? Straight is not you.” He winked at her.
“Ha, ha. Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first joke of the day.”
When he was fifteen, Mark’s parents and little sister had died in a house fire while he camped with friends one weekend. There was talk of sending him east to live with an aunt or putting him in foster care. Instead, Doug had offered Mark a home. Mark’s help on the farm became indispensable because Liz and her brothers were living in British Columbia by then. Staying in Thresherton had allowed Mark to continue to date his girlfriend, Tracey, now his wife, and remain as part of the community he knew. His history with Doug had transferred over to Callie, and she’d never been more grateful. It was an easy decision to rent a large portion of her land to them so they could farm it and make some extra money.
Callie lightly slapped Mark on the shoulder. “You two are good friends.”
“You too, Callie.” Mark set down his pliers. “That should do it. Try to start it.”
Callie jumped into the tractor, twisted the key, and it roared to life. She gave Mark two thumbs-up and he made a cutting motion. She shut the engine off and jumped down. Mark pointed to two wires on the engine. Callie glanced at them and shook her head, unsure what he was suggesting.
“They’re corroded, and they came loose. I cleaned them and fastened them down, but in the spring remind me and I’ll replace them, if you decide not to change them yourself.”
“Thanks. I couldn’t do it without your help.” It was hard to admit that.
Mark grinned. “You’re welcome. I helped Doug all the time. Besides, you have to clear away the snow to let the vets in. Seems like you might as well move them in, as often as we see them head your way.”
Callie grimaced. “Har, har. The vets from PVS have been here too often this month. Heinz Kruger’s bull bred my little heifers and now they’re calving.”
“How many are there?”
“I have twenty. So far, there have been eight calvings and six C-sections. My bill at PVS is insane. I refuse to think about how much I owe.”