Her daughter made a face. “I’ve got homework.”
Lila parked her hands on her hips. “Well, if you want dinner on time, you’ll need to help me finish this up. You can do homework after we eat.”
Camille sighed. “I guess I can.”
Lila chuckled. “That’s the spirit.” She handed Camille a rag and the two of them worked in companionable silence for a few minutes.
“Mom,” Camille said after a while. “Do you like Dr. Calloway?”
Lila paused, caught off guard by the question. “Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. You just seem different when you talk about him. Like, more...intense.”
Lila sighed, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. “It’s a bit complicated. But we’re figuring it out.”
Camille nodded, seeming to accept that answer. “Well, I think he’s kind of nice. And he brought donuts to school for everyone when he did that talk about being a vet.”
Lila grimaced. Now that Doc was retired, she’d hoped she would be the one invited to the school this year. Whit’s arrival was ripping away her aspirations—as modest as they were. She’d had to adjust to the fact she wasn’t taking over the clinic. The least he could do was move out of the way and let her in the spotlight for a moment.
“Everyone really liked what he had to say, Mom. He was so interesting. Some of the girls think he’s cute.”
Lila couldn’t help but smile at that.
Camille dipped her rag in the bucket of warm, sudsy water, then wiped the top shelf. “I think he’s nice.”
“Yeah, he can be nice,” Lila admitted.
Whit did have a way of winning people over. A parade of townspeople had made their way to the clinic over the past two weeks to meet the new veterinarian. The Knit Wits all brought casseroles and homemade canned goods. Nicola Cavendish brought her curiosity. Albie Barton carried a pad and paper with the intent to interview him for a feature in an upcoming issue of theThunder Mountain Gazette.
Yes, everyone was pleased to have a new resident in Thunder Mountain.
Everyone but her.
17
Lila stared at the horizon, the jagged peaks of the Tetons cutting into the early evening sky. The rugged beauty of the landscape usually brought her a sense of calm, a rare respite from the chaos of her life.
Tonight, though, that calm eluded her as she traipsed out to the tiny makeshift barn Doc Tillman had erected over a decade ago. She carried a bucket of rabbit feed, taking dinner to the Jansen twins’ two pet bunnies. They had parasites, and Whit wanted to keep them overnight so he could administer the necessary medicines.
Lila opened the cage. “You guys hungry?” She added clean straw to the cage, then filled the little feed troughs and gave them clean water. “Okay, there you go,” she told the rabbits, smiling despite her mood as the bunnies gobbled down their pellets.
She heard the crunch of gravel under boots and turned to see Whit Calloway striding towards her, his expression unreadable.
Every time Whit looked at her, something inside Lila squirmed. He had a way of making her feel like he could see into the very depths of her soul with one glance like he knew all her secrets.
Thank goodness, her secrets were minimal and rather boring.
“Hey, I need you to go with me,” he said, wrapping the hose and placing it back on the hook.
“Where?”
“Looks like a wolf may have got a wild horse up Lava Creek about halfway to Davis Hill.”
“How bad?” While wolf attacks on horses were rare, it happened.
Whit motioned for her to follow as he turned and headed for the open sliding barn doors. “We’ll know the full extent when we get there, but the BLM guy said it’s leg looked pretty wicked.”
She dropped the bucket near the base of the rabbit pen and made her way to the deep, plastic sink in the corner of the barn. She barely ran water over her hands and wiped them on her jeans as she scurried out of the barn.
