It took me twelve months to recover from burnout eight years ago. It nearly ruined my marriage and destroyed my family. I don’t want that to happen to you.”
She blinked. This was news. He had three beautiful children, and the youngest was eight.
“But I don’t have a family,” she said softly. Most of her friends worked right here in this department. What was she going to do with herself for two months? What about her nightmares, with no work to distract her from their impact?
She forced herself to stand and walk to the door, hoping she didn’t look as stunned as she felt.
“Chey?”
She turned around, hoping he’d changed his mind.
“You might want to try some grief counseling. I’m speaking to you as a friend, not your boss. We all know how losing Susan—”
“Save it, Jim, you don’t have a clue.” She knew she sounded ungracious, but something in her had snapped, Jim couldn’t imagine her life as a single ER physician, whose schedule was never the same, who could seldom arrange for her own time off to coincide with that of her friends—even less could he understand her grief.
What was she going to do now? How could this day possibly get any worse?
She picked up the next envelope on the mail stack at her work space. She opened it, forgot to breathe.
This was a request for the release of Susan Warden’s medical records to Hodgkin and Long, a legal firm. The request was signed by Kirk Warden.
Cheyenne covered her face with her hands.
Her former brother-in-law had meant his threat at Susan’s funeral. He believed she was instrumental in the death of her own sister.
Was she?
Chapter Six
The smoky aroma of sausage and onions permeated the ranch kitchen and mingled with the chatter of the boys around the extensive breakfast table. Cook knew how to make Saturdays special with a big spread of food.
Dane ate quietly, watching and listening. If Willy and Blaze had any idea what Austin’s visit was about, they didn’t let on as they joked and laughed with the rest.
No way could any of them have sneaked off the property in the wee morning hours. Dane would have known.
Wouldn’t he?
He had good kids. Austin Barlow enjoyed reminding him of that solitary incident when a problem child had slipped through the screening process for the ranch, but nothing like it had happened since.
Seventeen-year-old Jinx leaned toward Dane, his red hair sticking out in fifteen directions. “So what’d he want?”
Dane sipped his coffee. “What did who want?”
“Couldn’t’ve been good,” Willy said from the other end of the table. “The mayor never drives all the way out here just to visit. Notice he didn’t just take his boat across, like the others do. He drove all the way around.”
Dane speared another sausage link as the platter passed by. “Our local vandal is up to more of his activities.”
Jinx put down his fork. Willy rested his elbows on the table. One by one the boys fell silent.
“How would Austin know it’s a him?” Cook demanded. “Could be a her.”
“Anyway,” Dane said, “a boat burned at the new dock. The fire apparently started sometime last night or early this morning.”
Surprise registered on all faces. Tyler and James glanced across the table at Blaze.
“You have a local vandal?” Blaze asked. “Like this is a normal thing?”
“It’s happened before. Dane got his tires slashed last year, and now it seems to be escalating,” Cook said. “We’re right uptown with the big boys. Anybody get hurt, Dane?”
“Austin said no.”
Cook grabbed the empty pancake platter and carried it to the stove for a refill. “Not sure I believe anything that blowhard would say,” he muttered, breaking a house rule against name-calling. Long strands of gray hair fell loose over his right ear, baring his shiny scalp. “You’re the one who pushed so hard to get that dock approved, Dane. So why’d he come running to you soon as something happened?”
“Don’t know.”
“He expect you to know something about the vandalism? Or may he just wanted to gloat a little. He never wanted that dock. Whose boat is it? Belong to anybody we know?”
“He didn’t say.”
“He thinks one of us did it,” Willy said.
“He does, doesn’t he?” Jinx blinked sleepily, his bright-red hair reflecting itself in the freckles that covered his face like an uneven tan. He’d been up late last night playing chess with Cook after chores and homework.
Jinx, the “big brother” of the family, would be graduating from high school with honors in a few weeks. He took it personally when someone criticized his foster brothers.
“Austin ought to know better,” Cook said.
“He wants to blame us,” Jinx said.
Willy tugged one of Blaze’s dreadlocks. “Bet he thinks it’s you, Dr. Doolittle.”
Blaze leaned away and shoveled potatoes onto his fork. “Blaze is my name, blazing’s my game.”
“This isn’t something to joke about,” Dane warned. “And there’s more. Mrs. Potts found her cat shot dead on her front porch this morning.”
The kids stopped eating. Blaze displayed an unappealing glimpse of his breakfast.
“Close your mouth, please, Blaze,” Dane said.
Blaze swallowed. “Somebody killed her cat?”
“That’s what the mayor said.”
A storm gathered in Blaze’s eyes.
“Bet it was Danny Short,” Willy said. “He’d do it. Danny’s such a jerk.”
“Watch the names,” Dane warned.
“He’s always picking on the littler kids at school,” Jinx said. “And just about everybody’s littler than he is. He calls Blaze a—”
“He don’t call me anything I haven’t been called before,” Blaze said. “Let him talk.”
“If Dr. Doolittle didn’t wear pigtails, Danny wouldn’t pick on him,” Willy said.
“They’re not pigtails, and he’d do it anyway,” Blaze said. “All he sees is my color.”
“Austin
