Finding Her Way Home (2 page)

T
race Bowman had never once regretted his decision to become a country veterinarian, but days like today stretched him to his limits. After a midnight house call to a local ranch, the clinic had been hopping with patients all day. Springtime brought puppies and calves and lambing ewes plus all manner of accidents, and as the only vet in town, he saw them all.

“Give her one of these morning and evening and bring her back to get the stitches out in about a week.” He stroked the still drowsy cat who'd had an unfortunate run-in with the radiator fan of her owner's car. She was lucky to have come out with only a gash on her side.

“Thank you, Doctor. I'm sorry to keep you here so late. You look done in.”

With a grin, he scraped a weary hand down his face and heard the scratch of unshaved beard. No doubt, he looked worse than his patients. After the midnight emergency at Herman Wagner's farm, he'd arrived at the clinic in time for the first surgery but not in time for morning ablutions. He'd done little more than scrub up and toss on a lab coat. He probably smelled worse than his patients, too. Without his mom to look after Zoey during those all-nighters, Trace didn't know what he would do.

“No problem, Mrs. James. That's what I'm here for. Call me if Precious needs anything else.” His staff had left an hour ago, but that was typical. With his house located next to the clinic, he was frequently the one who left last and locked up.

After Mrs. James's departure, he made the rounds through the clinic, pausing to grin up at the lopsided sign hanging over the reception desk. Today is the Best Day Ever. He made a point to read the message morning and night as a reminder that each day was whatever he made of it. He'd learned that lesson the hard way. No matter how weary he was or how hectic the workload, he was a blessed man.

“Thanks, Lord,” he murmured and continued his rounds.

Six dogs and three cats were spending the night, but none were critical enough to need his attention again until morning. Out in the dog-run four animals awaited adoption. He was normally successful in finding homes for the strays, mostly because he offered six months of free vet service. The way he looked at it, whatever worked. Euthanasia was not his favorite procedure.

Margo called him a sucker, but his seven-year-old daughter thought he was the biggest hero in America for taking in strays. He'd accept Zoey's opinion any day of the week, though Margo was a good woman. He liked her. They went to the same church and shared common interests, both being active in Redemption's civic groups. The trouble with Margo was that she'd started dropping hints lately about moving the relationship to another level, but Trace was not ready to go there. He wanted to be but he wasn't. Not yet anyway.

From the time Zoey's mother died, he'd prayed for the Lord to send the right woman into his life. His little girl needed a mother even more than he needed a wife. But so far, his heart refused to cooperate.

As he stuck his hands beneath the faucets and gave them one last warm, soapy scrub before heading home, he heard the front door scrape open. The noise was loud in the quiet, empty clinic,
made louder by echoing concrete floors and a door that needed adjustment. A late patient, no doubt. With a sigh and a growling belly, he grabbed a paper towel and headed toward the front of the building.

A woman stood in the waiting room. Trace stopped dead in his tracks and stared, the bottom falling out of his stomach.

Hovering uncertainly in the dim, shadowy light was a young woman in faded jeans, T-shirt and fitted leather jacket. With flowing black hair and a fit, trim build, she looked enough like his late wife to make him dizzy.

He pressed a finger and thumb to eyes gritty from fatigue. On the second blink, the similarities faded. He was tired. That was all. The woman before him had the same build and coloring, but where Pamela's face was soft and ever smiling, this woman had a solemn-eyed toughness about her.

He tossed the towels at a trash can. “Can I help you?”

Her chin went up, her shoulders square as though she was ready to fight. Her gaze darted around the shadowy clinic before coming back to challenge him. His curiosity was piqued. Why did this pretty stranger need to be defensive? Had he done something he didn't know about?

“Are you the vet?” The question was almost an accusation. “Dr. Bowman?”

“That's me.” Trace intentionally relaxed and offered a smile to put the tightly wound woman at ease. “You must be new to Redemption. I don't think we've met before.”

She thrust the box at him. “I found these stray pups on the side of the road.”

Trace lifted an eyebrow. So much for small talk. He accepted the carton and placed it on the reception counter. Blame it on his state of exhaustion, but her attitude was not giving him much desire to cooperate.

“What do you want me to do with them?”

Some of the attitude went out of her. She floundered. “Well, I—Two old bums in town sent me. They said—I thought—”

Trace's sense of humor returned. “Popbottle Jones and G. I. Jack? They're not bums. Characters, yes. Bums, no.”

“But they were Dumpster-diving.”

His mouth curved. She wasn't the first to misjudge the two old dudes. “Don't say that to them. They call their vocation recycling, taking care of the environment, going green.”

Her full bottom lip twitched and Trace felt an unexpected jolt of satisfaction. She'd be a knockout if she eased up and smiled more.

“Where I come from, Dumpster-diving is illegal.”

Trace gave her his best smile, wanting inexplicably to warm up this frosty lady. “And where exactly do you come from?”

Any hint of friendless faded so fast Trace thought he'd imagined it. “What about the puppies? Can you take them?”

Trace reached into the box and withdrew a fat, wiggling body, trying to decide exactly why this woman intrigued him. It was pretty obvious she didn't like either men or vets or both. Or maybe she didn't like anyone at all. A little nudge on the inside told him to play nice. Like G. I. Jack and Popbottle Jones, there could be more to his visitor than met the eye.

“Why don't you keep them?”

As if annoyed even more by the question, the woman fisted her hands on her hips. “As you noticed, I'm new in town. I have nowhere to take them even if I were inclined to do so.”

“And you aren't?”

“Not in the least.”

“You don't like animals?”

“Everyone likes puppies.”

Well, he felt better knowing that. “Where are you planning to stay?”

She took a step back as if the question was too personal. “I don't know yet. Will the puppies be all right here?”

He could see her genuine concern and again, he felt better.
Trace prided himself on his ability to read people and he suspected Miss Hard-as-nails had a marshmallow interior she didn't want anyone to see. And that intrigued him more. What had happened to this pretty lady to make her so defensive?

“There's only one motel in town. Widow Wainright's place. Nothing fancy but clean and quiet and not too pricey. Tell her I sent you. Kitty will fix you up.”

Dark eyes narrowed as if analyzing his motive. “Where would I find this place? If I was interested.”

Oh, she was interested all right. Interested but cautious. The question was, why?

“Over on Charity Lane about five or six blocks off Main.”

An incredulous expression crossed her face. “Charity Lane? Mercy Street. Hope Avenue. Redemption. What is this place? The twilight zone?”

Absently stroking the soft puppy, Trace laughed. “Nothing quite as exciting as that. According to town history, Redemption was founded during the Land Run of 1889 by a gunslinger turned preacher. He started Redemption for souls like him—people who wanted to change their ways and start fresh. The street names are his way of reminding us that everything we need is found in God's redeeming love.”

His visitor stared at him with a troubled look and Trace thought for a minute he'd said too much. Margo claimed he sounded like a preacher at times and maybe he did. But as he studied the woman standing in his waiting room, he suspected something else. She'd reacted to the town names oddly because they were exactly why she was here. Like so many of the souls who arrived in Redemption, the tough cookie before him was in need.

“I'll take care of the puppies,” he said softly.

Her stance relaxed the slightest bit. “Thanks.”

“You can come visit them anytime.”

“Oh, no, I—” She shrugged. “Maybe I will. Do you think you can find homes for them? I wouldn't want them to be—you know.”

Hard shell on the outside, soft as puppy fur on the inside. “Puppies are pretty easy to re-home.”

“Good.” She gave a curt nod and turned as if to leave.

“Wait.” He didn't know why but he wasn't ready for her to go.

She glanced over one shoulder before slowly pivoting, expression guarded.

“You didn't tell me your name.”

She hesitated a second before saying, “Cheyenne Rhodes.”

He offered his hand. “Well, Cheyenne Rhodes, welcome to Redemption. I hope you'll like our little town.”

The guarded expression lingered as she slipped her hand into his. “I hope so, too.”

Trace tried not to react to her skin against his, but her feminine hand was far softer than her expression and far more slender than his work-roughened one. “If I can help you with anything else—”

She pulled her hand away, cynicism firmly back in place. “Only if you know where I can find a job.”

So Tough Girl was sticking around. Nice. “What kind of work do you do?”

Again, her hesitation piqued his curiosity.

“Anything for now.”

“I can always use another hand here in the clinic.” Which was true, though why he'd want to hire an unfriendly helper with a chip on her shoulder was more than he wanted to think about.

She shook her head. Loose black hair swished against the shiny maroon leather of her jacket. “I don't think so.”

Was it the job that didn't suit her—or him? “Just a thought. I frequently hire temporaries to help out the full-time staffers. The clinic keeps us all busy.”

“How many?”

“Employees?” At her nod, he said, “Three, right now. So what do you say? Pay's lousy, working conditions stink—literally—but the staff is friendly, the boss is a
great
guy, and you can play with the pups anytime.”

She surprised him with a soft laugh. “Bribery.”

He arched an eyebrow, teasing. “I'm a desperate man.”

She tilted her head and studied him, a twinkle in her dark eyes. “Somehow I doubt that. You don't look the desperate type.”

But he had been once, a truth that made it easy to recognize a fellow desperado.

He pointed a puppy at her. “Be here at nine in the morning and I'll put you to work. You can bring the doughnuts.”

Dark eyebrows surged upward. “Doughnuts?”

“From the Sugar Shack.”

“Let me guess,” she said wryly. “It's located on Grace Boulevard.”

Trace chuckled. The lady had a sense of humor. “No. Plain old Main Street at Town Square, next to the post office.”

She thought about the offer so long Trace knew she was going to refuse. What he didn't expect was how disappointed he was when she did.

 

The drive to the motel on Charity Lane was short and easy and filled with thoughts of Trace Bowman, the friendly veterinarian.

“I should have taken that job,” she muttered.

When she'd first walked into the empty, darkened building, being alone with a strange man had made her skin crawl. But even though he had been as scruffy looking as the two Dumpster-divers, the amiable vet had a way about him. When he'd teased her about doughnuts she'd almost said yes.

But she hadn't. He'd been too friendly, too accommodating, and her suspicion meter had gone off the charts. Nobody did something for nothing.

Though he wasn't overly large, he was taller than her by a head and far more muscular. Lean and fit with tanned arms strong enough to handle a large animal practice, he'd be a hard man to take down.

Still, she couldn't stop thinking about him. Beneath the unshaven face and mussed brown hair, he was undoubtedly
attractive and not much older than herself, though most days she felt a hundred instead of thirty.

Attractive. Young. There was the problem. She found the kindhearted vet a bit too attractive, the exact kind of man she was inclined to fall for. The last thing she needed in her life was another man like Paul Ramos who would disappear the moment he learned about her late-night encounter with Dwight Hector.

Besides, he probably had women bringing in stray cats and dead birds and pet guppies as an excuse to see him. She didn't need that either.

She killed the car in front of a short row of maybe ten tidy cottages. The motel was old, likely built in the 50s or 60s, but well kept and pretty in a retro kind of way. The widow obviously liked plants because each unit came with a white window box of red geraniums, a short-clipped patch of grass in front and tidy shrubs growing close to the white siding. From the back of the establishment, huge oaks bent shady arms above each roof, letting in only dappled slices of sunshine. The effect was provincial, warm, peaceful. Cheyenne almost believed she would like it here.

Beneath a waving American flag, a sign outside said Redemption Motel and Gifts, Vacancy. Bible Study at 8.

Envisioning a gentle, white-haired widow who offered prayer and Proverbs with her tea, Cheyenne found her way to the unit marked Office and went inside. A bell above the door gave a merry jingle.

As she scanned the room in search of the proprietor, Cheyenne breathed in the smell of rose potpourri and cataloged the premises. The Widow Wainright was not only a Christian; she was a patriot who made extra money selling inspiration and Americana. The place was decorated in red, white and blue with American flags sprouting from potted plants, eagle-topped fountain pens crowded into coffee mugs and a display case filled with various other souvenirs and gift
items. The walls were plastered with military photos and Uncle Sam posters. One of them pointed straight at her. Uncle Sam Wants You!