One Last Sunset (The Long Ranch Series Book 1) by Michel Prince Page B

she probably hasn’t even seen half of.”
    “What do you know about Mellie?”
    “She’s a Long, and although they took pity on you when you were younger, you’re a Parker, not one of them.”
    Sunny thought maybe he should go ask the Longs what was going on himself, than trust second hand knowledge from dear old dad.
    They’d reached the store and the three hundred dollars turned into seven, but Sunny could cover it. He may not have won all the time on the circuit, but when he did, JT had helped him save the money instead of blowing it like a home schooled kid away at college.
    He got back to the Hard Root right on time and it only took a few crates of beer for him to recognize his limitation. He apologized to Carolyn as she passed him a few twenties for the effort. Now he had to figure out how he could be useful to the Long’s. They were his last chance for a job. But as the night wore on her door stopped swinging from new patrons and none of those in the bar were named Long. Before last call he headed home with his father’s voice echoing in his head. He was a Parker and Parker’s in Tender Root were lower than mushrooms growing off cow pies. At least those you could smoke.
     
    * * * *
     
    Kendra had stayed at home while Melody went back and tested samples for the courier. A gas spec may be something a human hospital would have on hand, but not their little clinic.
    “Take the weekend. You have your friend here. At this point I’m not sure a day or two would make a difference.” Doc picked up the phone. “I’ll call Winston’s to give them an update. Why don’t you head—”
    “Myron,” Velma called. “We’ve got a bad one.”
    Doc and Mel jumped up and headed to the lobby where a little girl, probably about ten, with blonde pigtails was sobbing with blood all over her shirt and a kitten held tight to her chest.
    “Randy’s dog got her. Please Doc, I ran all the way here.”
    Doc knelt by the little girl and she placed the almost lifeless tabby in his hands. The cat looked to be about six months old. Still small in Doc’s hands as he cradled it as if it were a newborn made of thin glass. Velma passed Mel a stethoscope and she found shallow breath sounds and an erratic heartbeat.
    “Please Doc,” the girl sniffed as she wiped the snot from her nose. “Don’t let Winnie die.”
    Doc looked at Mel who tilted her head to the side.
    “She’s alive,” Mel said, keeping her voice low.
    “Velma, call Chrissie’s mama and let her know where she is and make sure none of that blood is hers.” Doc passed Winnie to Mel, then cradled Chrissie’s head in his hand. “I’ll see what we can do.”
    They went in the back and laid the kitten on the table.
    “Chrissie just lives a few blocks away, she’s you in training,” he explained. “You need to assess the damage and run this like any other animal, but I’m mostly doing this because you need the experience.”
    “Of what, breaking a kid’s heart?” Mel said as she saw the multiple puncture wounds along the abdomen. Her hands began to shake. It had been months since she’d seen a trauma case, and never something so tiny. She wished she’d paid more attention during the smaller animal part of her training.
    “Hopefully not. Its neck isn’t snapped so the mutt must not have shook the thing too much. Let’s get it into x-ray and then shave it so we can see what we’re working with.” Doc stroked the gray fur on the belly. “I know Bert is supposed to deal with the small domestics out here. His clinic gets a lot of traffic, but when you’re thirty, forty miles out of town caring for some cattle or horses, smaller creatures appear. If you don’t help them those ranchers aren’t gonna drive into town for anything besides sterilization on a good day.”
    “It’s not that I don’t like the little ones…” Melody looked down and the kitten was struggling for air as its little paws twitched.
    “The bleeding seems to of stopped. We may