Page 2 of An Endless Memory

He nodded, his Adam’s apple working. “I’m just worried, you know?”

I didn’t. “I can believe it.”

“It’s not just her physical health and the twins. She’d be stuck in bed watching TV and…” He drew his brows together. “Well, if you knew how she grew up, that’s going to be hard for her. She had very little parental attention and was left home alone a lot.”

“Damn.” Now that he mentioned it, I only met Sutton’s parents at their first wedding and now Sutton was due with twins in four months. I didn’t recall another visit from them. As if I’d know. I lived three hours west, across the border in Montana.

Frustration at being so far removed from my family welled up. When our father died, he’d tied me and my three brothers to that damn place. Only my sister had been free, but he’d shit all over her in the will and trust.

Everything worked out for her, and my brothers had found loopholes to get out of their inheritance stipulations without losing out on the money. They all settled in Crocus Valley too. But I was the ranch manager. I had to be there full-time—morning, noon, and night. My vacations were visiting my siblings, nieces, and nephews. They would come out to the ranch and help a few times a year to meet the demands of the inheritance, but those visits were decreasing as their families grew larger. My sister and all three of my sisters-in-law were pregnant too.

I was starting to feel left out.

Who was I kidding? I’d felt that way for a long time.

“I gotta run out to the truck,” Wilder said, giving me a break from the path my thoughts took. It wasn’t like I could change things.

“I’m gonna grab a drink while you do that.”

Sutton had added a nice break room with the expansion, and all the employees kept it stocked with snacks.

“Just keep the door shut. They have a repeat-offender Dalmatian in the back. He’s a wily fucker and he’ll go straight for the break room and get the fridge open before you know it.”

“Repeat offender?”

“The owners swear he’s not acting right, he’s been puking, insists the clinic keep him overnight for observation. There’s never anything wrong. Now, they’ve been dropping him off on Fridays. Sutton thinks he’s too much dog for them, but they won’t admit it. She’s afraid they’re going to euthanize him.”

I winced. I could get weary of the cattle and horse-breeding operations, really fucking tired of the daily grind, but I didn’t envy Sutton for a lot of aspects of her job. “That sucks.”

“Yeah. He is a handful. The techs have been working on training him, but he’s only a year old.”

“Still a puppy.” A puppy that needed a job, not to be cooped up all weekend. All our ranch dogs over the years had been the same.

Wilder and I left the new laundry room. He broke away to go out the back door where he was parked outside the garage. I continued down the hall to the break room.

There was a plastic container of thick frosted cookies on the table. Since it was the weekend, could I assume those were open season?

I went to the water jug that kept water at the perfect cold temperature and got a small cup. The jug glugged as water poured out. I should get one of these for the shop.

A skittering of claws on tile sounded down the hall. The new tech must’ve taken the Dalmatian out for a bathroom break?—

“Bug! Dang it!” a woman called from the hallway.

Somewhere in the building, a squeal pierced the air. A blur of white and black charged into the break room. A leash trailed behind him on the floor. “Hey, boy.”

The dog charged the table, bodysurfed the top with his upper body and knocked the cookies to the floor. I started for the dog when a blur in blue jeans and a gray scrub top rushed in. This must be Lily.

“Bug! No.” She dove for the leash, but the dog spun around and hunkered the front of his body down. His mouth lolled open like he thought it was a great game they were playing.

Lily straightened, her back to me. The top of her head wouldn’t reach my chin, but the jeans she wore molded around a nice, round ass.

She stuffed her hand into her scrub pocket and then held it out. “Sit,” she commanded, a treat sitting on her palm.

Bug ignored her and spun around instead, his claws skating across the floor.

“Bug, sit.”

He tried to race around me, but I scooped up the leash and held tight. Bug darted away and damn near yanked my arm off when I stopped him. He was a strong dog.

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