He had been so sweet, though, helping me get my things from the van and petting the dog as I prepared him for transport. I had to force myself to remember how he had lied to me about his ex, Natasha. Obviously, the girl had done the wrong thing, attempting to implicate Ryan in the Russian scandal, but he had broken her heart, throwing her away when he was done with her. From the sound of the way the media talked about him, she wasn’t the first one. Who knew how many other girl’s hearts he had broken. He was a playboy, and one with a whole lot of money, living it up in one of the biggest cities in the world. On top of that, he was incredibly handsome and very charming. It was no wonder girls flocked to him and no wonder he took full advantage of that fact.
I looked over my shoulder, hearing voices in of the stalls. I put my brush down and pet the horse softly before wiping off my hands. I walked out of the stall and quietly through the barn, stopping when I recognized Alison’s voice. She and Jimmy must have come into the barn and not even realized I was in one of the stalls. I hadn’t told Alison I was coming here, but I rarely did. I just showed up whenever I could and worked with the horses, letting her know later what had been accomplished. I stopped for a moment and listened, wanting to make sure Alison was okay, and they weren’t fighting again. Jimmy said something, but I couldn’t hear him, and Alison’s voice rang out in laughter that echoed through the barn. I scrunched my eyebrows together and stood there, jumping slightly as something banged hard into one of the stall doors.
I felt slightly strange for standing there listening, but it was a distraction from my own mind, and those two always did give me something else to think about. Alison laughed again, saying something about being spontaneous and adventurous. Then it was silent and didn’t seem as if Jimmy had responded to her at all. That didn’t surprise me, though. Jimmy ignored Alison on a regular basis, and I still didn’t understand their relationship at all. I took another step forward and peeked around the stall door to my left, staying far enough away to not be seen. There they were, Alison’s body pressed against Jimmy’s. Jimmy was backed against the stall across from me, and he did not look happy in the least. Alison was smiling up at him, but he wasn’t reacting to her at all.
Alison ran her hands up his chest and smiled again, leaning in and kissing over his neck. She pulled back and tried to pull his head down toward her, but he resisted, turning away from her. She taunted him a bit, laughing and giggling, obviously trying to get his attention and arouse him in one way or the other. He wasn’t taking the bait, though, and I could see the irritation building on his face. Finally, after a few more taunts and strategically placed grabs on Alison’s part, he reached up and pushed her backward. She stumbled back and frowned, trying not to fall into a bale of hay.
“Jesus, Jimmy,” she said angrily. “You act like it’s the worst thing in the world.”
Jimmy didn’t say a word, just turned and stormed out of the barn, leaving Alison there looking stressed and irritated. I wasn’t sure what was going on between them because there always seemed to be something going on, but part of me felt bad for Alison. It sucked to be turned away by the person you desired the most. Alison dusted off her pants and hung up a couple of reins that had fallen off of hooks in the old barn wood. She stared at the back of the stall for a minute and sighed before swinging around and walking for the stall door. As she walked forward, she looked up and stopped, catching sight of me standing there with my eyebrows raised.
“Oh,” I said, standing up straight and blushing like crazy. “Sorry, I heard voices. I was brushing one of the horses, so I came to see who was in here.”
I was absolutely mortified that I had caught my friend in that situation. If it had been me, I would have buried my head in the hay, but not Alison. In her true form, she took it right in stride, shrugging her shoulders and leaning against the stall door.
“Now you know my dirty little secret,” she laughed, standing up and walking over to where I was standing. “Not that it’s that much of a secret with how Jimmy talks to his boys.”
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she chuckled. “Turns out, I have a much higher sex drive than Jimmy, or so I think. He barely ever wants to do it, whereas I seem to want to do it all the time. You would think that would be a good thing, but it just pisses Jimmy off. But what doesn’t these days?”
“Whiskey?”
“Whiskey doesn’t piss anyone off.” She laughed. “Except maybe my father, who never handled it well.”
“I remember,” I groaned.
“I am a sinner, Sara,” she said, leaning onto my shoulder and throwing her arms in the air. “How dare I have a healthy appetite. Maybe I’m in the wrong business, and I should start a town brothel like in the old days. I would be one hell of a madam.”
“I am not working for you.” I laughed.
We both leaned back against the stall doors and chuckled, but the truth was, neither one of us were happy. She had her constant ups and downs with Jimmy, never really finding that sweet spot with him, and me, well my love life consisted of a narcissistic rich boy and a sheriff who wanted me dead. It was more than a bit of a dramafest in our lives.
“I have an idea,” Alison said, standing back up excitedly. “Why don’t you come over this weekend and stay at the farm. We can have a sappy movie festival and eat enough junk food to kill one of these horses. It’ll be fun, and we haven’t done it in forever. It’s not like you won’t be here anyway.”
“That actually sounds perfect,” I said, heading back over to the stall I was working in with Alison in tow. “I have been really stressed out with everything going on. I could use a nice, relaxing weekend.”
I picked the brush up and finished brushing the horse’s mane before putting away the tools and closing the stall door for the night. Alison told me about the movies she had just bought, and I started to feel a tad bit more normal, not that I expected that feeling to stay. I finished everything up and turned to Alison, giving her a big hug.
“I have to go. I have some paperwork to finish up over at the practice,” I said. “I just needed a break, so I came over here.”
“All right, girl. Call me later.”
“Will do,” I said, walking over to my truck and climbing inside.
By the time I got back to the practice, everyone else was gone for the day. I did my normal checks on the animals that were staying overnight or for extended stays and then headed into my office and tried to get some of the paperwork done. It was proving harder than I thought, though, and I was having an incredibly tough time focusing on anything. I could feel a dull pain in my chest, and I hadn’t been hungry in days. When I got off work and done at the stables, I went home and went straight to bed, not wanting to deal with life. I was doing everything I could to distract myself. I really couldn’t figure out why I was so upset and why I couldn’t let the thought of Ryan go.
In reality, my time with Ryan had been pretty much the shortest relationship I had ever had, or anyone in my town had probably had. We had only been on a couple of dates and spent one romantic weekend away, which was more like a night away with each other. We hadn’t stayed over at each other’s houses, we obviously hadn’t spilled our darkest secrets, and there was no real reason for me to be attached the way I was. My heart and my mind were acting like the two of us had spent months or years together and that losing him was going to be such an upheaval in my life. The only thing that hadn’t seem to change was my daily routine, and that was a really good thing. It didn’t seem to help take him off my mind, though.
I felt like I had lost something huge, something I never thought I would find. I was a pessimist in love, a man-hating small-town vet, or at least that was what Janson had called me one time. What I lost felt bigger than all of that. It was wonderful and unexpected, and I had immersed myself in it, feeling like it was making me a better and happier person. I had been satisfied with life for the first time when I was with Ryan, and his absence in my life had changed that for me. I had f
ooled myself, though, refusing to see the truth in what was going on. I continued, even now, to fool myself into thinking there would be any permanence to the relationship. I sighed and looked back at the stack of papers on my desk. It was around six, but there was no reason to hurry back home. There was nothing waiting for me there. It was probably better that I did busywork and kept my mind on something else.
I pushed my way through the filing, the invoices, and the dreaded spreadsheets I had been putting off forever, trying to not think for a while. It all took me hours, and by the time I was done, I could hear the crickets chirping outside, and it was dark out. I closed and locked the filing cabinet and shut off the computer, getting my things together. As I grabbed my keys, I squinted when I caught a splash of headlights coming through the windows. I went to the door wondering who was pulling into the parking lot at that hour. I really hoped it wasn’t an emergency. I put my things down and headed quickly out the door, rushing toward the large vehicle parking outside.
The driver’s door swung open, and I froze in place recognizing the face smiling over at me. It was Ryan and he looked like a kid at Christmas. I crossed my arms and grabbed onto my shoulders, feeling the cool air washing over the parking lot. He got out and started walking toward me.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
He had a smile on his face and seeing him that happy put a slightly sickening feeling in my stomach. He was too handsome, too intense, and it threw me off whenever I was around him. He walked up closer and looked down at me, mischief in his eyes.
“I bought you a going-away present to remember me by,” he said.
Chapter 26
Ryan
The excitement bubbling through me was absolutely ridiculous, like a kid on Christmas morning. When I first decided to do it, I’d thought it would be just a really nice gift, a drop in the bucket compared to the sports car collection I kept in my garage under my building. It was something she could really use on a daily basis. I felt like it was almost like giving to a charity, or at least, that was what I had convinced myself. When I started talking to the dealers and suppliers, though, the project went from small to huge in the blink of an eye. I had no idea what she was going to need, and what had started as a normal, run of the mill van, suddenly morphed into a top-of-the-line mobile laboratory. I became obsessed with including everything she would ever need and most of everything she would ever want. Nothing was too good for Sara, and she deserved every part of it.
In the end, I found myself pulling up to her practice in a quarter-million-dollar van. It was chump change to me, what I would spend on a weekend away in the islands or a small vacation home, but for her, it would be career-changing, and that was worth every single penny. When I pulled up out front, she came outside, stopping and staring at me as I opened up the door and stepped out. I was really nervous at her reaction, but I was doing the best I could at disguising it with a ridiculous smile, hoping the enthusiasm of it all would carry the day. As the breeze blew over us, she wrapped her arms around her and looked at me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
I walked forward still smiling and looked down at her. I could tell she was curious and maybe a little unnerved, but I didn’t care. She was going to love the thing. I looked back at the van and then to her, feeling the butterflies in my stomach.
“I bought you a going-away present to remember me by,” I said. “Come here.”
I pulled her to the back of the van and opened up the doors, stepping to the side and waiting. Her reaction went from confused to awestruck in about two seconds, and I had to hold back a chuckle. She stood there just staring into the back, no words coming to her.
“Come on,” I nodded. “Check it out.”
Going from a rather nondescript exterior to an interior outfitted with the latest technology made her jaw drop almost to the floor. I pressed a button and watched as the ramp extended from the back. Slowly, she stepped up into the van and looked around clutching her hands together. I came up beside her and smiled triumphantly.
“It has everything you’ll need,” I said, walking over to the right. “There’s the mounted hydro table in case you need to do something right then and there.”
“Hydraulic.” She giggled.
“Huh?”
“Hydraulic table,” she pointed out.
“Right.” I laughed. “Then I had them put in the x-ray machine and this OG something or other oxygen system. And then, over here is the anesthesia section with all kinds of parts I can’t pronounce.”
“It’s a vaporizer.” She smiled, lightening the mood.
“Pretty much anything and everything you would need,” I said, turning to her.
“Jesus,” she said with wide eyes. “Ryan, I can’t believe you bought me a mobile lab. This is beyond anything I ever thought I would be able to have. I don’t even know what to say.”
“No problem,” I said, acting as if it was no big deal.
I knew it was a big deal to her, though, something that could really push her practice to the next level and something that might help save some animal lives. She was in wonder, and I didn’t know if she was going to laugh or cry. She walked around the lab, running her fingers over the equipment, shaking her head and smiling.
“I think it’s time to take it for a spin,” I said. “You can get to the seats right through this plexiglass door.”
I held the door open for her and watched as she slowly walked forward. I stuck my hands out and dropped the keys into it, watching her just stand there looking down at them. I had to keep myself from laughing, she was so adorable.
“I want you to drive, to see how smooth it is,” I said. “I’ll put up the ramp and close the back doors. You get comfortable in the driver’s seat.”
I fixed everything up and climbed up into the passenger seat, looking over at her as she put the keys in the ignition and put on her seat belt. She drove out of the practice parking lot and headed toward town. A smile moved over her lips as she drove, making several different turns and loosening up a bit. After driving all over town, I looked over at her and smiled.
“We should head over to your place,” I said. “That’s where I had my driver drop off my SUV.”
“Okay,” she said. “Ryan, this is really the most amazing gift ever. I don’t know how I can possibly thank you enough for this. It’s beyond anything I’ve even dreamed up for a mobile lab. And way more expensive than the practice could ever afford to buy on their own. I don’t even know how I’m supposed to accept such a lavish gift.”
“You just have to,” I said. “It’s nonrefundable, and it might be pretty weird for me to keep this thing and drive it around. People might think I was up to no good.”
She laughed and shook her head, driving toward her house. “They might arrest you for being creepy,” she said.
“In all seriousness, it’s a gift not only for you but for the entire community,” I said. “They rely on you to take care of their animals, some of them being family and the others being their livelihood. You have an important job.”
“Well, thank you for it,” she said, looking over at me as she slowed toward the driveway at her house.
“You’re more than welcome,” I said.
We pulled up into the driveway and the headlights tilted up at the garage door, lighting up a mound lying in front of her car. Her face dropped a little, and I squinted, trying to see what I was looking at. Suddenly, Sara slammed on her brakes and put her hands to her mouth, letting out a bloodcurdling scream. I put my hand on the dash to brace myself from the jolt and looked back at the mound on the ground, my heart racing in my chest. Suddenly, I realized exactly what I was looking at, and I scrambled to get my seat belt undone. I jumped out of the van, leaving Sara sitting there, wishing I could block her from the view, but it was too large, too bloody, too messy. It was almost too much for me, and I had a strong sensibility.
I bent down next to the large animal’s head and shook my head.
It was a huge animal, an elk, and its belly had been completely slit open. There was steam rising from the pile of intestines spilling out on the ground and a trickle of blood ran down the driveway under the new van. I covered my mouth and stood up, not believing my eyes. At the sound of the door shutting behind me, I turned and started walking forward. Sara was out of the van, and she was coming closer, her eyes wide and full of tears. I rushed forward, grabbing her by the shoulders and turning her away from the beast. I hugged her close to my body and bent over to her ear.
“You don’t need to see that,” I whispered.
“No,” she whimpered. “I need to go check on it, to see if I can help it. I have all this new equipment, maybe I can save it.”
“No, sweetie,” I sighed. “The poor thing is dead. There’s no doubt about that, and I’m pretty sure there’s nothing you could do at this point to help it. I’m so sorry, Sara.”
Her whole body was shaking against me, and I could feel her trying to fight back the tears. Instantly, my heart contracted in my chest, not wanting her to feel that kind of sadness or fear. Her first thought was to help the thing, not knowing that someone had made damn sure there was no coming back. Slowly and gently, she pulled back and looked up into my eyes. I had to let her go, to make her own decision. I nodded my head and stepped to the side, watching her draw slowly closer to the elk.
She stood there for a second looking over the animal from top to bottom, shaking her head and wrapping her hands around herself. As her eyes moved back up to its head, she stopped and tilted her head to the side. Her arms dropped down, and she took another step forward.
My Last First Kiss: A Single Father Secret Baby Novel Page 40
