Carolyn McSparren - The Money Man

Tomorrow was soon enough to tackle Mark. Tomorrow she’d meet the staff, assess the facilities, and do some real work. Tomorrow she’d start lining up allies in her battle against the bureaucracy. This was one battle she expected to win, and win quickly. Mark Scott didn’t have a clue how hard—and how dirty—she could fight. When it came to her patients, she was like a mamma grizzly defending her cubs.

SARAH CALLED HER FATHER in St. Paul before she went to bed, only to get his answering machine. She gave it her telephone number and hung up. She supposed he’d gone over to one of his sons’ houses for a family conference on the best way to get Sarah to come back home.

It was nearly midnight when the phone rang. Sarah picked it up.

“At home at least you had an apartment. Now you live in a motel,” Lars Marsdon said in his clipped voice.

“Actually, this is nicer than my apartment, and the clinic is paying for it.”

“You quit your job and ran off to Tennessee because you had a fight with your fiancé. You’ve made your point, so come back home.”

“Dad, I just got here this afternoon.”

“So, you won’t have had time to settle. They will not miss you. Your old job is still available. Steve told me he would hold it for a couple of days, although he is annoyed because you walked out on him.”

“Dad—” She tried to sound patient, but could feel her heart rate increasing with every sentence. “Steve was never going to allow me to be a partner. Then, when I gave him notice, he got so mad he told me to get out right that minute. I would have stayed two weeks. The choice was his, not mine.”

“This is your home. This is where your family, your fiancé, your job are. Come home where you belong.”

“Sorry, but no.”

“Call back when you’re ready to speak sensibly.” He hung up.

Sarah lay back and tried to slow down her breathing.

How soon would Lars Marsdon mobilize the troops? Would he ask all three of her brothers and their wives to call and put additional pressure on her? That’s what he generally did when he didn’t agree with her choices. Occasionally Peter would refuse, but the other two always went along with their father. They were all so content with their lives that they couldn’t understand why she wanted more.

Sarah always wondered whether they made up their own scripts or said what Lars told them to say. Didn’t matter. This time she was free, and intended to remain free.

Now, all she had to do was make Mark see things her way.

“HEY, DR. SARAH,” Alva Jean Huxtable chirped, when Sarah walked in the front door of the clinic the next morning. “Mr. Scott said to tell you he’s bringing you a cell phone, and there’s a parking place for you around back. The staff park there.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.”

“That’s okay. It’s not like we’re running out of parking space in front.” Alva Jean looked at the nearly empty waiting room.

“Dr. Rick said he was going to try to get everybody together at eleven so you could meet them.”

“Where?”

“He calls it his conference room, but it’s really our break room. He’s got a drink machine and a snack machine in there and a little refrigerator. If you bring your lunch, you better mark the sack with your name—otherwise somebody’s bound to steal it.”

Sarah raised her eyebrows. “Thanks, I’ll remember that. Do I have a desk?”

Alva Jean shook her head. “Not yet, but there are some extra file cabinets in the storeroom. You can have one of those, if Rick says it’s okay.”

Sarah smiled. “Thanks. I’ll ask him when I see him.”

She pushed through the door to the central hall and glanced in at Mark’s partially open door, but he wasn’t in. For some reason, she felt a stab of disappointment. Was she so anxious to go into battle with him again? Or was there another more personal reason? Nonsense. The fact that he was tall with brown eyes that crinkled at the corners had nothing to do with anything. She simply relished a good fight with a worthy adversary. Period.

At this point she didn’t even know the full extent of the battle she needed to wage.

At the far end of the hall there was a door with a smoked-glass panel in the upper half. Beside it someone had taped a small handwritten sign that read, Large Animals. No fancy brass plaques back here.

To the right, a solid door had a green lighted exit sign over it. That must lead to the employees’ parking area. She’d move her truck there as soon as she’d done a bit of exploring. She needed to restock the vet cabinet in the back of her truck, anyway. One of the vet techs here ought to be able to restock for her. While she’d half watched television in her motel room last night, she’d put together a basic list of the drugs and paraphernalia she’d need.

She took a deep breath and opened the door. Then stood for a moment and stared. The room was cavernous, the central hall more than wide enough to admit an eighteen-wheeler. On the right, doors could be rolled up into the ceiling so that a big rig of cows could be backed into the slot that opened into a large fenced pen.

She opened the first door on her left. It was empty except for packing boxes and paint cans. She assumed it would eventually be her office. She’d probably have to leave room for storage shelves that would hold everything except the drugs that had to be kept double-locked and accounted for to the government.

She walked past the cow pen, and past the small stalls where cows or bulls could be kept individually so that they could be examined safely in a relatively confined space. Looked strong. Good. An angry bull or cow could do extensive damage.

Past that area on her right were three doors. She peeked through the window of the first and saw a completely padded stall—floor, walls and ceiling. The recovery area—where a large animal could come out of anesthesia without hurting itself. The next two doors opened into similar stalls, but without the padded walls. These, then, were the ones that Mark had told her weren’t quite finished. Three recovery stalls—impressive for a private clinic. Many of the teaching veterinary hospitals didn’t have as many.

On her right across the broad hall, she discovered the prep room where the animals could be anesthetized and readied for surgery. Through the double doors at the end of the prep room, she could see the surgery. She opened the door, but when she flipped the light switch, nothing happened. Great. She hoped no horses or cows would have to be operated on by candlelight.

The surgery seemed to contain only basic equipment. The lights, when they were hooked up, would no doubt be more than adequate, but at the moment it was difficult to tell much in the gloom.

As to the diagnostic equipment she’d been promised—one portable ultrasound was all she could see. Well, that would change.

She stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips. First priority—get the blasted lights hooked up. That was something Mark could darn well put at the top of his To Do list.

“Help ya?” A raspy voice spoke from behind her.

She jumped and turned.

“New doc, are ya?”

The man who leaned against the far wall grinned at her. He stood no more than five-two or -three and probably weighed a hundred ten pounds. His face was covered with sun-ruined skin, wrinkled like badly tanned leather, and the teeth revealed in that grin were crooked. His blue eyes were bright as a bird’s.

“I’m Sarah Marsdon.”

“The new vet?” He narrowed his eyes at her. “Told me you were a lady, but didn’t say that you were a pretty one. I’m Jack. Jack Renfro. I’m your vet tech, your surgery assistant, and your jack-of-all-trades, no pun intended.”