Once and for All (7 page)

“Wonderful,” Jodie said, but she wasn’t as concerned now as she had been a week ago. Sam had cashed the retainer check, so she knew he’d be at the ranch when called, ready to save the day. Her father would not be thrilled when he discovered that he’d not only lost all his hired help, but had regained two that he’d fired. However, drastic times called for drastic measures. Jodie’s goal was to make certain as many animals were alive when he came home as when he’d left.

With five weeks of his vacation to go, she was beginning to hope that maybe her father would arrive before the early calving. Lucas assured her there was no way that was going to happen. Calves were coming, probably within a week. But on a positive note, the sick bull was eating again and had regained his strength, to the point that Lucas had put him back out in the bachelor pasture with the other bulls. Another crisis averted, thanks to Sam. Jodie was going to owe him a huge debt of gratitude if things continued as they were, and right now she owed him a debt of the monetary variety. Lucas had picked up more penicillin and some amazingly expensive colostrum from the clinic yesterday, and Jodie decided to pay the bill when she went into Wesley for a few personal odds and ends. With the warm wind still blowing, it was too nice to stay in the house.

There were no cars in the parking spaces in front of the clinic, and no one behind the counter. Jodie called a hello. No reply. Odd. She waited a few minutes, and then leaned over the counter to set the check beside the computer keyboard.

Next stop the library. She was almost to her car when she heard the distinctive sound of a basketball hitting concrete somewhere behind the clinic, a sound that always gave her an adrenaline rush. It was followed by male voices, one of them Sam’s. Jodie reversed course.

Did Sam play basketball? He was certainly tall enough, and the thought of Sam driving hard for the goal…
oh, yeah
. She followed the path around the clinic to the yard that separated the building from Sam’s house. He and two boys stood on a concrete pad under a portable basketball hoop, and were in the middle of a heated discussion. Sam had the ball tucked under one arm and a finger in the air when he caught sight of Jodie. He stopped talking and both boys turned to follow his gaze, their expressions—and features—identical.

Sam had twin nephews.

“I just dropped off the check,” Jodie said, her eyes moving from one tall, fair-haired kid to the other before settling back on their uncle. Maybe it was because there were three of them that she was struck by how good-looking they were. “It’s beside the keyboard.”

“Thanks,” Sam said, bouncing the ball. The nephew Jodie hadn’t previously met reached out and expertly snagged it away from him before making a lazy layup.

“I win,” he said.

“In your dreams,” Sam replied.

“Yeah? Well, I could take you and Beau together.” He made a sweeping gesture. “Or all three of you,” he said cockily, including Jodie in the competition.

“How about plain old two-on-two?” Jodie asked. Her request was immediately followed by three superior masculine smirks, as if they thought she was kidding. She wasn’t. In her busy life not many opportunities arose for a pickup game these days, but when she’d been in school… “Me and Beau against…” She gestured at the other nephew.

“Tyler,” he said, passing the ball from hand to hand.

“Tyler and Sam.”

“Yeah,” Tyler agreed with a wide grin, palming the ball. Beau looked less than enthused. Sam said nothing, but he was looking at Jodie as if trying to figure her angle.

“What do you say, Beau?” Tyler jerked his head at Sam, and Beau’s expression changed.

He gave a shrug. “Why not?”

Tyler tossed Jodie the ball. She passed to Beau, who went in for an easy layup, with Ty and Sam giving little defense. She had a feeling this was Sam’s way of spotting them a few points. That wasn’t the way Jodie played. When Tyler passed the ball in to Sam, Jodie went chest to chest with him, waving her arms and keeping him cornered. She rather enjoyed the expressions that crossed his face when he realized that, despite her height disadvantage, she was playing for real.

“Come on, Sam!” Tyler called.

Finally Sam made a bounce pass to Tyler, who maneuvered around his brother and took a shot. Rim ball. Jodie rebounded, pivoted, dribbled, shot for two. Then she took her place next to Sam, ready to guard. She pushed the hair out of her eyes with one hand, while extending the other toward Sam’s midsection.

Tyler and Beau exchanged looks.

“I didn’t know you were a player,” Sam said close to her ear. Tingles went up her spine.

“I’m a player,” she replied. Joe Barton’s daughter didn’t play sissy ball. She’d been the season MVP three years in a row during high school.

Tyler passed the ball to Sam and the game was on.

The guys were each a good five inches taller than her five foot seven, but she was fast and agile. Ball handling had been her forte, and the moves came back automatically.

Tyler and Sam won by one point, but neither Beau nor Jodie were disappointed with their efforts. Beau held out his hand for a high five and Jodie jumped to smack his palm.

“Where’d you learn to play?” he asked, smiling at her in a way that made her very aware of him, of her, of the possibilities they could explore.

“High school. I played varsity for three years.” Joe had been disappointed it hadn’t been four. When she’d made the JV—junior varsity—team as a freshman, she’d been proud, since the competition was fierce, but immediately realized that her father had expected more. She’d worked like crazy that year and over the summer to make varsity, and had been rewarded with a proud father. And when she’d won MVP…terrifically proud father.

“We’re going out for burgers tonight,” Beau said. “Want to come?”

Jodie couldn’t help but feel honored to be invited, since she was certain these boys had heard a lot of bad things about her family.

“Oh, I, uh…really can’t. I bought groceries for Margarite and need to get them home. She’s baking for a bake sale.” Jodie was surprised at how disappointed the boys looked.

“Well, maybe another time,” Beau said with a charming smile that came close to swaying her. He was so different than he’d been the night he’d accompanied Sam to the ranch. Whatever problem they’d been having had apparently blown over…which made her wonder what kind of problem an uncle and nephew could have that was so serious. They’d acted much more like father and son.

“How’s the bull?” Sam asked after the boys had started toward the house. The jeans he wore accentuated his long legs a whole lot more than the canvas coveralls he’d had on every time he’d visited the ranch.

“Lucas put him back in the pasture today.”

“Excellent.” Sam bounced the ball a couple times. “How’d you become such a good basketball player?”

“Same way anyone does. I spent a lot of hours on the court.”

“I never took you for an athlete.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. You just seem so…girlie.”

“Girlie.” She echoed the word flatly, not at all flattered by the assessment. Feminine maybe, but girlie?

Sam shifted his weight, but his eyes stayed locked on hers when he said, “I mean that in a good way.”

“Do you?” she asked, noting that though his gaze was direct, the color had risen in his cheeks. Was Sam Hyatt shy? She found the thought intriguing and was debating how she could test her hypothesis when the door to the house opened and his nephews came out wearing gray hooded sweatshirts, one emblazoned with University of Nevada Reno Wolf Pack across the chest and the other with UNLV Running Rebels. All the bases covered.

“Can I drive your car sometime?” Tyler asked.

“No.” Sam spoke firmly. Jodie was glad, because it saved her from having to do so.

“Well,” she said, “have fun. I’ll see you guys later.” She picked her way over the half-frozen grass to the path at the side of the clinic.

Jodie drove home thinking about Sam and his boys, but mainly about Sam. Handsome man. Good ball handler. Possibly shy. The snap of attraction she felt when they were together was…energizing. And so was the game. She smiled with satisfaction as she turned onto the Zephyr Ranch road. All in all, not a bad trip to town.

Her dad would have a fit if he knew she was entertaining carnal thoughts about Sam. Oh, well. She smiled again.

“I thought you’d be back sooner,” Margarite commented as she helped Jodie carry the bags in from the garage.

“I got waylaid at Sam’s place.”

Her eyebrows rose.

“Pick-up game.” Margarite’s eyebrows remained in an elevated position, and Jodie realized the housekeeper had no idea what she was talking about. “I played basketball with him and his nephews.”

“Oh.” Margarite made an if-you-say-so face.

“You had to be there,” Jodie said as she started unpacking the bags. “Sam seems to spend a lot of time with his nephews.”

Margarite glanced over at her. “He should. He’s their guardian. Their parents were killed in a hit-and-run accident about a year and half ago. I thought you knew.”

The can Jodie had just pulled from the bag almost slipped from her hand. “No.”

“Yes. Sad thing.” Margarite placed the candied fruit next to her other baking supplies.

“So Sam’s raising his nephews? Alone?”

“Yeah.”

Jodie carried the canned goods to the pantry as she calculated. A year and a half ago…a couple months before her dad had filed suit. Talk about a double whammy—losing his brother and then getting sued for malpractice. With instant parenthood added in, he’d actually experienced a triple whammy. No wonder he hated her father. Joe had sued him at one of the most vulnerable times of his life.

“He seems to be taking his job seriously,” she said when she came out of the pantry.

“Sam goes the extra mile.” Margarite opened the fridge and started putting fresh vegetables into the drawers. “I remember when my sister’s dog got hit by a car not long after he and his brother started the practice—”

“His brother was a vet, too?”

“They graduated a year apart. His brother did small animals, Sam did large. Anyway, Dave—his brother—wasn’t at the clinic when my sister brought her dog in, its leg rolled out flat like a pancake. One bloody mess.”

Jodie felt an instant surge of queasiness.

“You okay?” Margarite asked, giving her a sharp glance. Jodie nodded, doing her best to appear interested and not nauseous at the mental image she’d conjured up. “So anyway, instead of amputating, Sam worked for hours putting that leg back together. The bones, the muscles. Too many stitches to count. And he charged her only a hundred dollars, since she’s on a limited income. She paid him ten bucks a month. He did the checkups for free.”

“And the dog survived?”

“He’s still alive. The leg’s not one hundred percent, but he has it and can use it some.”

No wonder Margarite thought Sam was a good vet.

“Did the accident take place here? His brother, I mean, not the dog.”

“Vegas,” Margarite said. “The Strip.”

In Jodie’s territory. “Did they catch the driver?”

“Oh, yeah.” Margarite nodded with satisfaction. “They got him a day later. A casino executive, no less.” Jodie felt an odd prickling sensation at the back of her neck. “He had prior DUIs,” Margarite continued, “but had gotten off because he had the bucks to buy a good lawyer who cared more about money than doing what’s right.” She spoke with an edge of bitterness, then seemed to remember who she was talking to. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Jodie said faintly as she wadded up the empty plastic bags and stuffed them in the recycling box. She did not like the déjà vu nature of Margarite’s story. Not one bit.

Don’t be stupid. What were the chances…?

Casino exec…vehicular homicide while under the influence… Actually, the odds weren’t that bad….

“You can probably see why you and Sam haven’t exactly hit it off. Between your dad’s suit and what happened to his brother, well, he’s not real fond of lawyers.”

“Do you happen to remember the name of the guy that killed Sam’s brother and his wife?”

“No.” Margarite eyed Jodie shrewdly. “Does the case sound familiar?”

“I might have read about it.” She hoped that was all she’d done.

“I guess the news changes up pretty rapidly in Las Vegas, but here…it was all we talked about for a long time.”

“I can imagine.”

She needed to get a grip. There were tons of DUIs in Las Vegas. So many that some law firms specialized in them. Hers didn’t. Her firm specialized in high-end clientele…such as casino CEOs. People who paid big bucks to have the consequences of their poor decision making tidied up as much as possible. She’d gotten DUI charges against “important people” dropped more times than she could count, due to police procedural errors, questionable Breathalyzer readings, whatever she could find to get a toehold and clear her client—one of whom was now serving time for vehicular manslaughter while under the influence. She hadn’t defended him on that charge; he’d gone to another firm. But she had gotten him off for a prior DUI—the third strike that would have put him in prison.