Department of Health, McIntosh County
Eufaula, OK 74432
Phoebe read the letter three times through. Then, because fury and panic were making her vision dark and sparkly, she handed the page to Vin. He took it, and she walked stiff-legged to the pasture fence. The animals were still geeking out over the brushes.
This was Lydia Copperman’s big move. Her efforts to turn Phoebe’s donors and patrons away wasn’t returning the results she’d hoped for. I can have this rathole crawling with inspectors, UberBitch had also threatened, and she had meant it.
Phoebe ran a tight ship and cared for her charges as if they were her family—because they were her family. She knew Ragamuffin was completely up to code. In fact, in most cases, it far surpassed the minimum expectation of ‘up to code.’ There were a few things—like the roof of the stable—that the inspector in November had suggested they keep an eye on because they were only a year or two out from needing repair or replacement, but she knew for an absolute fact that everything on this ranch that had passed inspection in November would pass inspection two months later.
A fair and honest inspection, at least.
She had no confidence whatsoever that the inspection coming up—today or tomorrow!—would be fair and honest. UberBitch was siccing the health department on her, and to get this kind of speed from a government agency, she was obviously throwing her weight and her wallet around. This would not be a fair and honest inspection.
This inspection could very well ruin her.
And then she would lose everything. Everything.
Phoebe had lived on this farm all her life, as her father had before her, and his father before him. Her mother had been miserable here—unhappy with the farm, with the man she’d married, and with the child who had caused them to marry—and during Phoebe’s senior year of high school, less than two months after her father’s death, her mother had given her the farm and escaped to Florida to live like she’d never made a series of unfortunate choices in her own adolescence.
To Phoebe’s mother, this property had been an albatross. A prison. But she knew Phoebe loved it, so she knew it belonged with her.
It was the one truly decent thing her mother had ever done for her.
They hadn’t done any paperwork to transfer the deed to Phoebe’s name, because neither of them had thought about it. Phoebe had been an eighteen-year-old about to graduate and go into the Army when her mother had given her the property and scooted south to Florida, and then Phoebe had been in a coma, and then in rehab, and then in a transitional house, relearning complicated things like how to eat soup by herself, and legal paperwork had been sort of beyond her.
However, after she’d come out of the coma, she’d learned that her mother had died of a fentanyl overdose, so by the time she was capable of legal paperwork, all she had to do was procure and submit her mother’s death certificate and prove that she was the only heir.
Margot had lived in this house alone during Phoebe’s stint in the Army and her years of recovery. ‘Housesitting,’ she’d called it.
After Phoebe came home, with Vin in tow, they’d all been focused on figuring out their new little family, and building the business of Ragamuffin Ranch. They’d flung open their doors to other broken, lost strays just like them.
They’d made the place she’d been raised in, the land she loved, into a home, and they’d built a family in it.
Now one entitled woman with an aggrievement fetish was trying to tear it all down.
Vin came up alongside her and rested his meaty forearms on the fence. “It’s just an inspection, Bee. Everything’s in great shape. We got this.”
She shook her head. “It’s an inspection based on a complaint. That’s not routine. They’ll be looking for trouble this time. The stable roof is getting old. The last inspector said we probably only have a year or so before it won’t pass. Maybe this inspector will say we don’t have that year. The fences need sealant. Maybe this inspector will care about that. Puff’s worn that sore on his ass again. And Smoky still looks like a polka-dotted skeleton. Maybe this inspector will say those are our neglect. If this inspector’s in the pocket of my UberBitch, then of course he’ll make a big deal of anything he finds—maybe he’ll even plant shit on us.”
Her head pounded, her chest ached. The problem was becoming so big in her head she couldn’t see its edges anymore. Maybe it had no edges. It was a huge, endless blob of blackness that would take over everything and crush her under its weight. No solution, no recovery, nothing but ruin.
“Hey,” Vin said as he pulled her around to face him. “Slow down. You’re breathing too fast.”
She looked up and shook her head again. She couldn’t begin to think how to slow down. Or do anything at all.
Vin drew her to his chest and crushed her in his arms. “We got this, Bumblebee. We will figure it out. We’re a squad, right?”
All Phoebe could do was shake her head. Everything was no.
~oOo~
“Well, did you call and ask?” Margot asked.
Phoebe, Vin, and Margot sat at the kitchen table. They hadn’t bothered yet with supper; they’d barely bothered to turn on any lights. Everyone sat in the gloom, figuratively and literally.
On the old oak table was a bottle of Cuervo—now about half empty—three juice glasses, and the letter. The page was badly wrinkled now; Vin had clenched it in his fist without realizing it and then left it in a wad until Margot smoothed it out to read it.
Staring at the half-full glass in her hands, Phoebe shook her head.
“I fucking will, then. They need to give us more information. Fuck, maybe I’ll call the UberBitch herself and tell her what a cunt she is.”
“No, Marg,” Vin interjected. “That won’t help nothin’.”
Phoebe didn’t have the energy to participate in the conversation. Her head felt like a cauldron of boiling lava. She stared at her glass and only shook her head.
Then she felt Margot’s slim, manicured finger under her chin. “Look at me, honey. You gotta click back in now.”
“I’m clicked,” Phoebe said softly as she lifted her chin off Margot’s finger. “There’s just nothing to say.”
“What, you’re gonna just give up? Just let that bitch destroy everything you—we—have because you didn’t greet her with open arms when she barged in here like she owned the place?”
The bitter irony that maybe UberBitch would actually own this place when she was done forced a choked snicker from Phoebe’s throat. If either Vin or Margot reacted to that sound, Phoebe didn’t see it; she was staring at her glass.
“Can we fight this someway?” Vin asked. “Margie, can you talk to your boss?”
Margot sighed. “I can, and I will. There may be a couple things we can try. Ty’s at his kid’s basketball game, but I will call him later tonight. I’m sure he’ll help us out.”
“In the meantime, we need to do everything we can in the little bit of time we got to make this place sparkle,” Vin said, with a little more energy. And we need to make sure there are plenty of witnesses to this inspection.”
“And video documentation, too,” Margot added.
Hearing a tiny flutter of hope in her friends’ words, Phoebe finally looked up. Vin reached over and grabbed her hand. Seeing that, Margot grabbed her other.