“I’m not able to share that. What I can tell you is that two complaints have been logged. The first was last week. The second came in yesterday morning.”
He glared out the window, past Greta’s house to the big yellow house on the other side. Joy Roberts. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that nosy bitch was watching his every move. She’s already told anyone in town who would listen that she was not happy about an ex-con moving onto her street.
“As I said, I haven’t found them credible enough to follow up on. But Mr. McKenna—” She stopped, chose her next words.“If there’s anything in your current situation that could be characterized as unstable or high-risk, now is the time to address it.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll be conducting a home visit within the next two weeks. You’ll receive written notice. Is there anything you want to tell me about Logan’s adjustment that you’d like on record?”
He thought about Logan going up to his room yesterday and not coming back down until he had to go to school this morning. “He’s adjusting,” Bear said. “It’s hard. We’re working on it.”
“Good.” Another pause. “I’ll be in touch.”
She hung up.
Bear stood at the counter and looked at his phone until the screen went dark, then he looked out the kitchen window at Greta’s house.
STOP LOOKING.
And Greta’s response to all of it was to keep going. Keep pushing. Keep putting herself in dangerous situations.
Anything in your current situation that could be characterized as unstable or high-risk…
That was Greta in a nutshell.
Fuck.
He turned away from the window, and another thought struck, stopping him dead in his tracks.
He was supposed to return to work at the ranch tomorrow, but working at a ranch filled with ex-cons wouldn’t look good either.
He needed another job.
Lila’s clinic sat at the far end of Main, a low building with a gravel lot and a hand-painted sign that had weathered decades of Montana winters. The waiting area had three plastic chairs, a rack of pet food, and the persistent smell of antiseptic and wet dog that Bear had come to associate with useful work. He’d been helping Lila in informal stretches since his second month at Valor Ridge—muscle she needed when an animal needed holding down, hands she needed when equipment gave out. He’d never asked to be paid. She’d never offered.
He found Lila between appointments, stethoscope around her neck, chart in hand, standing at the pass-through window between the reception area and the back hallway. She looked like she’d slept three hours. She probably had.
“Bear.” She closed the chart. “Everything okay?”
“I need a job,” he said. “Full disclosure: I don’t have a vet tech certification. I’ve got field medic training, four years working with Walker and the horses and dogs at the ranch, and a record. If none of that disqualifies me?—”
Lila set the chart on the reception desk. She looked at him for a long, quiet second, then smiled. “I’ve been waiting for you to ask for months.”
He exhaled in a rush. “I’ll have to talk to Walker.”
“You know what he’ll say.”
Yeah, he did. Walker never expected his guys to stay at the ranch forever. “Can I start today?”
“I can use the help.” She handed him a work list without waiting for him to agree. Three fence repairs in the paddock behind the clinic. A supply delivery that needed to be movedfrom the loading dock to the storage room. Two large-breed dogs coming in at noon that would need restraint during their exams.
He went to work.
The fence took two hours. Good work, the kind that asked something of him physically and gave him the silence to think without the thoughts filling the whole room. Hammer, nail set, post driver. The paddock backed against a stand of pine and smelled like turned earth and pine resin and the nearby stable. He worked his way down the line, testing each post, replacing the ones that had heaved during the spring thaw. King watched him from the fence gate, deeply unimpressed.
At ten-thirty he carried the supply order inside—six boxes of vaccine stock, four of surgical supplies, two of the large-breed dietary kibble Lila stocked for the ranchers who came in from the northern county. He stacked them against the back wall of the storage room and checked them against the invoice, found one discrepancy and set the mislabeled box aside to deal with later.
He was refolding the invoice when he heard movement from the room at the end of the hall.
