Page 13 of Her Three Rangers

“O-kay…” I said, waiting for the part I was supposed to give a damn about. “And?”

“And I couldn’t help but hear her say the name of the person on the other end of the line—a Mr. Windram.”

“Garrick Windram?” I asked, my eyes going wide.

“What are the chances it’s a different Mr. Windram? It’s not like that’s the most common name out here.” Ty jerked his head in the direction of the clinic. “He has an appointment with Grace tomorrow afternoon, so we’ll be able to see for ourselves soon enough.”

“Ho-ly shit,” I said under my breath. Then a thought occurred to me. “You don’t think the doc is in on his little operation, do you?”

“Hell no,” Ty said, his face clouding with a dark expression. “I’d be willing to bet everything I own that she doesn’t have any idea what he’s up to. If she was a crook, I would have seen it in her eyes.”

I didn’t point out the fact that Ty didn’t own much worth betting on, aside from his bike and his dog. Still, he was a damn good judge of character—we all were, in fact—and I didn’t get that vibe from her, either.

If she was some kind of criminal, she was a damn good one. Or a really careless one, since she was letting us stay on her land and come and go from her clinic unsupervised.

Yeah, I’d say I had to agree with Ty’s assessment. There was nothing that really seemed suspicious about her.

I decided to direct the conversation back to the more pressing issue. “If Windram really is going to be hanging around here, at least we have a pretty damn good reason for also being in the area now.”

“Agreed,” Cody grumbled, nodding. “I want to keep as close of an eye as possible on that bastard.”

“I wish we had more of a reason to be at the clinic,” Ty said. “But now that Rambo is on the mend, I don’t know how much longer Grace is gonna be cool with us just wandering in and out of her back room.”

He was right. We needed an excuse, a cover, if we were going to be trying to get information about the human trafficking ring we suspected Garrick of running.

“I may have something that fits the bill,” I said, musing aloud. Both of their heads jerked up, and they waited, looking at me expectantly.

“Yeah?” Ty asked.

“Go on…” Cody added.

“Well, when I was talking to Jenny earlier, she mentioned something about a kennel for the clinic.” I paused, waiting to see their reactions, but was met with two blank stares.

“A kennel?” Ty’s brow furrowed.

“The fuck does that have to do with us?” Cody’s lip curled up. “We don’t know anything about babysitting dogs.”

I shook my head. “Nobody is going to be babysitting anything, because there’s no kennel yet. Grace was going to build one. But she had to scrap her plans because she ran out of money. She’s apparently really stressed about it.”

“We could build the kennel,” Cody said, his face lighting up as he finally caught on to what I was getting at. “The three of us. It would be the perfect cover, the perfect reason to stay close to the clinic.”

I nodded. “Yep.”

“And we sort of owe her,” Ty said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing his chin. “That really could be the perfect thing for us. I mean, I know fuck-all about building a kennel, but how hard can it be?”

“The timing would be about right, I’d imagine.” I shrugged. “I don’t know anything about kennels, either, but it shouldn’t take that long. We’ve got the internet to help us with that part, and there’s gotta be a lumber yard or a hardware store somewhere around here.”

“I think some of us wouldn’t mind the excuse to stay a little closer to the pretty doctor,” Cody grinned, waggling his eyebrows suggestively at Ty.

“Fuck off,” Ty said. He shot Cody a stern look, but was completely undermined by the fact that the corners of his mouth were twitching. “It’s not like that…”

“It could be,” I said, joining in. “Don’t pretend like you haven’t seen the way she looks at you, Ty. I think she might not mind the attention.”

“No different than the way the two of you have been eyeing her up and down,” he said.

“She’s hot,” Cody said. “I’ll admit it. I’d treat her right, if she was interested. No doubt about it.”

“I would, too,” Ty gave a half-shrug. “If she was interested.”

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