CHAPTER 1

Janey

There is nothing as pretty as a spring sunset in these mountains.

Golds and purples streak the sky and reflect off the peaks; almost too much abundance for the eye to take in.

The first few months after taking over Doc Evans’s clinic last year, any time I’d get called out around sunset, I would stop to take pictures. I must have hundreds of them eating up memory in my phone, but none of them even come close to reflecting the depth of colors nature provides.

Tonight, however, I can’t afford to slow down.

I just got home and was looking forward to the leftover lasagna in my fridge, after driving all around the county to administer spring vaccinations, when I got an urgent call from Lucy at Hart Horse Rescue. One of their horses is in distress with what appears to be colic.

It’s not an uncommon ailment, but it’s painful for the animal, and can be dangerous if it involves a twist in the bowel. That’s why proper diagnosis is key. If the horse is simply impacted, the treatment is pain control, mild exercise, and hydration, but if we’re dealing with an intestinal torsion, surgery will be needed. Of course, that would require transporting the horse to the nearest equine hospital, which would be Ponderosa in Kalispell, since I don’t have the facility or the equipment.

When I turn onto the property, I can see the lights are already on at the barn. I don’t bother stopping at the house first and drive straight through, parking my truck right by the barn doors. I have everything I need, including my portable ultrasound, in the back. My truck has a cover on the bed, so I can keep my stuff dry and secure back there.

Bo, Lucy’s husband, is already opening the barn door for me.

“Need me to grab anything?” he asks.

I hold up my field bag. “For now, this is all I need.”

I follow him to a stall that is bathed in light from a flood lamp clamped to a post. Inside, Lucy is trying to coax a dark bay mare to get up on all fours. She’s currently sitting on her hind end like a dog would and looks to be in obvious distress, her eyes wild and nipping at her own side.

“Okay, let’s get her to her feet first,” I order, dropping my bag in a corner before turning to Bo. “We’ll need a long strap or a rope.”

While he goes in search, I find my stethoscope and try to get a heart rate, which isn’t an easy feat with the horse crazy with pain and sitting in this position.

“How long has she been like this?”

Lucy blows a long strand of blond hair out of her eyes.

“She didn’t eat today, and she looked restless this afternoon, so I came back to check on her after dinner and she was in obvious pain, which is when I called you. I tried to get her to drink, walked her around a bit in the meantime, and was just about to try some water again when she plopped down like this.”

I do a quick check for dehydration by pressing on her gums to see how long it takes for the small capillaries to refill.

“She’s definitely dehydrated,” I confirm, just as Bo walks into the stall with a long cargo strap. “That’s perfect. Let’s double it up and slide it under her hips.”

It takes a bit of doing, but we manage.

“Lucy, if you grab both sides of her halter and pull at the same time. On three. One, two…”

On three, I put all of my one hundred and ninety-two pounds into the effort. This is one of those rare times where I’m grateful to be of a heftier variety. I’m not short at five foot eight, and the pounds are distributed well on my body, but I’m more than aware there are quite a few too many of them.

Luckily, because of the work I do, I am fit and strong, and I eat pretty healthy most of the time. Still, whenever I’m weighed at my doctor’s office, I am sternly reminded that at my age it wouldn’t take much to slip from simply overweight into obese territory.

God, how I dread that stupid BMI scale. How can you use one single standard for the endless variety of human beings there are? It’s numbers, and they don’t take into account genetics, metabolic speed, health issues, mobility, and I could list an endless number of individual circumstances that should be taken into account when looking at what constitutes a healthy weight for a particular individual.

That’s not even the worst part; any health complaints you might have are so readily linked to that number on the scale. We’re supposed to believe that losing weight is the be-all end-all of every conceivable ailment.

I call bullshit. I’ve never been a small girl, I grew up on a ranch, was put to work from the time I was seven- or eight-years-old, and am generally fit as a fiddle. I’ve always been comfortable in my skin, and I’m not about to let some arbitrary number on a scale invented by some random Belgian mathematician make me feel bad. The man wasn’t even a physician, for Pete’s sake.

“Good girl, Starla. Good girl,” Lucy soothes the horse when we have her standing on trembling legs.

Now that she’s upright, it’s easier for me to listen to her gut sounds. There appears to be some increased activity.

“I’m going to do a quick rectal exam, and after that I’ll probably use a nasogastric tube to see if there is a buildup of fluids in her stomach. Are you okay with me giving a sedative now? Spare her any more discomfort?”

I prefer getting consent before administering any medications, especially sedatives or anesthetics, because they always come with risks.

“Whatever you need to do, Doc.”

Once the sedation starts taking effect, I quickly don a disposable long-sleeve glove with shoulder protection, and set to the fun task of rooting around the poor animal’s gut.

“I can feel an impaction,” I report, retrieving my arm and disposing of the glove.

Luckily, there is no fluid build-up in her stomach, but I leave the tube in to hydrate her. With the help of the portable ultrasound, I confirm there isn’t anything else going on aside from the impacted stool she has trouble moving.

The fluids will help, as will the pain medication I give her, and after waiting to see the first signs of improvement, I leave Starla in Lucy’s good care. Nature will have to take its course.

Bo walks me to my truck.

“Thanks for coming out, Doc.”

“No problem. Call me if there’s any change for the worse. I’ll check in tomorrow to see how she is.”

I smile and wave as I pull away from the barn, but as soon as I’m out of sight, I grimace with hunger pains. My stomach feels like it’s eating itself.

Rather than driving all the way home to get to my leftover lasagna, I pull into the first place I come across I know has food; Foxy’s Bar. It’s less than two miles from the rescue. I’ve grabbed something here once before, so I know it promises greasy bar food.

Just what the doctor ordered.

It’s not crazy busy, just a couple of bikers sitting at the bar, a few locals playing pool, and only two tables occupied with families.

“Find yourself a spot,” I’m told by a waitress toting a tray full of drinks to one of the tables.  

I grab a table near the back. I’m not up for socializing and plan to dine and dash; I’m exhausted.

“What can I get you?” the waitress asks when she finds me.

“What is fast? Food-wise,” I quickly clarify.

“Five minutes for a pulled pork sandwich and fries.”

“Sold,” I tell her with a grin. “And half a pint of whatever pale ale or lager you have on draft.”

“Coming right up,” she promises, before walking straight through what I assume is the door to the kitchen.

As I watch her disappear to the back, I can feel a rush of cool air when someone opens the front door. When I turn around, I’m unexpectedly met by a familiar pair of dark-brown eyes locked on me. 

*****

JD

“Are you heading out, son?”

I turn around to find Thomas sitting on the porch.

Thomas is my boss Jonas’s father and old as dirt. I swear he spends most of his days out here on the porch just so he doesn’t miss a damn thing that goes on at the High Meadow ranch. He’s in his nineties and may be frail, but his mind is still sharp as a tack.

My ma runs the ranch house here at High Meadow, and she and Thomas have a special bond. They bicker like siblings, but everyone can see they adore each other. For Ma—who grew up in the foster system—Thomas is more of a father figure.

The old man sits on the porch and doles out his wisdom to anyone passing by—whether you want it or not—and is about as subtle as a two-by-four between the eyes. My mother doesn’t mince words either, so in that respect they’re peas in a pod.

“Yeah, it’s been a long day.”

We rode out early this morning to take a herd to pastures close to the ranch’s boundary lines, where they’ll graze for the summer months. Unfortunately, when we got there, we found a lot of the fences damaged and ended up spending the rest of the day fixing those.

By the time we got back it was almost dark. Dan went straight home, but Jackson and I grabbed some dinner here.

“I heard,” Thomas shares. “What do you reckon messed up those fences?”

“Not sure. Looked like a bunch of elk or something plowed through, but some of the lumber was already rotting, so it needed repairs anyway.”

“Herd secure?”

“Yup. They’re all set for the summer.”

The storm door creaks when Alex, Jonas’s wife and Jackson’s mother, pokes her head outside.

“Are you gonna come in tonight, Pops, or are you planning to sleep on the porch?”

He huffs and flips back the throw blanket that is covering his spindly legs.

“Hold yer horses,” he grumbles, hoisting himself to his feet.

I move to his side and grab him firmly by his elbow when he wobbles a little as he begins to shuffle to the door.

“Weren’t you on your way home?” he snaps ungraciously, even as he puts most of his weight on me.

I grin and catch the amused twinkle in Alex’s eyes as she patiently waits with the door propped open.

“I’m leaving right now,” I tell him as I hand him off to Alex, who leads him inside. “See ya in the morning.”

The old man doesn’t turn around but lifts his free hand and waves as he shuffles down the hallway. I close the front door and head over to my truck.

I imagine it’s not fun getting so old your body won’t move the way you want it to anymore, and you need help with the most basic things. Still, I’d rather have a sound mind in a decrepit body, than the other way around. My grandpa on my father’s side had vascular dementia, and he became a person we didn’t recognize anymore. I know the prospect scares my pa, even though the disease itself isn’t necessarily hereditary, the risk factors to developing it can be.

Up until last year, when Jackson—Alex’s son and my friend—tried to finish the job himself, after nearly losing his life at enemy hands in a military operation overseas, I hardly ever gave thought to my own mortality. But that shook me up. Since then, I’ve tried to exercise a little more awareness, a little more consideration, and definitely more appreciation in my day-to-day life.

Like this old 1974 Ford F-100 I fixed up over the winter. It had been sitting in my parents’ barn since my grandpa died over a decade ago. It was the first and the last vehicle he ever bought new, and he kept that truck in mint condition for as long as he could. He left me that truck in his will, and I never once looked at it.

Pa put it in the barn and kept it there all those years, maybe hoping I’d want it one day. He never said anything—Pa doesn’t talk much anyway—but he joined me in that barn and worked with me to get the truck roadworthy.

She’s old, there’s a tear in the bench seat on the driver’s side I still want to fix, and it could use some rust treatment and a new paint job, but her engine is in prime shape, and I’ve come to love every imperfection.

I turn right to get to my place—a trailer parked on a patch of land bordering Libby Creek—and pass Foxy’s Bar. I used to stop in there all the time, but I haven’t been there in months. It does decent business on the weekends and during the summer months when the RV park is full, but it’s fairly quiet tonight. Not many vehicles in the parking lot.

Wait, is that Doc Richards’s truck?

My foot is already slamming on the brakes before my mind processes the information.

Janey Richards. I don’t think the woman likes me much, which is a shame, because she sure as hell has my eye. Just last week she lashed out at me when she was at the ranch dropping off a litter of puppies. I still don’t fucking know what I said wrong, but the snap of fire in her eyes sure got my blood going.

I pull my truck in beside hers and without giving it a second thought, head inside.

That may have been a mistake.

My eyes zoom in on Janey the moment I walk through the door, and I see the surprise in hers when she recognizes me. I start walking toward her table, when I hear a squeal and see a flash of movement from the corner of my eye.

I turn in time to see Britt running in my direction. I barely have a chance to react when she launches herself at me, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my hips. My hands automatically go to her ass to keep her from falling.

“Hey, handsome! I missed you.”

 Then her mouth is on mine, and I realize I should’ve stopped outside and thought this through.