Bella watches her fork, tracing the chipped edge of the ceramic. “You have a budget spreadsheet on the desk in the office.”
“I do.”
“Cascade’s number is at the bottom of the column.” She looks up, her hazel-gold eyes watchful. “It’s crossed out in red ink. Twice.”
“Three times, if you look closely.” I set my fork down. “They want to tear down the runs, clear the spruce, and grade the slope flat for three tiers of timber-frame condos. They call it ‘The Ridges at Angel’s Peak.’ Broke it down in a color pamphlet they mailed me three weeks ago. Showed a rendering of a hot tub where the whelping pen stands.”
She chews her lip, looking toward the window. The snow is still hitting the glass, a soft, relentless scratching. “It’s a lot of money. For both of us.”
“I don’t want their money.”
“I know. But I looked at the accounts. You’re running the clinic on the margins of the shelter, and the shelter is running on donations.” She defers her gaze, looking at her bare feet. “The lawyer told me the probate taxes alone are going to clear out what’s left of Jesse’s share of the bank account. If I don’t sign, or if we don’t find another way, the county will take the land anyway.”
“They won’t take it.”
“How are you going to stop them?”
“I’ll work more. The clinic down in the valley needs a surgeon three days a week. I can take the shifts.”
“You’re already working eighteen hours a day.” Her voice rises slightly, her calm slipping.
“How do you know that?”
“I checked your logbook. You were up at three this morning for a horse with colic, then you spent the afternoon plowing the drive, and then you worked on Atlas’s shoulder in a blackout. You can’t outwork a tax lien. I’ve seen people try. They just break.”
I look at the line of her collarbone, visible where the scarf has slipped. “I’m not going to break.”
“Jesse did.”
The name hangs between us, cold and heavy as a wet sheet.
I stand, the stool scraping loudly against the linoleum. I walk to the small sink, rinsing my fork under the cold tap, the water splash the only sound in the room. My back is to her, but her gaze presses against my shoulders, reading the tension, cataloging the anger I’m trying to clamp down.
“Jesse didn’t break because of the shelter.” I speak to the wall. “He broke because the war didn’t leave him enough pieces to build a life out of. He spent six years trying to patch up dogs because it was the only way he knew how to look at something broken without seeing himself.”
I turn around. She’s still sitting on the stool, her hands wrapped around the warm plate. She looks up at me, her face pale, the gold lights in her eyes wet.
“He came down for Christmas.” Her voice is barely above a whisper. “Made sure I came home. Wanted to spend time with all of us. He spent the whole afternoon of Christmas Eve asking me about my apartment in Denver. He wondered if the radiator was still leaking, if my locks were good. He wanted to make sure I had everything I needed. He spent hours grooming Atlas—checking his ears, checking his paws, making sure the old boy was fed and comfortable. He was making sure Atlas was takencare of, making sureIwas taken care of. But I was busy. I was working a remote shift from the guest room, three lines lit up on my board, two soldiers in Carson Ridge who were talking about their kits. I told Jesse I had to work.”
She stops. Her throat moves, a hard, swallowing line.
“And then on the twenty-sixth, he told me,Okay, Bell. Just make sure you keep the door locked.I was supposed to drive back to the city, but I stayed to work my remote shifts. I didn’t talk to him Saturday because I was working a double shift, talking to a soldier in Georgia who had barricaded himself in his barracks room. He was going to hang himself.” She looks at her hands. “I sat on the phone with him for four hours until his sergeant kicked the door in. And while I was doing that, my cousin was sitting in the garage just outside, looking at his truck, and…”
I cross the kitchen. I don’t think about the distance, or the rules, or my empty bedroom down the hall. I just go down on one knee in front of her stool, my hands finding her forearms, holding her still.
“Bella. Look at me.”
She doesn’t look up.
“Look at me.”
She lifts her chin, her eyes swimming, her chin shaking.
“He didn’t want to be saved.” My fingers tighten on the wool of her sleeves, feeling the heat of her arms underneath. “But he needed to know you’d be okay, one more time before he did what he’d already decided to do. You couldn’t have saved him. Nobody could.”
She looks at my hands on her arms. “You were his best friend. You were here. You split a life with him.”
“And I missed it too.” The admission scrapes on the way up, the raw truth of it landing like a weight in my own throat. “I had him on the phone that Tuesday. He sounded tired. I told him to go split wood. I told him I’d see him Saturday. I’m the vet who keeps things breathing for a living. I can coax a frightened shepherd off a kill table, but I didn’t see my best friend dying. We both missed it. We have to carry that. But we don’t have to let it destroy us.”
