Her Cowboy Boss Page 7

  “She’ll be a lot of help,” she heard him tell Stark. “You wait and see. She’s got the healing touch, my girl.”

  When she looked at Stark, his face seemed frighteningly blank. “So long as she’s at the office on time in the mornings, I’ll be happy,” he said, straightening. “And speaking of time, I’d best be on my way.”

  Wes insisted on shaking hands with him. “Can’t thank you enough. What a blessing you’ve been to this family.”

  “Just doing my job,” Stark muttered. He sent a sharp look at Meri. “Want to walk me out? Got a few instructions for you.”

  “Sure.”

  Stark nodded a farewell to Wes and left the room. His long legs carried him swiftly through the house. Callie had apparently taken Bodie upstairs, which was just as well, considering the pace that Stark set. Meredith had to trot to keep up with him. As soon as they reached the front porch, he rounded on her.

  “You didn’t even tell them that you’re going to work for me? I’m the poster boy for personal privacy, but even I would have shared that! What were you planning to do? Disappear for hours at a time and come up with a new story every day?”

  “No! I just wanted to be sure it was going to work out before I said anything.”

  “You just wanted to be sure I wouldn’t change my mind? Or you wanted to be sure that you liked the job first?”

  “Neither!” she shot back.

  He shoved a hand through his hair and carefully settled his hat into place. “Every time I begin to think I’ve got you figured out,” he muttered, “you throw me a curve.”

  “I don’t mean to.”

  Stepping close, he lowered his voice and asked, “Why didn’t you tell your folks about what happened to you? You were...attacked. Stabbed. You could’ve died.”

  She looked away, the old answers rolling off her tongue. “My family was still trying to deal with my mother’s passing. It wouldn’t have changed anything. Why worry them when they could do nothing? Rex’s first marriage was a mess, and Dad was grieving. Ann’s high-pressure job—” She stopped, unable to go on and oddly shamed.

  What was it about Stark Burns that made her unable to lie to him? She’d told these lies to herself over and over again, but she couldn’t tell them to him.

  “Meri?” he asked softly.

  Gulping down a rapidly growing lump in her throat, she ducked her head and said, “Telling them would have made it too real.”

  He was silent for several seconds. Then he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and said softly, “I understand. They’d have wanted to discuss it, investigate it, do something about it.”

  She nodded. “Find a way to protect me. I couldn’t let it be that real.”

  He sighed deeply. “I get it.”

  “It’s more than that,” she admitted quickly, finally looking up at him. “How well do you know my sister?”

  Shrugging, he shook his head. “I know she used to manage some hotel in Dallas.”

  “Some hotel?” Meri scoffed. “Just one of the largest luxury hotels in the country.”

  “Okay. So?”

  Meredith flapped a hand helplessly. “I’ve never measured up to Ann. She could always hold her own with Rex and Dad. She was always out in the field with them, while I was here at the house with Mom, learning to cook and clean, all the girly things. Ann was a big athletic star at War Bonnet High.” Meri folded her arms, pushing up the sleeves of Wes’s sweater. “They don’t give medals for outstanding home economics students.”

  Stark chuckled. “So what? Cathy was an outstanding home ec student. She made a great home.” He sounded so wistful that Meredith wanted to put her arms around him. Instead, she walked to the swing where he’d found her and plopped down again.

  “Ann would’ve handled it differently,” she said morosely. “She’d have taken that attacker’s knife and stabbed him.”

  “That’s rubbish,” Stark stated matter-of-factly. “You’re just beating up on yourself to keep from telling me why you didn’t want your family to know you’re going to work for me.”

  “Wrong,” she said primly. “I was just waiting to confirm God’s will on the matter.”

  In a blink he went from understanding to blazingly angry. Once again, Meredith’s heart dropped and her prayers winged Heavenward.

  Oh, Lord, what have I done now? And how do I undo it?

  Chapter Six

  “What’s God got to do with it?” Stark demanded.

  He’d have shaken her if he’d dared to put his hands on her. She could talk to him about God after all she’d been through, knowing all she knew about him?

  “But, Stark,” she said, blinking at him, “don’t you believe we should seek God’s will in our lives?”

  “You think God cares what happens to us?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Was it God’s will for you to be attacked at knifepoint?”

  “No,” she answered firmly. “We live in a fallen world, Stark. People act against God’s will all the time. He doesn’t want it that way, but it’s their choice.”

  That seemed mighty convenient to him. “Who acted against God’s will the day my family died?” he demanded. “Did I act against God’s will when I watched that football game before my family and I left to visit my parents?”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Was the truck driver acting against God’s will when he took that ramp too fast?”

  “People make mistakes, Stark.”

  “Maybe I should’ve had Cathy drive, put my daughter on the other side of the car, sped up, slowed down! What would have made God happy, do you think?”

  “Stop it, Stark,” Meredith said quietly.

  “Just don’t tell me that it was God’s will my family died,” he growled at her, stepping off the porch.

  “I’d never do that,” she said, rising from the swing and following him as far as the edge of the porch.

  Part of him wished she’d come after him, but then what? He closed his mind to the very thought of it. If he had a lick of sense, he’d tell her to forget working for him. Instead, he barked over his shoulder, “Eight a.m., and if you’re late, don’t even bother coming.”

  She said nothing to that, not that he waited around to hear it.

  Reaching the ditch on the edge of that red-dirt road, he stepped over it in one long stride. Two more brought him to the door of his truck. He yanked it open hard enough to feel it buck in his hand. Angry now just for being so angry, he swept off his hat and spun it into the cab before folding himself down behind the steering wheel. There he finally paused long enough to catch his breath and drop his head into his hands.

  He hadn’t been this angry since Cathy and Bel had died. He didn’t know what that meant, but somehow he had to find his equilibrium again. Maybe spending the night in his own bed for a change would give him back his perspective, help him find that calm numbness that allowed him to cope with life as it existed now. That and work were the only answers he had at the moment, the only answers he’d ever had.

  Starting up the truck, he whipped a U-turn and headed out to keep the day’s appointments. He hadn’t reached the first section line when his phone started ringing, and so it went, all day long, one call after another. He could barely manage the day’s appointments for fielding or returning calls.

  By the time he returned to the Straight Arrow to check on Soldier, he hadn’t managed to change or shower, let alone shave. He’d missed lunch. Again. Stark removed Soldier’s IV bag and shunt, disappointed that Meri didn’t show up to help with the latter. At least Rex arrived to assist with the block and tackle supporting the sling.

  “Dad’s in the shower,” Rex explained, holding Soldier’s head while Stark unbuckled the sling. “Meri won’t leave the house until he’s settl
ed again.”

  Stark nodded. “No problem. She knows what to do from here on out.”

  “Could’ve knocked me over with a feather when I heard she’s gonna work for you,” Rex went on.

  Trying not to react, Stark asked, “Who told you?”

  “Dad,” Rex answered, stroking the horse’s neck and leading him forward to walk him out of the sling that now lay on the ground. “He was gushing about it.”

  Wes, then. Not Meredith.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Bending to fold up the sling, Stark kept his face averted. He had to wonder just how likely it was that Meredith would still show up in the morning.

  Rex closed the stall gate behind Soldier and went for the ladder tucked into the far corner of the stable. The two men quickly set up the ladder. Stark climbed up and retrieved his block and tackle, leaving the hook in the beam in case it was needed later. When he came down, Rex clapped him on the shoulder.

  “This is going to be good for Meri,” he said. “She changed after she moved to the City. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but...” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s just not cut out for nursing.”

  “If she’s too softhearted for nursing, she’s too softhearted for working with animals,” Stark warned.

  “No, it’s not that.” Rex shook his head. “Oh, she’s softhearted, all right. Meri’s always been sweet as pie.”

  “Is that right?” Stark muttered. Couldn’t prove it by how she was with him.

  “But she’s got her own kind of strength. You know? Mom was that way. Grandma always said Mom smoothed the rough edges off Dad. I didn’t get that until I met Callie. You know what I mean?”

  In a strange way, Stark did. He’d felt like nothing but rough, ragged edges since Cathy had died. He supposed he’d be that way the rest of his life, sharp, broken, jagged edges. He almost hated Rex in that moment.

  “Gotta get moving,” he rumbled. “Want my dinner and a solid bed.”

  “You’re welcome to eat with us,” Rex offered, but Stark declined.

  “Naw, I’m not fit company. Haven’t showered in two days. Thanks all the same.” Bundling up his gear, he started for the door. “I’ll be by tomorrow.”

  “Sleep well, man. And, Stark?”

  He paused without looking back. “Yep?”

  “This thing with Meri, it’ll work good for you, too. I know it will.”

  Nodding, Stark went on his way. He wasn’t convinced she’d show up or that her doing so would be a good thing for either of them, but time, he supposed, would tell. And what, after all, did he really have except time? Too much empty, hollow time.

  * * *

  When he returned from the diner at seven forty-five the next morning, Meredith was waiting in the small, dusty parking area in front of his building. He’d converted an old house about a block west of the Feed & Grain on the edge of War Bonnet. The porch had been falling off the front of the small clapboard structure, so he’d simply razed it and installed a pair of broad, concrete steps. Then he’d turned the garage out back into a kennel and connected the two buildings with a modern operating suite and passageway. A metal carport doubled as a temporary stable when necessary.

  The former vet in this area, now deceased, had lived miles out of town on a ranch of his own and hadn’t bothered with small animals. Stark liked the small-animal part of his practice as much as the large-animal part, so he tried to be available to every patient that needed him. It wasn’t easy. He didn’t see how having Meredith on staff could improve that situation, but if he had a goal in hiring her, the small-animal part was it.

  Somewhat surprised—and more relieved than he wanted to admit even to himself—to see her there, he stopped his truck beside her small car and rolled down the window, waiting until she did the same. “Follow me around back. I’ll show you where to park.”

  She drove her car around the building behind him. He intended to point her to the spot next to the carport and keep his regular space for himself, but he didn’t like the idea of her trudging outside in inclement weather, so at the last moment he took the spot beside the carport and waved her in under the shelter. She looked surprised when she got out of the car, wearing pale blue scrubs and athletic shoes, her long strawberry blond hair in a ponytail.

  “I sometimes use this space as a stable for large animals,” he warned her, and decided in that instant to have another carport installed. Why not? He could afford it, and he’d have use for it even after she was gone. For she would surely go, probably sooner rather than later. He had no illusions about how easy he was to get along with these days and no wish or intention to change.

  Keeping such thoughts to himself, he took out his keys and unlocked the back entry, nodding at the outdoor shower tucked into one corner of the carport. The area could be closed off with a curtain attached to a circular rod. “I sometimes come in filthy. I’ve had to shower in my clothes more times than I can count just to enter the building.”

  “Must be cold in the winter,” she commented.

  He shrugged. “It’s okay if the water’s hot enough.”

  “Well, at least you don’t have any neighbors.”

  “Just the Feed & Grain. All the land between me and them is theirs, and what’s on the other side is mine.”

  “So you’ve got some acreage here,” she said as they stepped up into the narrow back hall.

  “About ten acres of red dirt and weeds. Someone sometime thought they’d build some houses out here, so they leveled all the trees. Guess it didn’t pan out.”

  “Ever thought of throwing up a fence and sowing some grass, maybe keeping a horse?”

  “Don’t know when I’d have time to actually ride.”

  “Well, just sow the grass then, keep the dust from blowing.”

  “And have to mow,” he pointed out, leading the way past floor-to-ceiling storage cabinets. “Two treatment rooms on the left. One’s pretty dusty.” He turned right. “Reception area.”

  “You don’t have a computer.”

  “Laptop’s in the truck. I’ll get another in here for you.”

  “There’s no phone.”

  “Everything comes to my cell.”

  She gave him an exasperated look. “So you answer all your own calls...while you’re treating patients. How’s that working for you?”

  He made a face. “Bane of my existence, but how else was I going to handle it?”

  “You should’ve hired someone from the get-go, Doctor.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get a phone installed.”

  “Until then, have the calls rerouted to my phone,” she suggested, pulling out her cell phone.

  He made another face. “I suppose that’ll do until I can get an office phone in here. I guess you’ll need my personal number, too.”

  “That would help,” she said, “and you’ll need mine.” They worked for some minutes to get everything set up correctly. Once that was done, she said, “Oh, we have to synchronize our calendars.”

  He frowned. “This is getting more complicated by the second.”

  “But it will be simpler in the long run,” she promised. “I’ll answer your business calls, make appointments, send you notifications and relay any emergency messages. You’ll be free to work and answer the phone only when it’s necessary. I’ll also be here to help out with any patients that come through the door and can go into the field with you whenever you need extra hands.”

  He wasn’t convinced, but then the phone rang. Her phone. She glanced at the screen, tapped an icon and held the phone to her ear. “War Bonnet Veterinary Services. How may I help you?” She listened, then said, “I’m Dr. Burns’s assistant, Meredith. Just let me check his calendar. One moment please.” She quickly checked the calendar and got back on the phone. “The doctor is going to be in your area around four thi
s afternoon. I’ll ask him to stop by when he’s completed that call and will get back to you with an approximate arrival time. Will that do?” Looking at Stark, she raised her eyebrows.

  “Probably around five-fifteen,” he whispered.

  “Most likely around five-fifteen,” she said, “but I’ll let you know when he leaves the other location. Yes. Thank you.”

  When she hung up, she sent the notification so he’d have a record of the address and problem.

  “There. Now, what else do you need? You have to be ordering your own supplies and doing all your own sterilization. The sterilization I can do now. The other I’ll learn quickly.” She glanced around the tiny waiting area and said, “First, though, I’ve got to do some cleaning up around here. Really, when was the last time you dusted?”

  He grinned, feeling suddenly lighter. Maybe this was going to work out, after all. “I’ve never dusted.”

  “Well, there you are.”

  “You can dust after I leave,” he said, checking his wristwatch. “Right now I need to show you the kennel. We have a spayed Chihuahua that needs looking after until her owner arrives.”

  “A Chihuahua? Really?”

  “Yep. She should be waking up shortly.”

  The office cat slunk out from under the built-in desk and twined itself through Meredith’s ankles. Stark bent to scoop him up, rising again to introduce him. “This is Clunker.”

  “I didn’t know you had a cat.”

  He shrugged. “We need a mouser around here. He’s not declawed and comes and goes at will through a pet door in the foyer. Otherwise, you could bring your cat up here.” She scratched the gray mouser’s ears and was rewarded with a loud, uneven purr.

  “I’ve never heard a cat make that sound.”

  “That’s why he’s called Clunker. Can’t find any reason for it, though I’m sure there is one.”

  He put down the cat, and it streaked off. Stark led Meredith back to the kennel. The pup was awake and began yipping piteously as soon as it saw them. Noticing a soft animal bed on the floor, Meredith proposed lining it with a sterile pad and taking the puppy up front with her. Stark saw no harm in it. He showed her where to find the preprinted care-instruction sheet for the owner and then told her that she could call the owner to pick up the puppy any time after eleven o’clock that morning. He usually took care of those things on his lunch hour, late evening or early morning.