Running Wild(Wild #3)(80)

That he remembers what I was drinking at the Ale House means he was paying attention—a rare occurrence for most men I’ve met. Even Jonah forgets how I take my coffee sometimes.

I try not to read too much into this as I smile and gesture toward the empty Adirondack chair opposite me. “Knock yourself out. I’m on duty until Cory gets here at midnight to take over.”

“Just the two of you running this whole place, huh?”

“It’s a small place. And it works most of the time.”

Tyler sinks into the chair, his thighs falling apart as he yanks a can off the ring. The sound of the tab cracking cuts through an otherwise silent night.

Every nerve ending in my weary body has come alive. “So, how was the rest of your day?”

“Frustrating.” He takes a long sip. “No tags or markers on the trap, and it was set maybe fifty feet off a main trail. On top of the long grass, not buried under it, so it couldn’t have been put there too long ago. I think someone was trying to catch a dog.”

“Asshole.” My stomach clenches. It’s hard to imagine someone doing something so cruel, but it happens, and his theory makes sense. Trapping and hunting is allowed in the recreation area, but not in July. The season for animals needing that size of trap doesn’t start until November. “You call the trappers’ association?”

“I called them, called Wildlife, called Fish and Game. I called everybody. Spent the evening on the phone and doing paperwork. I doubt we’ll find the sick bastard who did it. Don’t be shocked if you get a call from the paper once they catch wind of this, though.”

“No doubt. It’s a story.” And more ammo for the anti-trappers. It’s a never-ending battle, between those opposed to all trapping and those who see legal trapping as a right and a way of life. In this case, this trap was illegal, and no one will condone what happened. But still, there will be those who can’t help but point their stubby fingers at Rachel for allowing Beau off his leash, and that will get plenty of dog lovers’ backs up.

“How is he?” Tyler asks.

“Sleeping right now.” I hold up the baby monitor screen on the clinic post-op room. “He’s doing well. His surgery was straightforward.”

Tyler adjusts his position, stretching his legs, setting his boot heels on the edge of the table, inches from my running shoes. “It’s amazing, how you know how to do that.”

“Yeah, it’s amazing what eight years of school, a residency, and a few hundred grand can get you.” Though, in truth, I started learning long before I ever sat down for my first lecture in veterinary school, all my free time spent in the clinic with my dad.

Tyler whistles. “Bet that’s gonna take forever to pay off.”

“And I’ll end up giving this girl a discount because I feel so bad for her.” Cory said Rachel’s face paled when she gave her the estimate for the surgery, but then she nodded and reiterated that she’ll get the money. “At this rate, I should be done paying off my loans by the time I die.” Even with the help my parents provided.

“You won’t need to give her a discount.” He digs his phone out of his pocket, and hitting a few buttons, passes me his phone. His fingers graze mine.

I struggle to ignore the innocuous touch as I study the grid of aesthetic pictures that fill it. “‘Beau the Bear-nese,’” I read out loud, checking the profile. “He has a million followers on Instagram? A million people have followed a dog?”

Tyler smirks. “And that’s growing by the hour. Apparently, her TikTok profile is just as big.”

“How’d you find this?”

“I’m good at getting information out of people. More than I need, usually.”

He certainly got a lot out of me last weekend. It seems all he had to do was bat those long lashes my way, and now the man knows all my dirty laundry, my biggest vulnerabilities.

But I’ve seen another side to him, too, one he works hard to hide from everyone else.

I scroll through the pictures, scanning the quick and quippy captions. I assume Rachel has taken most of these pictures, save for the ones she’s posing in with Beau, looking nothing like the sobbing, frightened kid in my clinic and everything like a confident, sensual woman. “Wow, she even has merchandise.” T-shirts and beanies with caricatures of Beau.

“She’s smart.”

“I don’t understand any of this world.” Sure, I opened accounts, but I’m never on them. I don’t even remember my passwords. “Jonah’s wife is all over this sort of thing. She’d be impressed.” Calla not only manages the plane charter business—all the marketing and administrative paperwork, and a website she designed and built herself—and the cabin rental, which is booked well into next year, but she’s also establishing herself as a marketing expert around the area. What started out as volunteering for the Winter Carnival and local farmers’ market is turning into a marketing side hustle that she’s now charging for.

On top of all that, she still keeps a personal blog alive, posting regularly about her life in Alaska with her yeti. The girl has more balls in the air than I could ever manage, and she hasn’t dropped one yet.

Tyler nods toward the phone. “Did you see Rachel’s latest post?”

“No.” I scroll back up to the top. Huh. “She’s set up a GoFundMe page for him.” That has already earned enough to cover the surgery fees plus recovery appointments and therapy. I curse under my breath. “She wasn’t kidding when she said she’d find the money.”