Page 17 of Bailey

He wondered why rodeo champions and country music stars had shown up at Bailey’s within hours of the rain stopping to help her clear her property. After he took a bite of his protein bar, he surveyed the group of them. “How do you all know each other?”

“We’re ready out here,” Graham said as he poked his head into the kitchen from the garage.

Silence draped over them heavily as all eyes zoomed in on Bailey, including Reeves’s. While he expected her to be able to answer hard questions—she threw so many at him, after all—she’d closed right up. Her smile was actually upside down in a tight little frown now, which Reeves somehow found as sexy as her smile.

“Come on, guys,” she said as she got to her feet. “We’re lucky Reeves let us in, so let’s get as much done as fast as we can, so we’re not bothering him.”

“We’re here to help him,” Harry grumbled. “If he doesn’t want us here⁠—”

“I want you here,” Reeves said. “Honestly, thank you so much for coming. I just need to get things cleaned up back to my chickens and goats, and then I’ll cut you loose.”

“Ain’t no thing,” Bryce said. Out of the three Youngs, he was definitely the most good-natured.

Reeves would have to hold his questions until later. He followed everyone outside, shoving the last bite of his protein bar in his mouth so his stomach wouldn’t be angry with him, and he could help clean up his own farm.

Beau Whittaker sat behind the controls of a mini excavator, and Reeves grinned. “This is going to be great,” he said as he came to Bailey’s side and stopped.

“It’ll at least go fast,” Bailey said as her Uncle Beau lowered the front scraper and went down the length of Reeves’s sidewalk, clearing twenty feet of it easily when Reeves had been trying to use a snow shovel.

Everyone else stepped in and started shoveling the mud that had piled up on either side of the cement into wheelbarrows, and pure appreciation filled Reeves from head to toe.

Bailey bumped in with her hip. “Aren’t you glad I came over?” Then she moved away from him, pulled on a pair of gloves, and plucked a shovel out of an extra wheelbarrow. She dove right in to shoveling mud and debris, the sight of her doing so heating Reeves’s blood to near-intolerable temperatures.

He couldn’t stand there and let these men do all the work, and besides, he didn’t want any of them to catch him watching Bailey. After all, he couldn’t see his own face and didn’t know how he looked. He did know he wanted to keep her in his life, and that he didn’t want to wait two weeks to take her to Boston’s wedding.

So, as he dug his shovel into piles of mud and moved wheelbarrows full of debris, he silently plotted about how he could ask her out for dinner before then.

CHAPTER

EIGHT

Bailey had just sat down in her office with a Cobb salad and a delicious-smelling chunk of bread that Marina had brought back for her. Bailey bought her staff lunch a couple of times a month, usually on a Monday or a Friday, to thank them for their hard work and in an attempt to be a good employer. Today was neither a Monday nor a Friday, but she’d wanted lunch, and Marina had been willing to go get it.

The wind outside rattled her windows, and she looked that way as she popped the plastic lid off her salad. The wind always seemed to howl across Wyoming, and though Coral Canyon sat in the mountains, they were no exception. Still, they were coming out of winter now, and Bailey didn’t think it would snow again until fall.

Unlike Montana, she thought with a fond smile. She’d seen it snow there in June before, and wow, she was glad not to be living there anymore. From time to time, she did miss it. It was in Montana where she’d gone to college, gained her experience, and built her first practice. She’d given fifteen years of her life to that state, and her life there hadn’t been trivial.

“It also hadn’t felt like home,” she said to herself. She spread butter on the end of the baguette and took a bite of it, then dressed her salad and mixed it all together. She enjoyed a couple of minutes of downtime, but inevitably pulled a file in front of her to read through for tomorrow’s off-site appointment. She’d studied large animal veterinary care, and she had a herd of horses to look at tomorrow, if nine could be considered a herd.

“Bailey,” Trevor called, and she looked up at the urgency in his voice.

She hadn’t closed her door all the way, and her veterinary technician didn’t stop to knock before he barreled inside. “We need you in exam two right now.”

Bailey abandoned her lunch and pushed to her feet, though she’d been on them for hours. “What’s going on?”

She hurried after him, as Trevor had already left the office and was jogging down the hall. She did the same as he called, “A guy brought in his boxer who’s been stung by yellow jackets.”

Bailey’s heart turned to stone, as yellow jacket venom in large enough doses could kill other animals. “How big is the dog?”

“It’s a boxer,” Trevor said.

Bailey forced herself to slow down and think—he’d already said that. He darted into exam room two, and Bailey slowed her step to a fast walk, so as to come off calm and competent. When she entered the room, she found the dark brown dog already up on the lift, drool falling from his mouth, and him pawing at it.

“You’ve gotta stay still. You’ve gotta keep your paw down, bud.”

Bailey’s eyes moved to that familiar voice and found none other than Reeves standing there. Their eyes met, and an electric jolt moved through every cell in Bailey’s body.

“Reeves.” While she’d paused to assess the situation for that single moment, she moved forward again, pulling her stethoscope from around her neck. “How long ago did this happen?”