Page 69 of Saving Veronica
“Nothing fancy. I’m a plain meat and potato girl.”
“Deal.” Finn held out his hand and they shook on it. At the last minute, he pulled her to him and kissed her hard. When she started to wrap her arms around him, he broke it off and backed away. “I have to go.” He grinned, kissed her cheek, and picked up her mug, and walked out the door with it. “I’ll bring the cup back with me later.”
Ronnie shook her head, but she was grinning when she filled her travel mug and headed toward the barn.
*****
Finn walked in the back door of his grandfather’s house with a huge grin on his face. His grandfather stared at him over his glasses and shook his head, but he had a smirk on his face. On his way to his bedroom, he was waylaid by Major, and spent several minutes giving him a rubdown. When he was finally free, he laughed his way down the hall. The first thing he did was shower and change. Back down in the kitchen, he opened the refrigerator and began pulling out items for a big breakfast. In no time, the three Larson men sat down to steak, eggs, home fries, juice, and coffee.
“Good date, last night?” William smirked at him, while Eric snorted a laugh.
“Yep.” Finn shoveled in a mouthful of food, after he washed it down with juice, he looked at the two men, and asked, “So what’s on your agenda for today?” Neither man had anything special going on, so Finn asked, “Would you like to go with me?”
“What are you doing?” William frowned at him.
“I have to meet up with Grady at ten. Lorna and Marc are meeting me there. We’re going to go over everything from the fundraiser, and then drive out to tell Ronnie.”
“You haven’t told her yet?”
“No, Lorna made the suggestion of having Grady tell her. Something about it would be better coming from Grady, rather than me. I couldn’t understand it all. But that’s what I plan on doing. Then I was going to spend the afternoon doing paperwork there. I’ll be cooking her dinner, then calling it a night.” He held up his hand, and sighed. “Yes, I know she’s busy, but she already agreed that I could do my paperwork there while she does her farm accounts, and homework.”
“Okay, but son,” William said sternly. “Don’t be a nuisance of yourself. Ronnie is a very busy woman.”
“I know. She told me the same thing. But, I’ll tell you, what I told her. I only want to spend time with her. I figure if we can get along doing our own work, then maybe we can give what we have a go.” He studied each of the men, and admitted, “I really like Veronica. She’s the one for me.”
The other two men grinned as they exchanged looks.
Three hours later, Finn stood on the front porch of Dr. Grady Applewood’s home, and knocked on the door. In less than two minutes, it opened and Grady greeted him.
“Finn, come in, what do I owe the honor?” He paused as two more vehicles pulled in and Finn grinned as Lorna and Marc exited their cars and joined them. They had taken his suggestion of dressing casually for this meeting. Before they went any further, Finn introduced them again.
“Grady, do you remember Lorna and Marc?”
“I do, what is this about?”
“We’d like to come in and talk to you about the fundraiser,” Lorna said, and giggled when Grady looked at her bug-eyed.
“Shit, sorry, I forgot all about it.”
“We were going to come over yesterday, but we called your clinic and were told you were out in the field.”
“Yes, one of the local ranchers had a calf get tangled in some barbed wire. Cut themselves up pretty bad. They called me in for damage control.” They all entered his home and he invited them to sit at the table. The three newcomers declined any coffee, but accepted a bottle of water.
“So, what’s up?” Grady asked, as he settled down.
Finn reached down and brought his briefcase up, opened it, extracted a file, and slowly pushed it before Grady. “This is the result of the fundraiser after all expenses were paid.” The three people looked at the vet as he opened the file and sucked in his breath so hard, he began coughing. Finn had to jump up and pound on his back.
“Holy shit, really?” Grady looked at the three of them in shock.
“Yes,” Lorna laughed.
“Damn.” Grady shook his head in amazement as he picked up the check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and everyone grinned at his shaking hand.
Finn smiled, and said, “I have the Foundation checkbook with me. We can leave the check as is, or I can write out different ones. The one you’re holding is for the total amount, minus expenses from the costume party we had.”
“Damn.” Grady repeated himself. He looked around, then sighed. “Has anyone talked to Ronnie about this yet?”
“No,” Lorna said. “We decided to come to you first. The fundraiser was for you and your clinic after all. What you decide to do with the money is up to you. We’re only here to give you what the Larson Foundation did for you.”
