Once and for All (16 page)

“He’d recovered,” Jodie said faintly, causing her dad to give her a sharp look.

“Did Sam Hyatt treat this bull?”

Jodie rounded on her father. “He didn’t die from what Sam treated him for.”

“How in the hell do you know that?” Color flooded into Joe’s face, and his voice was like a volcanic eruption. “I still cannot believe you had
Sam Hyat
t out here treating my animals.”

“They would have died if he hadn’t,” Jodie shouted back.

“Well, it looks like one died, anyway.” Joe’s voice dripped sarcasm.

“He was the only vet who would come out here, and you’re damned lucky he did.”

“There had to be other options.”

“Joe,” Nadine said, “be reasonable.” She was close to tears, but both Joe and Jodie ignored her plea.

“There weren’t,” Jodie stated flatly. She had done the only thing possible. “He saved Bronson and he saved more than one calf for you because your wonder cowboy Mike refused to come back to work for you.”

Joe’s mouth clamped into a tight line.

“Come on, Dad. What else could I do?”

“Called Eriksson. Did it never occur to you that incompetent son of a bitch Hyatt might screw up and kill my bull?”

“The bull recovered.”

“He’s dead! And it’s your fault!”

Enough.
Jodie’s stomach was in a tight knot, but she’d had it. “No. It’s
your
fault for alienating all the vets in the area. More than one of them told you Sam had followed the proper course of action with the horse. But you couldn’t accept that. Someone had to take the blame.”

Joe glared at her, as if he couldn’t believe she was arguing this point, then turned and stalked back toward the ranch house. Nadine put her arms around Jodie, making peace as always.

“He’ll come around.”

Jodie gently stepped out of her mother’s embrace. “He shouldn’t have to come around. He should be able to see that I did what I had to do.”

“The bull and the horse…that’s not what he expected when he came back.”

“It’s a ranch, Mom. These things happen.” And, boy, did they. “If he can’t accept that, he needs to find another retirement gig.” Jodie shook her head. “I need to take care of this.”

“What are you going to do?” Nadine asked as they started for the house.

“I’m going to do what I should have done before. I’m calling Eriksson.”

Dr. Eriksson was free, since it was a weekend, and he flew in later that day, as Jodie arranged. The autopsy was going to cost her a bundle, and there was always the chance that the vet would say, yes, Sam had been negligent. But there was a chance he wouldn’t, and Jodie wanted this matter put to rest.

Joe paced the fence as Eriksson cut into his prize bull. Thankfully, it was warm enough outside that the animal had not frozen solid. It didn’t take long before the vet shook his head. “It had nothing to do with the magnet,” he said, pulling the bullet-shaped piece of metal out of the animal’s rumen. “In fact, it was exactly the right treatment.”

Jodie, who was not watching for obvious reasons, felt a swell of vindication.
There
.

Joe wouldn’t accept the vet’s conclusion. “Well, then why the hell is this animal dead?”

“I’ll have to take a liver swab, but right now, I’d say red water disease.”

“Shouldn’t Hyatt have caught that?”

Eriksson shook his head. “Don’t see how he could have. It wouldn’t have shown up in blood tests and has nothing to do with the metal in the rumen.”

Jodie had heard enough. She left the pens and headed back to the warmth of the house. Half an hour after Dr. Eriksson’s plane left the runway, Jodie sought out Joe in his den.

“Well?” She wanted him to tell her he’d been wrong, but knew by the stubborn look on his face that he wasn’t giving in.

“You made me look foolish, having Sam Hyatt back on the place. I mean, can you imagine how much fun the locals are having with this? And then he kills my bull?”

“He did not kill your bull.”

“I’ll wait for the blood test results before I believe that.” Joe ran a hand over the back of his neck and Jodie saw that his features were as tight, if not tighter, than before he’d left on vacation. All the hell she’d been through was for nothing…except for connecting with Sam. That was worthwhile. Maybe this was simply the price she had to pay for finding a decent man to spend some time with.

Joe wasn’t finished. “The horse I understand,” he said grimly, “but Eriksson would have flown in for everything else.”

“Not the bull. I called him. He was on vacation.”

“And due back the next day. I checked! He would have taken over. He told me. You had no business bringing Sam Hyatt onto this property for more than that one emergency.”

Would it never end? “I did the best I could under the circumstances.”

“You could have done a hell of a lot better than you did.”

Jodie felt the instinctive tightening in the pit of her stomach that always followed those words. She was not good enough. Be the best or don’t bother.

She was thirty years old, no longer a girl who needed to please her father, so it pissed her off that the words still stung.

“If you didn’t plan to respect what’s important to me, you shouldn’t have volunteered to take over the ranch.”

She opened her mouth to answer, and was surprised that she couldn’t find any words. She was a lawyer, for heaven’s sake. Words were her business. Finally, she just shook her head and walked out of the office and down the hall to her room, where she finished the packing she’d started that morning.

There was no question of Joe coming in to make nice. That wasn’t the way he operated. And since her mother had no idea of what had just happened, she would hopefully assume that Jodie was simply leaving a bit early, anxious to get back to her job.

But she’d had it. She would not be back at the ranch anytime soon. She’d meet her mom in Vegas for shopping and that would be enough family for her. She was so damned sick of feeling like a failure for things out of her control. She couldn’t help it if some other student was better than her and she couldn’t help it if Joe had managed to get himself blackballed with every vet in northeastern Nevada.

Her hands were practically shaking by the time she finished shoving stuff into her two suitcases. She lugged them through the house and out the mudroom door to the Spitfire.

“You won’t be here for dinner?” Margarite asked.

Jodie smiled calmly. “No. I thought I’d better hit the road. There’s supposed to be a storm coming in.”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“And I want to be safely in Vegas when it hits.”

Margarite gave her a shrewd look. “Yes,” she said ironically. “Better safe than sorry.”

Jodie stowed her luggage, then went back to the house to find her mother and say goodbye.

“You’re leaving early,” Nadine said, a note of sadness in her voice.

“I have some unexpected loose ends I need to wrap up.”

Nadine had watched the fireworks between Jodie and her father too often not to know what was really going on, although this was the first time Jodie had refused to placate Joe.

No. She might be a failure in his eyes, but for once she wasn’t going to do anything to rectify his opinion.

Joe came into the library then, his expression still stormy. “You’re leaving?”

“I have to get back,” she said in a clipped voice.

“I thought you were going to spend a couple days here with your mom.”

Oh, yes. This was so like him. Make it look like she was falling short no matter what she did.

“Mom and I can hook up in Vegas.”

“Jodie—” There was no hint of remorse in his voice.

“Look, Dad. I have to get back.”
I did the best I could, and as usual, it wasn’t good enough.

“When will we see you again?” he asked in a way that made her wonder if he even cared about the answer. It would be less painful for everyone if he didn’t.

“I don’t know.”

And Jodie meant it. She was damned tired of feeling like a failure when she knew she wasn’t. Why couldn’t her father accept her, warts and all? Why did he have to beat blame into her before he could forgive her? Before he could love her again? Enough.

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“How do you know something happened?”

“The reveal-nothing look on your face.”

He was beginning to know her too well. “The bull died.”

“The bull I treated?”

“Yeah.” Sam came around the counter, a grim look on his face. “It wasn’t your fault,” Jodie said quickly. “I had Eriksson fly in and do an autopsy. He totally exonerated you, but Dad’s still…being Dad.”

“I can imagine,” he muttered. “Am I going to get sued?”

“If you do, I’ll defend you. Pro bono.”

She thought Sam might smile, but he didn’t, probably because the scenario wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.

“What did Eriksson say?”

“Red water disease.”

“Shit.”

“He said there was no reason you should have caught it.”

Sam nodded, looking none too happy. “So what now?” he asked, finally reaching out to fold her into his arms, where she’d wanted to be from the instant she’d walked into the office. She returned the embrace, splaying her fingers over the solid muscles of his back.

“Head off to my other life.”

“Right now?”

She glanced through the window at her packed car. “Yeah.”

“Why don’t you leave tomorrow?”

“Sam, putting it off isn’t going to—”

He cut her words off with a kiss, and when he lifted his head, she wasn’t certain what point she was trying to make. “I want one last afternoon. Okay?”

“The boys—”

“Won’t be home until after seven-thirty. Think of it as a long goodbye.”

When he put it that way… “All right.”

“I have one call to make. Do you want to come?”

“Yeah, maybe I would,” she said with a wavering smile.

He put his hand on the back of her head and buried his face in her hair. “Sorry about your dad.”

Jodie went with Sam to see about some goats. She played with a litter of fuzzy brown puppies that had come out of the barn to greet them, while Sam did whatever it was he’d come to do. Jodie nearly died of a cuteness overdose before getting back into the truck, and she hated saying no to the offer of a puppy of her very own, but for sanity’s sake had to. A puppy and a Vegas condo were not a good mix.

Sam patted the seat next to him after starting the engine, and Jodie scooted over, fastening the middle belt around her. Sam held up his phone and hit the power button. Merry chimes sounded.

“I’m off duty,” he said.

“It’s about time.”

They made love during the afternoon while the boys were at school, and then Jodie did something she almost never did, and fell asleep in the daytime, content to be in Sam’s arms. Tomorrow she’d be alone again, so she was going to savor every moment she had with him. After today, their affair—for want of a better word—would be over, because she was heading back to her old life, and she was not going to encourage Sam to visit her in Vegas.

If her father couldn’t forgive her for a bull…well, then how would Sam ever forgive her for what she’d done to him?

“Anxious to get back to work?” he asked.

“I am.” She ran her hand over the muscles of his shoulder. His body took that as an incentive to get busy again. “Don’t fight it,” Jodie said with a laugh, her hand dropping down to stroke him with the palm of her hand.

It was official, he thought as he pulled her up on top of him, loving the way she welcomed him with her body, the way they fit together so perfectly. He just couldn’t get enough of her. Maybe it was because she was such a surprise to him after she’d dropped her protective facade. Or maybe he was just falling in love with her. He strongly suspected the latter and he liked the feeling.

When Jodie finally collapsed on top of him, after letting out a long, shuddering sigh of release, Sam wrapped his arms around her and held her until he slipped out of her. Only then did she roll off onto her back, smiling as she closed her eyes. Sam studied her, hating that in a matter of hours things would change. She’d be back in her life and he’d be here, surrogate father and overworked vet.

“I guess we haven’t talked about what happens after this,” Sam said, propping his head on his elbow. “So what happens after this?”