One Last Sunset (The Long Ranch Series Book 1) (5 page)

“That’s probably smart. Any of them live here?”

“Besides my father?” Mel asked as she walked into the kitchen, only to see her mother in a teddy. “Hey mom.”

“What are you doing home?” she asked in a panicked voice.

“Remember Kendra?”

“Oh hey, sweetheart, good to see you again.”

“Hi Mrs. Long, I surprised Mel and she’s been nice enough to let me crash for the night.”

“It’ll be great to have you.” Her mother looked back toward the bedroom.

Mel’s dad called out, “Loretta, I said I was only giving you a five minute break! Get that sexy ass back in here before I have to head back out.”

“I guess your dad wasn’t part of chocolate thunder,” Kendra laughed

Her mother raised her eyebrow. “Do I want to know?” she asked.

“As much as I want to know why dad’s here and not with the rest of the guys.”

“Let’s just call it null and void then.”

“Sounds good,” Mel said and pulled her friend to her bedroom. “I’ll give you ten minutes and I’m coming back out, so I can get back to work.”

“Ten minutes.” Her mother laughed. “No wonder you don’t have a man.”

Chapter Four

Sunny wanted to check in to the motel down the street, but his mother wouldn’t hear of it. He took his bag and they walked home. Carolyn said he could come back and she’d let him barback with Mike to see if he could handle the lifting.

“Sunshine, if you’re staying here I need three hundred dollars.” The greeting as Sunny walked in the door from his father wasn’t the worst by far. “And I need it now.”

“I don’t carry that kind of cash with me. I can go to an ATM if you want.”

“Race,” his mother began. “He’s our son. He can stay here for free.”

“No,” Sunny said in agreement. “He’s right. I’m not a child. I can pay some rent.”

“He’ll just drink it away in a week,” she said under her breath.

“I got a job. I need to fix the truck,” Race snarled at his wife. “Even with the Long’s trying to destroy my reputation I got a job.”

“With who?” his mother asked.

“Federated Gas.” His father beamed a bit. What a strange occurrence.

“The biggest thing is I need to get a tire. So, Sunny, cash now.”

“I’ll go with you to the store,” Sunny suggested as a way to not only pay the right amount for the tires, but avoid giving his father cash that would, as his mother put it, be drunk away. “Then you can tell me what you’re gonna be doing for them.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“No.” Sunny shook his head. “It’s just if I walk to get the money, then come back, by the time you get to the shop it’ll be closed. It’s already eight.”

“Fine,” he conceded.

When they went outside Sunny double checked the truck.

He got barked at for his trouble. “What? You think I’m lying about needing a tire.”

“No, I think you need three,” he said, kicking an almost bald tire. “Hopefully they’ll have a sale. We can get four so you have a spare.”

“You know how much tires cost for a truck that size?”

“Yes, I’ve got it.”

“Oh, mister rollin’ in dough. Well, you walked your ass into my trailer begging for a room in boots that need to be shod, so don’t act like you have it all together.” His dad kicked at the rocks on the road as they made their way out of the trailer park. “I’ll be making a pretty penny at that gas company. Don’t you worry.”

“I just wished you or mom would have told me about you losing your job. I could have sent the money for the tires months ago.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Sunny. You wouldn’t spit on me if I were on fire.”

“You’re right there,” Sunny said with all certainty. “But there’s no way in hell I’d let mom starve.”

“And I would?” he snarled.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You implied it. I don’t know what JT told you—”

“JT didn’t tell me shit. He doesn’t know what goes on down here. He sold his stake in the ranch to his family almost a year ago.” He turned a sidelong glance at his dad. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do shit.”

“You’ve never been lazy, that I’ll give you. But you fucked up and my mom’s working at the Hard Root when you said she wasn’t going to work a day in her life. Even when I was wearing jeans three years and five sizes too small. Your damn pride wouldn’t let her.”

“The Long’s stole my pride. If you had any you wouldn’t go running after them like a damn lap dog.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I saw who dropped you off last night. That girl will get you killed. It ain’t right.”

“What isn’t?”

“She’s a spoiled kid that never had to do a day’s labor. Rich, getting money from a ranch she probably hasn’t even seen half of.”

“What do you know about Mellie?”

“She’s a Long, and although they took pity on you when you were younger, you’re a Parker, not one of them.”

Sunny thought maybe he should go ask the Longs what was going on himself, than trust second hand knowledge from dear old dad.

They’d reached the store and the three hundred dollars turned into seven, but Sunny could cover it. He may not have won all the time on the circuit, but when he did, JT had helped him save the money instead of blowing it like a home schooled kid away at college.

He got back to the Hard Root right on time and it only took a few crates of beer for him to recognize his limitation. He apologized to Carolyn as she passed him a few twenties for the effort. Now he had to figure out how he could be useful to the Long’s. They were his last chance for a job. But as the night wore on her door stopped swinging from new patrons and none of those in the bar were named Long. Before last call he headed home with his father’s voice echoing in his head. He was a Parker and Parker’s in Tender Root were lower than mushrooms growing off cow pies. At least those you could smoke.

* * * *

Kendra had stayed at home while Melody went back and tested samples for the courier. A gas spec may be something a human hospital would have on hand, but not their little clinic.

“Take the weekend. You have your friend here. At this point I’m not sure a day or two would make a difference.” Doc picked up the phone. “I’ll call Winston’s to give them an update. Why don’t you head—”

“Myron,” Velma called. “We’ve got a bad one.”

Doc and Mel jumped up and headed to the lobby where a little girl, probably about ten, with blonde pigtails was sobbing with blood all over her shirt and a kitten held tight to her chest.

“Randy’s dog got her. Please Doc, I ran all the way here.”

Doc knelt by the little girl and she placed the almost lifeless tabby in his hands. The cat looked to be about six months old. Still small in Doc’s hands as he cradled it as if it were a newborn made of thin glass. Velma passed Mel a stethoscope and she found shallow breath sounds and an erratic heartbeat.

“Please Doc,” the girl sniffed as she wiped the snot from her nose. “Don’t let Winnie die.”

Doc looked at Mel who tilted her head to the side.

“She’s alive,” Mel said, keeping her voice low.

“Velma, call Chrissie’s mama and let her know where she is and make sure none of that blood is hers.” Doc passed Winnie to Mel, then cradled Chrissie’s head in his hand. “I’ll see what we can do.”

They went in the back and laid the kitten on the table.

“Chrissie just lives a few blocks away, she’s you in training,” he explained. “You need to assess the damage and run this like any other animal, but I’m mostly doing this because you need the experience.”

“Of what, breaking a kid’s heart?” Mel said as she saw the multiple puncture wounds along the abdomen. Her hands began to shake. It had been months since she’d seen a trauma case, and never something so tiny. She wished she’d paid more attention during the smaller animal part of her training.

“Hopefully not. Its neck isn’t snapped so the mutt must not have shook the thing too much. Let’s get it into x-ray and then shave it so we can see what we’re working with.” Doc stroked the gray fur on the belly. “I know Bert is supposed to deal with the small domestics out here. His clinic gets a lot of traffic, but when you’re thirty, forty miles out of town caring for some cattle or horses, smaller creatures appear. If you don’t help them those ranchers aren’t gonna drive into town for anything besides sterilization on a good day.”

“It’s not that I don’t like the little ones…” Melody looked down and the kitten was struggling for air as its little paws twitched.

“The bleeding seems to of stopped. We may not need to even go in.”

An hour and half later, Doc let Mel give the good news. Tossing her mask and hat in the trash, she looked at Dr. Carlisle while rotating her wrists to the get the stiffness out of them. She did have to admit it was nice that once she’d gotten in the animal, her training took over. She’d been nervous during assessment, but then it became textbook.

She’d stayed with the kitten until it had started to come out of the anesthetic. No reason to get Chrissie’s hopes up. There had been two sets of punctures in the bowel, but Melody had been able to close them.

“Why do you want to do large animal?” he asked. “Your fingers are meant for micro surgery. You saved that cat, not me.”

“Because of the ones I can’t save and the little girls who couldn’t understand.”

Pushing through the double doors, she found Chrissie had been cleaned up and her mother sat next to her with blazing red hair pulled back into a single ponytail. When Mel came out the little girl’s eyes shot up from the book she’d been distracting herself with. Mel sat next to Chrissie with a huge smile.

“Chrissie, Winnie’s doing great. She came through the surgery. It looks like we got her put back together, but I need to know one thing. How did you get her away from Randy’s dog?”

The little girl turned her eyes to the floor.

“Those bite marks were pretty big. I’m assuming the dog’s leg is bigger than Winnie.”

“She’s my baby.” Her dark brown eyes came back to Mel’s filled with tears again. “I had to save her.”

“I know, but we don’t want you getting hurt. It was very dangerous. Do we know if Randy’s dog has all his shots?”

“Winnie does, I take good care of her.”

Mel looked to Chrissie’s mom.

She shrugged her shoulders. “He’s never let inside, he’s a guard dog. I told her to stay away. He’s a big mix, something with a rotty.”

“Okay, well, we need to keep Winnie inside all the time if he’s going to be outside.”

“But we were playing on the swing set.”

“How about a tea party inside next time.”

Velma came around the desk. “Doc says Winnie’s waking up, you want to come back, Chrissie?”

“Yes.” The little girl hopped up like she was on an ejector seat.

Mel stopped her. “Before you go back there, she’s going to look different. We had to shave her belly and she’ll have lots of wrapping. Also she’s going to be groggy so she’s going to just be lying there.”

“Can I talk to you?” the mother asked, and Velma walked Chrissie back.

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you just put her down?” the mother nervously asked. “I can’t afford surgery like you must of performed. That has to be thousands of dollars. You should’ve called me first. Doc knows better.”

“Um…I’m not sure. I don’t deal with billing.”

“Cats don’t get Medicaid.”

“Right,” Mel said, having lost the rush of a successful surgery. “Look, I’ll talk with Doc about it, I’m sure—”

“You had no right. I could have found her another free cat.”

“I’m sorry, Doc said we were supposed to try.”

“Then maybe Doc should pay for it.”

Once they’d left, Mel offered to pay for the surgery. Doc tried to assure her everything was fine. If nothing else, it went toward part of her internship requirements. Besides, he already knew the financial status of the family and took that into consideration when he looked at the animal. He was actually surprised Mel had been able to save it.

When she got home the house was filled with laughter. Kendra tended to bring joy most places.

“Oh Lord, look what the cat drug in?” her father said.

“Please don’t say the word cat. I just spent almost two hours putting one back together.”

“Why would you do that?” Monty asked as he slid into the seat next to Kendra at the table.

“I’m a sucker for ten year olds crying,” Mel said as she glared between Kendra and Monty. “I need a shower. How much longer before dinner?”

“Not long enough,” Kendra purred as she pawed at Monty.

“Mom, add saltpeter to the sauce.”

“Already on it,” she called back. Mel went to her shower.

When dinner was on the table, Mel spent half of it trying to get Monty’s attention. Finally, a fork to his thigh had the desired affect.

“What—” He snapped before calling her something that would get their mother’s wrath.

“Why did Mr. Parker get fired?”

“Ask Walt,” he replied and began turning his attention back to Kendra until Mel noticed her mother was engaged with Miles in discussion and she gave Monty’s nipple a twisting that sent him flying from his seat.

“Boy, what has gotten into you?” their father asked as he sat poised with knife and fork in opposite hands irritated in the break in family togetherness. “This poor girl’s gonna think you lost your damn mind. I tell you what I’m not far behind her on that.”

“You know I hate bees,” Monty said while leveling a glare perfected by the Long children to his sister.

“There ain’t no bee in here.”

“My bad. Oh wait,” Monty slapped Mel between the shoulder blades hard enough to make her gasp. “Must have been a regular old fly. Don’t worry, I got it.” He sat back down.

Melody was ready for war. “You better hope another fly doesn’t land on your crotch.”

“With how you’ve been cock blocking me all night what would the difference be?”

“I just want an answer to my question.”

“And I just want a few minutes with your friend.”