Rope 'Em Read online

  Perhaps a better way to use the money would be to buy a coach ticket for herself, then get some sort of thank-you gift for Alexandra, who might have been unduly biased against Giddyup but had apparently also been Victoria’s biggest defender. Bringing all her negotiation tactics and litigation skills to bear, she had completely turned around their father’s perspective on his younger daughter’s capabilities, prospects, and life choices in general. Which was especially remarkable given Alexandra’s own doubts about all those things.

  Maybe a small gift. And save the rest against future legal fees if Victoria decided to go that route. She might, if for no other reason than to make creepy Larry think twice before trying anything with future employees. But she wasn’t ready to decide right away.

  She had more immediate concerns, asking for time off and securing a ride to the airport Friday being only two of them. Her dad had offered a lot of things besides airfare for a visit home, and they were all tempting as hell. He’d pointed out that letting him and her mother each give her gifts worth up to the estate tax exclusion amount each year would benefit her now and the whole family down the line. So . . . maybe not a BMW, but a less luxurious, reliable used car. Some interview clothes and a work wardrobe to get her started if she ended up getting hired somewhere she couldn’t dress like a wild child.

  Given that her current outfit consisted of a borrowed plaid shirt, grubby jeans, and some knee-high green rubber boots from Walmart, she had to wonder what exactly her dad thought was wild about it. But she’d just smiled and nodded and said she’d think about his offer and let them know that weekend.

  Lucky. Lucky, lucky girl. She was rolling in so much privilege, she had enough left over to decline those gifts if she chose to, without even experiencing too much discomfort. If her worst-case scenario was staying at Hilltop, she was still doing pretty damn well. She’d have a roof over her head, three squares a day, enough money to cover her expenses, and all the use she could desire of the crappy borrowed truck. But that scenario was looking less and less likely to be long-term. Pascaline—who apparently had stopped sleeping altogether—had already written her a short email to say she had heard of another designer with a possible Paris opening. Details to come as soon as she’d investigated. And another small company based in New York had asked to set up a phone interview. It was a contract position but might lead to something full-time.

  Hell, maybe she could even turn Ethan’s rope project into an actual job. Expand the product line, start Web sites to advertise to the two very different client bases involved . . . she knew people who’d turned less-promising ideas into paying concerns. It seemed there was a market for just about anything if you could connect with the right buyers. Of course she’d have to talk Alex out of her puritanical objections to Giddyup, but she was more optimistic about that possibility now that she felt less panicked about meeting Alex’s deadline.

  Victoria would have liked to share all her news with Ethan, and maybe even get his thoughts on whether she should take the car and other stuff her parents were offering. She also would have liked to find out what had happened at his meeting with Doc. But she needed to get back to work, so she couldn’t wait indefinitely for him.

  As she reached for the door handle, wondering whether she should text him to see if he was anywhere close by, a flash of white behind the temporary loft ladder caught her eye—a piece of loose paper. One of Ethan’s house-plan sketches or some construction notes? It should probably be in the toolbox, secured with the others. She picked it up, glanced at it automatically while she took the few steps to the toolbox, and then stopped in her tracks when her mind finally put meaning to what her eyes were seeing.

  Some law firm’s letterhead. Then, in bolded caps, right in the middle of the page:

  CREEKSIDE LARGE ANIMAL PRACTICE

  OWNERSHIP AGREEMENT BETWEEN

  LIONEL B. TAYLOR, DVM

  AND

  ETHAN M. HILL, DVM

  The top left corner of the page was slightly torn, obviously ripped off a staple. But impressed on the page—as if it had been folded back under another sheet that had been signed with a heavy hand—was a scrawling design that looked an awful lot like a not-quite-legible signature.

  Victoria glanced around the house, looking for whatever the page had been stapled to. There were no other loose papers. Even a quick, guilty peek inside the toolbox yielded nothing but the actual construction documents. She remembered that when Ethan had walked away from the main house, he’d had what she’d thought was a rolled-up magazine stuck in his back pocket. Could it have been the contract this page had been torn from?

  Ethan had gone to breakfast with Doc to maybe talk about joining the practice. He’d come home acting weird, made a quick exit with a lie about going to the pasture for Sackett, gone to his house instead, and then . . . disappeared. With a contract he might or might not have already signed to buy Creekside from Doc Taylor.

  So. Strike one possible career path off the list. Even if it hadn’t been a serious offer from him in the first place, apparently making and selling rope with Ethan was no longer among her options.

  She folded the paper absentmindedly, stuffing it into her pocket. It had been a taxing day already, but in about an hour she needed to somehow transform herself into the fresh, stylish, confident designer she’d been when she interned at Max & Magda so she could wow her prospective employers. Or, since it was Skype, at least wow them from the waist up.

  * * *

  Ethan wasn’t sure what to make of Doc’s reaction to the contract. He’d looked startled to begin with, and then sort of concerned. Not quite the warm welcome Ethan had anticipated. After barely glancing at the contract, Doc had put it to one side on his desk and handed Ethan a fresh copy from the shelf next to his desk.

  “For your records,” he said. “Or if you change your mind about taking it to a lawyer to look over before you tell me it’s ready to sign. You really should, you know. Big investment, big commitment. I can hold off as long as you need. I think the agreement’s fair, but it’s nothing to enter into lightly.”

  “Just like marriage?” Ethan was being flippant, but he knew practice partners who’d stayed together longer than they’d stayed with their spouses. It could be that long term a commitment—if the partner in question weren’t planning to phase into retirement.

  Doc drummed his fingers on the ratty-looking stack of signed papers Ethan had handed him, then slid it back toward him. “Keep it. Burn it. Take the clean copy and don’t come back with it for a week.” He looked almost irked, and possibly even disappointed, and Ethan’s heart leaped into his throat at the sudden notion that he might have just fucked everything up. By acting too hastily, by making Doc think he didn’t take this seriously, when it was the only thing in his life he did take seriously.

  So, so seriously.

  He gathered up the papers and nodded solemnly, trying to project calm, businesslike confidence. “All right. My mind’s made up, but I’ll have someone look it over and get it back to you next Monday.”

  “I’ll take it then. In the meantime, what do you say you come on some jobs with me for an hour or two?” Doc pushed himself out of his desk chair with an old-man noise, then grabbed his hat from the hook by the door. “I need to vet a pony over by Pizzitola’s then head to Bewliss’s to check up on a mare Janie thinks is lame.”

  “Thinks?” Jane Bewliss had practically grown up at the family stable she now ran. If anybody would recognize a lame horse, it would be her.

  Doc shook his head. “I wanted to see the horse first, but it sounds like it could be stringhalt.”

  “Aw, damn. Uh . . . sure, I’ll ride along.” He’d only seen one case of stringhalt—in an elderly gelding in London who’d been donated to the veterinary clinic for research. In that horse’s case, no cause had ever been found for the strange neurological disorder, and it had been so severe they’d eventually had to put the animal down. Ethan hoped Jane wasn’t looking at the same outcome for her m
are.

  As for the ride-along, Ethan couldn’t think of a good reason to decline. He and Doc would be partners soon, after all, right? Once they were on the road, however, the mood wasn’t as easy as it had been in Ethan’s high school days, when he’d accompanied Doc on many a trip to act as occasional semiskilled assistant and frequent muscle.

  Doc clearly had things on his mind this afternoon. So did Ethan. It didn’t make for scintillating conversation—or much conversation at all.

  Ethan’s mind was filled, for some reason, with images of his house. He wanted to have it completed already. If Doc wanted him to wait on signing the contract, maybe that should be his focus in the interim. Who knew, maybe if he really pushed he could get it all done before the worst heat of the summer. Then he could hitch it to his truck, haul it away in the night, set it up in some field in . . . wherever. Rural Montana or somewhere in the Pacific Northwest.

  He reminded himself he was over the idea of becoming a kinky vagabond, making and selling rope all over the country at whatever conventions he could line up. It probably wouldn’t have been all that much fun anyway, most likely. Not as a solitary kinky traveling man. Roxie was a great companion, but his vision of the future had changed recently, and now there was a space for an actual . . . partner.

  Not necessarily Victoria, he insisted to himself, even though she kept floating into the scene. It could be anyone. She was Miss Right Now, not Miss Right. That space might be roughly Victoria-shaped. She might have been the one to make him aware of it. But he could find somebody else to fill it.

  Somebody would eventually come to Bolero who lit him up the way Victoria did. Or he’d find her in San Antonio or they’d meet on a plane or . . . however those things happened.

  And in the meantime, he could get started on his real life, his settled-down grown-up life. Which included things like helping Doc look over Scooter Pizzitola’s Shetland-Welsh cross. Scooter’s granddaughter had outgrown Patches and he was thinking of selling him, so they’d pulled blood for a Coggins test, checked overall fitness, looked at the pony’s gait and manners. Doc knew the sturdy little critter from years of care, but he still paid close attention to the job, as if he were appraising an animal he was considering buying for his own child.

  If Ethan was going through the motions, he excused that with the fact that he knew the motions so well; he’d screened so many horses for big stables and large-scale auctions that he could do it in his sleep. But he should have read the room better once Doc stepped back and let him do the talking, after Scooter asked what the verdict was. After a moment’s surprise at Doc’s deferring to him, Ethan started listing everything he’d observed about the pony, reading from the notes he’d taken.

  He mentioned the possible conformation flaws: pasterns bordering on too long; a possible slight tendency to cow hock. He discussed potential corrective strategies, like Hill Therapy and some new stretches he’d been reading about, then ran down their relative merits and costs. He’d gone on for some time before he realized Doc was staring at him and tugging on one ear.

  When they made eye contact, Doc looked pointedly over at his truck, clearly trying to nod his head in that direction without Scooter noticing.

  “Um.” Shit. What had he done wrong? “I think Dr. Taylor can probably sum it up better than I can, though. I just remembered I need to make a quick call and check on something back at the ranch. If y’all will excuse me. Good to see you again, Scooter.”

  He got out to the truck as quickly as possible and actually pretended to make a call in case anyone walked by. Then he “hung up,” feeling chagrined and ridiculous. A few minutes later Doc climbed into the cab with a bemused expression.

  Ethan expected a chewing out, not the gentle headshake and eye roll his mentor gave him as they pulled out of the small farm—just a home with acreage really—onto the main road back to Bolero.

  “What’d I do wrong?” God, had he missed something huge and obvious? A hock spavin? A walleye? “I’ve been distracted lately, I know, but I thought—”

  “Ethan. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Doc steered with one hand draped over the wheel, occasionally raising his index finger and nodding to cars that passed.

  “Then . . . what?”

  “Welp. You told the guy everything he needed to know and then some. It’s the then some you have to watch out for. Lemme ask you something. You ever been involved in a private horse sale around here, or an auction where they handle ponies or grade horses?”

  Ethan had to think about it for a second. “Not since I was a kid. Plenty in California, though. I got a ton of practice there. And I went to a few really big auctions in the UK, mostly jumpers, some dressage horses—”

  “Right, right. So here’s the thing. What ol’ Scooter there wants to know is, is his granddaughter’s old ride gonna be safe for the next kid? Is it healthy, is it basically sound? Does it have any big red flags? Because he’d feel awful if he sold it and then something bad happened to his neighbor’s son or his wife’s friend’s grandniece or what have you. And most likely that’s all the buyer will be looking for here. Nice, safe, unremarkable pony for their kid to start on, maybe take to some novice events or hack around on.”

  Ethan nodded. He was getting a headache, the same familiar tension spreading into his brain from his shoulders that had so often plagued him in school when he took on a new subject and worried he wouldn’t be able to handle it. “So, tone it down. Gotcha.”

  “Nah. That ain’t it exactly.” Doc sighed, drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. “This job, you know, it’s not one long oral exam, or clinic rounds where they try to stump you. You don’t get extra credit for a more detailed answer. It’s about the people, not just the animals. And these folks here, they aren’t your high-powered commercial-ranch types or researchers. Most of ’em don’t have thousands of head of cattle or a big Thoroughbred breeding operation. They won’t be impressed by . . . Not that it’s your job to impress them—you’re there to treat the animals—but you also have to consider your audience and the environment the critters are in. And out here . . . it ain’t fancy. And it’s usually not complicated. Even if the cases are sometimes, the people aren’t.”

  “I grew up here,” Ethan reminded him. “I know what it’s like.” He knew every tree and rock along the road they were driving like the back of his hand.

  Glancing down, he sighed at the sight of his nails and cuticles. He’d worn work gloves at the client’s place to hide the stains but taken them off in the truck because they were too warm. At the moment he hardly recognized the back of his hand because his fingers were still so pink. But Bolero never changed. There was no painting this town red.

  Doc turned onto the main road that would take them through town; the Bewliss’s stable was located only a few blocks from “downtown” Bolero. “I know you’re from here. But you’ve been a lot of places since then. Seen a lot of things, done a lot of things most folks here never dream of. Lived in another country. Worked with the top vets in the world. You’ve impressed the hell outta me, kid, I won’t lie to you. Your qualifications are . . .”

  “Too much,” Ethan suggested. “You think I’ve outgrown it.” After he’d spent twenty years—most of his life—training to do this one job? The person whose approval probably mattered more to him than anyone’s, even his family’s, wasn’t sure he was right for the position after all? He thought of something Trudy had said about Marguerite maybe getting along with one of their grumpier clients. God knows he hadn’t been able to charm Rusty. And now, apparently, he was putting off simple hobbyists trying to sell their kid’s ponies. “All this time working on animals and I should have been working on my folksy people skills, is that what you’re saying? That’s what I’d need to cut it here? Hell, why did you offer me the buyout at all, Doc?”

  “Ethan Hill.” Doc looked cut to the bone and baffled by Ethan’s response. And Ethan knew there was something he still wasn’t grasping. When Doc clarified, he wasn’t su
re whether he felt better or worse. “It’s not that I don’t think you can cut it. Chrissakes, Son, do you think I’m a fool? Look at all you’ve done. You think I’m worried you can’t handle a lazy backwater operation like this, where the tough cases usually get referred off to places like your old practice in San Antonio, or over to A&M? You can learn to talk to people. You’re not too big for your britches, you’re not trying to prove anything to them, it just takes practice and getting a feel for it. Hell, I’ve seen you do just fine at it before. The problem is I worry you’re bigger than this place now and you won’t be happy with your choice. You’re still single, your career should be on the rise, you can go anywhere in the world. Instead, you’re looking to tie yourself down here, and I have to ask myself why you wanna sell yourself short like that? Why’re you aiming so low?”

  Low? “Low?” But as much as Ethan wanted to yell How dare you? for the slur on his hometown . . . he knew what Doc meant. Tiny town. Tiny practice. A few medium-sized cattle operations, some small vanity and specialty herds, quite a few hobby-level horse breeders, and a handful of dude ranches running a few dozen head of cattle to lend the place some authenticity. Other than that, mostly individual owners and FFA kids. Doc worked hard because he wore a lot of hats, and his practice was vital to the area . . . but it wasn’t a starting place. It was a place to end up. A damn good one, but unless Ethan was ready to spend the rest of his working days in Bolero, maybe it wasn’t the spot he needed to be in right now. Assuming, of course, that he planned to spend the rest of his working days as a vet.

  It was what he’d always wanted. Still did want. The question remained: Was he ready to get what he’d always wanted? Or did he need to be thinking bigger? Was that really the cause of all his doubt in the first place, not some wild hair about traipsing around the country as a bondage rope peddler?