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“I’m friend number three. But I do have a line.” He sighed. “All the good parts went to the seniors.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, that tends to be the way it goes.”
“Okay, that’s it. You’re all stitched up,” Tonya said. “Now, you need to keep this dry. I used dissolving stitches, so you don’t have to come back. You should be all good.”
“Thank you, Tonya,” Melissa said. “And it was nice to meet you, Spencer.”
“It was nice to meet you, too, and Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be there to see your play. I bet you’ll be the best friend number three who ever friend number threed.”
He giggled a little and shook his head before he turned and followed his mom out.
Nash
“I’ll never understand how a man can be cruel to animals,” Levi said, shaking his head.
We were finishing up in the stables for the day, but because he’d spent most of his day fixing a downed fence on the east side of the property, this was the first he was hearing about my phone call with Lance, and he was just as frustrated by the situation as the rest of us.
“Well, I figure it’s because the animal doesn’t fight back the way a person does.”
“So it’s because they’re cowards,” he said, tossing the brush he’d been using in his tack box.
“Yep,” I agreed.
“I still don’t get it.”
“You don’t get it because you’re a good guy. You would never do something like that, so—”
“What would Levi never do?” Cruz asked, striding into the barn.
“We were just talking about Elmer Walker and how he treats his horses.”
“I have no answer or reason for it,” Cruz said. “I’ve seen so much of it. Going all the way back to my rodeo days. I saw more than one person take their frustration out on their horse. The way I see it, some men are just born mean.”
“I can agree with that. Especially where Elmer Walker’s concerned. Have you heard anything from Eli yet?” I asked.
“He opened an investigation. You know how these things go. They take way longer than I’m comfortable with. I mean, I get it, can’t just have people getting their livestock taken away because some jackwagon made a malicious report.”
“Right, but that isn’t what this is.” I tossed my shovel aside, frustration getting the better of me. “We have a valid case here, and I’d really like to see those horses get a chance. They don’t have one as long as they’re on the Walker ranch.”
Cruz sighed and gave me a sympathetic look. “You know I agree with you, and Eli does, too. He just has to do his due diligence to get the judge to sign off on it. I told him he can put the Double C down as willing to take however many horses there are.”
“Where would we even put them?” Levi asked, and he wasn’t wrong. We were pretty much at capacity.
“You let me worry about that,” Cruz said. “But this is just more evidence that we need this expansion to happen.”
He wasn’t wrong. The rescue’s name was getting out there more and more, and the requests just kept coming in. I hated to be one of the ones who’d had to ask him for help when we already had so many from out of the area. “I really appreciate you doing this, Cruz.”
He waved me off like it was nothing, but it wasn’t nothing. It mattered to me that he’d taken me at my word and started the ball rolling on saving those horses.
“We’ll get them, Nash. It’ll just take some time.”
By the time Wednesday rolled around, I was starting to get antsy. Not only had we not heard anything about the horses at the Walking W, but I hadn’t seen Spencer since Sunday afternoon. Sure, I’d texted him each morning and each night like always and talked to him on the phone, but talking to him on the phone and being able to touch him just weren’t the same thing, especially after being with him for four whole days when he was sick.
I waited until it was time for him to be up and then sent him a text.
