Carly Hughes, his liaison from admin, smiled sympathetically. "The separation process for leaving the service is paved with more paperwork than a very messy celebrity divorce." She moved one stack closer to another. "And while you're doing all that you'll be attending classes to prepare you for reentry into civilian life and help to find you a new career."
"I already know what I'm doing next."
She glanced at him. "Really?"
"Yeah. My family owns a cattle ranch near here."
"So you're a cowboy?"
He shrugged. "More of a rancher, but I can ride a horse."
"And you rope cattle and all that kind of dirty, messy manly stuff?"
She sounded all kinds of breathy. Was she one of those women who thought cowboys were romantic? Blue put more space between them. "I do what needs to be done."
She sat down on the corner of his desk and studied him carefully. "That's good to know."
He picked up the nearest folder and looked inside. There were about ten forms in there alone. He hastily put it back on the stack.
"As I can't climb and I'm on my way out, I've also got to help the other instructors with scheduling and lesson plans." Which was about as exciting as it sounded. The other guys had been delighted to pass all the shit jobs over to him.
"Then you're going to be a busy man." She stood up and brushed down her skirt. "Let me know if you need any extra help."
"Will do."
She waited a second longer than necessary, but he slid into his chair and started firing up his laptop. Carly was a great-looking woman, but he'd already set his sights on the next phase of his life, and getting involved with someone still in the service wasn't going to work out. Getting involved with someone period was going to have to wait a few years until he'd established himself at the ranch.
He had a plan, and nothing was going to stop him from making Morgan Ranch the best historical dude ranch in the state of California, if not the world. He was a Marine. When he set his mind to something, he never failed.
Taking a deep breath, Blue took another file, scanned the contents, got a pen and started to fill in the blanks.
* * *
"Mom . . ." Jenna McDonald sighed and held the phone farther away from her ear as her mother started in on an all-too familiar theme. "Let's not do this right now, okay? I just called to wish you happy birthday."
She closed her eyes. "Yeah, I wish I was with you, too. No, I don't want you to look for a safer job for me where you live. I'm really happy here with Uncle Ron and Aunt Amy. Yeah. I also know that when Faith gets back, I might be out of work."
Her mom kept talking and eventually Jenna just let it flow over her. It was almost three and afternoon clinic was due to start, which meant she needed to move things along. Adopting her most cheerful, nonaggressive, super-validating tone-the one she'd learned in family therapy-she cut across what her mom was saying.
"I know you worry because you care, Mom. I understand your position perfectly, and I will think about every single thing you have said to me today. Now why don't you go and have a nice dinner with Dad? Call me tomorrow and tell me all about it, okay?"
She barely waited for her mom to make some kind of agreeing noise before she said an airy good-bye and put the phone down. She loved her mom, but sometimes it was like trying to stop a river in flood. Not that her dad was any better, but at least he tried to listen to her occasionally and had been instrumental in finding her the job with his brother at the most northern end of California, far from her mother and hypersuccessful sisters.
"Jenna?" Meg, one of the veterinary techs put her head around the door. She was an older woman who'd been with the practice for years and had saved Jenna's ass on several occasions already. "You okay to start seeing folks? You're the only one here."
"Sure." She grabbed her white coat and slid her reading glasses on top of her head. "Do we have many waiting?"
Unlike most modern veterinary practices, her uncle preferred to let the afternoon clinic remain a free-for-all, which meant sometimes there were twenty people crammed into the small waiting room and other days it was crickets. Jenna didn't mind. It was all new to her, and every appointment helped her gain valuable knowledge. Most large animal veterinary practices didn't deal with the smaller pet stuff, but they were the only clinic for forty miles, so they happily coped with everything.
"Only three so far. I've put Monica Flaherty in exam room one, so you can start there. Files on the outside of the door."
"Got it."
Jenna went into the exam room, closing the door quickly behind her because she never knew exactly what she'd be facing. There were many desperate escapees who didn't want to be there-and that was just the humans.
Ha.
"Hey, Monica. What's up?"
The teenager frowned. "Where's Dave?"
"He's out on a call." Inwardly Jenna sighed. Her cousin was thirty-one and single and the cause of intense local feminine interest. "Do you want to go back to the front desk and make an appointment to see him specifically?"
Monica's sigh was almost loud enough to rattle the window glass. "No. It's okay. I found this by the side of the highway." She pointed at a box on the metal exam table.
Jenna cautiously opened the lid and peered inside. There was a towel covering the bottom of the box, and coiled within it was a large white and brown patterned snake.
"Did you find this guy in the actual box, or on the road?"
"On the road. I put him on the damp towel and sat him on top of the water heater last night."
"Great idea. He was probably way too cold out there to survive." Jenna checked over what she could see of the snake's lean coils.
Monica came to look over her shoulder. "What kind is it?"
"It's a California king snake, I think. He's not poisonous or anything, but he is a powerful constrictor." Jenna glanced at Monica. "You probably know that, seeing as you picked him up."
"I made Finn do it. He thought it was a rattlesnake."
"They sometimes rattle their tails to scare predators into thinking they are rattlesnakes." Jenna closed the lid of the box. "I assume you don't want to keep him?"
"I'd like to, but my mom said no." Monica pouted. "Can you find him a good home?"
"I can certainly ask around, but he could survive in the wild. He's native to California and he's not called the king for nothing."
Monica fiddled with the box. "Dave knows a lot about snakes, doesn't he?"
Which was probably why Monica had made her boyfriend pick the snake up in the first place. The poor guy. "He sure does. I'll check in with him when he comes back. Do you want me to call and let you know what happens?"
"When you talk to Dave?" Monica perked up. "Maybe he could call me himself?"
"Someone will definitely call you when we've made a decision." Jenna hid a smile as she washed her hands. "Thanks for bringing the big guy in."
"Okay."
Jenna patted the teen's shoulder as she left the exam room and belatedly picked up the chart Meg had left in a slot by the door. She wrote a quick summary of the visit. It was weird going back to writing notes with a real pen after the tablets at her last job. Attempting to decipher her colleagues' handwriting was another head-numbing task altogether.
Meg came out of the second exam room and Jenna handed her the file. "Monica found a California king snake by the side of the road. I don't know enough about them to tell if it's injured or not. Can we put it out back in the heated terrarium until Dave comes in?"
"Sure." Meg nodded. "I'll take it right out and then come back to assist you. Pet rabbit in two."
"Got it." This time Jenna remembered to pick up the clipboard and went into the room. She found one of the Hayes family that ran the local hotel clutching a large black and white rabbit to his chest. "Hey, Wade, who's this?"
The boy cuddled the rabbit even closer. He was the youngest boy in the big Hayes family and Jenna reckoned he was around twelve. "Duke."
"That's a great name." Jenna perched on the edge of the table and gently stroked Duke's nose. "So what's up with him?"
"He's been, like, acting really strange."
"In what way?"
"Getting cranky with me, trying to dig his way out of the cage and, like, moving stuff around the place into big piles in the corners."
"Weird," Jenna said. "Can I take a good look at him?"
"He's like real grumpy at the moment."
"I'll be careful," Jenna promised as she set the rabbit on the exam table. She kept petting him with one hand as she palpated his abdomen with the other. "Do you have any other rabbits?"
"Yeah, one more called Stan, short for Stanford."
"Do they share a cage?"
"Yeah, why?"
Jenna looked at Wade over Duke's head. "Is your mom here with you?"