Page 12 of Her Three Rangers
“Yeah, you can tell your boss my guys and I aren’t trying to give her any trouble.” I exhaled loudly and shook my head. I hadn’t meant to say that. Not to her, anyway. “Sorry,” I mumbled, turning to walk away.
“O-kay,” she answered, drawing the word out. Her tone matched the confused look she had given me. “But wait—”
I stopped and looked back over my shoulder, then shook my head again. “I didn’t mean to get you involved. I shouldn’t have even said anything.”
“She doesn’t think you guys are here to cause trouble,” she said, her eyebrows knitting together as she spoke. “Just the opposite, really. If anything, she’s gone above and beyond for you guys.”
I huffed out a short breath. It wasn’t really what I wanted to hear, even though there was a little voice inside my head that told me it was the truth.
“Fine,” I said. “I get that she’s helped us out when she didn’t have to, and that she’s done a really good job with Rambo. I’m thankful for all of that, believe me. But if she’s so happy to help, why doesn’t she trust us? Why was she back there counting pills and giving me a suspicious look when I asked her about it?”
“I’m not really in a position to speak for Dr. Black,” Jenny said, fixing me with a stern look that just reinforced what I already knew—that I should have never brought this issue to her in the first place, that I should have just kept my feelings to myself. “I will say that it’s part of her responsibility to her other patients—Rambo isn’t the only animal she’s taking care of, unfortunately—to make sure everything is in its place and accounted for.”
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I rocked back on my heels and considered Jenny’s words. She was probably right. Grace was probably just doing her job, just making sure things were taken care of.
But I saw that look. That guilty, suspicious look that I’ve seen so many times before on so many different faces.
There was no way either of them could just explain away that look.
And that was why I wasn’t in a hurry to apologize, even though I was pretty sure I had been an ass.
Okay, I was certain I had been an ass.
“So, what do you think I should do?” I asked, finally. “I get what you’re saying, but I feel like she and I are at odds now, and if the guys and I are going to be staying here for a few more days, I don’t want there to be any tension, you know?”
“What should you do besides apologize, you mean?” Jenny arched a manicured eyebrow. “Maybe just go easy on her. She’s got a lot going on, and she gives everything she’s got to these animals. Just a few days ago she was nearly in tears because she doesn’t have the time or money to start working on a kennel she had planned. She’s not out to make your life more difficult, so maybe just… don’t make hers difficult, either?”
“Hm.” I nodded. “Okay. I’m sorry I laid all of this on you just now. I know you’re busy here, too. But thank you, Jenny. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
Her expression softened as she gave me a polite smile. “Dr. Black and I are both here to help however we can. I know emotions run high when a pet is in pain. There’s nothing wrong with blowing off steam every once in a while, but please do try to keep in mind that she’s got feelings just like you do.”
“Got it,” I said, nodding again. “Thank you.”
I turned and walked out the front door, not sure where I was going or what I was doing. I just knew that I needed some air, some space. I really needed to be on the back of my bike.
Maybe getting out on the road for a while would fix my mood. And then, maybe I could see about making things a little easier for Grace.
A couple of hours had passed by the time I got back to our makeshift camp in the pasture. Ty and Cody each gave me a different version of the same curious look.
“Where the hell have you been?” Ty asked, giving voice to that look. “The way you tore out of here earlier, I would’ve thought you had a hot date somewhere.”
I gave a dry laugh and shook my head. “I fucking wish. But no, I just needed some air and a little time to myself. What’s been going on here? How’s Rambo doing?”
“The same,” Ty sighed and glanced back across the pasture toward the clinic. “Grace—er, Dr. Black—says it’ll still be a while before he’s ready to go anywhere, even under the best circumstances. Maybe a week or two.”
“A week? Fuck,” I cursed as I sunk down into one of the folding lawn chairs that had appeared around our campfire while I’d been gone. “Where did we find the furniture?”
“The doc’s grandma, Miss Amaya,” Cody spoke up. “And it could be two weeks, so I hope that seat is nice and comfy for you.”
Why was it that every time I turned around, this day got worse? I should have just stayed in bed this morning. That would have at least prevented some of the shit I’d already had to deal with.
Except that bed was actually a threadbare sleeping bag on the dry, rocky ground, and while the night air was tolerable, it got hot as fuck as soon as the sun came out.
Sleeping in around here was more like torture than an escape.
“The hell are we gonna do for two weeks?” I asked, looking back and forth between the two of them. “That wasn’t the plan at all. That’s gonna fuck up everything we were doing.”
“Not necessarily…” Ty began, then paused to look around quickly. There might not be another soul around for miles, but Ty was always the cautious one—one of the reasons why we were generally okay with letting him call the shots. “While I was talking to Grace earlier, I happened to overhear her assistant on a phone call.”