“I could get another job managing another restaurant, or even working on my family’s ranch, which I’ve been doing for the past few months. But I’m ready to move out of my momma and daddy’s house and start living my own life again.”
Lila Mae met her eyes, something powerful bonding them together. “I know exactly how that is,” she said quietly. “What’s your family’s ranch?”
“Shiloh Ridge,” she said. “I know you’re new in town, but everybody’s heard of Shiloh Ridge.”
“Sure,” Lila Mae said. “The veterinarian I’m interviewing tomorrow was recommended to me by Smiles Glover.”
“Of course,” Hailey said. “Everyone in the world knows Smiles.”
“I wanted him, but he said he’s had a job at Shiloh Ridge since the day he was born.”
“Yeah,” Hailey said with a smile. “A lot of boys come back to their family ranches after they get their vet degrees.”
“I guess one of his friends has been working odd jobs around the farms and ranches in Amarillo and would like somewhere permanent.” Lila Mae nodded because she also understood the dynamics of a family business and dynasty. “So you’re one of Smiles’ cousins?”
“Through marriage,” Hailey said. “My Daddy married his aunt. My momma died when I was real young.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said.
“Moving here was a brand-new start for both me and Daddy,” Hailey said. “And as I’m kind of going through trying to turn another page in my life, I remind myself that I’ve done it before, and that my daddy did it and modeled it for me, and that good things can come out of heartache.”
Lila Mae once again found herself tearing up, so she simply nodded.
“I’m sure you have other interviews,” Hailey said. “But I’d be really good at this job, Lila Mae, and it feels like a perfect fit for me.”
Lila Mae took a moment to gather her emotions and swallow them down. “It feels like a really good fit for me, too,” she said. “So I don’t need to do any other interviews. You have the job, and I’ll get the paperwork together. If you want to come in tomorrow and get it signed, you can start right away.”
A relieved sigh fell out of Hailey’s mouth, and she grinned. “Thank you so much,” she said. “This is going to be so great.”
Lila Mae smiled too, because she wanted to work with people she felt a connection with and who understood what she wasdoing here at Feline Friends. She walked Hailey out with the promise of the woman returning tomorrow to sign her intake paperwork.
Lila Mae made it through the vet tech interview and hired that man as well. Then she helped Scarlett close down the Intake Center, and she bid her good-night before going to check on the cats.
They could roam around the room and sleep in cat towers, or their beds, or kennels, as she would lock the door behind her when she left. By the time she’d finished cleaning their litter boxes, checking their food and water, and making sure Cleopatra wasn’t going to be a problem with the gray tabby cat, it was close to six.
“You be good to the kittens,” she said to Cleo, her Bengal cat. Cleo usually stuck to Lila Mae’s side, but she’d enjoyed being with the rescue cats, and she found both new kittens curled into Cleo’s side. Her Bengal slitted her eyes at her and purred, and Lila Mae could only smile back at her cat.
After she’d locked the door and headed for the exit, Lila Mae started thinking about dinner. And that made her think of Trap.
She moved out onto the front porch and looked right, down the dirt road that went toward the stables. Her heartbeat thumped when she saw Trap’s big gray pickup truck parked out front.
He was here.
The stables only sat two hundred yards from the house, and while the evening held the heat of the whole day, Lila Mae could walk in the shade most of the way. She did, telling herself she needed to ask Trap a question about the construction, though, for the life of her, she couldn’t come up with one. She certainly hadn’t made the walk in the heat just to see him, but as she pulled open the stable door and entered, she knew she’d been lying to herself.
“Trap?” she called.
He always responded with a “Heyo, I’m back here,” and she could follow the sound of his voice. Today, only silence greeted her.
The door she’d come through entered a big, open room in the stable, with a tack room off to the side that Lila Mae had already designated for her veterinarian’s office. It had twelve stalls, six to the right and six to the left, which Lila Mae and Trap had designated as cat patient rooms, with the largest one being an operating room.
Trap’s job was to clean everything out and put in walls and flooring that would be sterile enough for a hospital. She’d work with his interior design partner, Ruby, on the custom cabinets and medical equipment needed for the hospital, but they hadn’t gotten that far yet.
Lila Mae moved past the office and stood at the junction in the stable, looking first left and then right, hoping a whiff of Trap’s cologne would come from one of the directions and tell her where he’d gone.
“Trap?” she called again. He didn’t give her a minute-by-minute schedule of his work, and he seemed to be out at the ranch every day. If he wasn’t, Jason or Sawyer was, and they definitely knew what they were doing to move the project along toward completion.
Lila Mae turned right and headed down that row of stalls, looking left and right into each one. They had been cleaned, and Trap had started laying flooring and adding walls. This side was done, and Lila Mae retraced her steps and continued down the other arm of the stable.
