High Country Homecoming. Roxanne Rustand

eight. I barely knew her, sad to say.”

      Devlin glanced in the rearview mirror and adjusted the angle to check on the dog in the back. The poor thing hadn’t done so much as whimper during the fifteen-mile trip to Pine Bend. Was she even still alive? Given the extent of the wounds and obvious infection, she was going to face a long recovery if she even made it into town.

      At the clinic, two vet techs came out and helped carry the dog into an exam room. The older one, a woman in her fifties with Bonnie on her name tag, began an initial exam, while the younger gal filled out information on a clipboard.

      When the younger tech left to get a handheld chip scanner, Bonnie cocked her head and gave Devlin a long look. “You must be Gus Langford’s middle son. Am I right?”

      Since he’d given his name over the phone before driving into town, her guess wasn’t much of a stretch, but he knew a conversational ploy when he heard it, and also knew how to deflect. He nodded curtly.

      “Sorry about your dad, bless his soul. Parkinson’s is such a cruel disease. He had a long, hard struggle, but Betty and Jess did right by him.” She nodded, as if agreeing with herself. “You should have no doubt about that.”

      If there was any accusation in her voice, he couldn’t hear it, but he felt a sliver of guilt at any rate. He should have been here. He could have been here at least part of the time, to help out at the ranch. But he’d let the pain and bitterness of the past inform his decisions, and death offered no second chances.

      The other tech bustled into the room to scan the dog for any identification chips, and the young vet—Dr. Weldon, according to her name badge—walked into the room ten minutes later.

      “My goodness,” she said softly. “Who do you have here?”

      “She was laying outside my cabin,” Chloe said. “I don’t know how she managed to get there, because she’s so weak.”

      The vet gently examined the dog and shook her head. “Obviously she’s had this injury for some time, and that infection doesn’t look good. With her high fever and malaise, it could well be systemic by now.”

      “But you can save her, right?” Chloe pleaded. “The poor thing deserves a chance.”

      “Once we’ve got her cleaned up better, get some X-rays and bloodwork drawn, we’ll have a better idea of what we’re dealing with. Why don’t you two step out for a bit—we won’t be long.”

      When they all convened in the exam room once more, the vet ran a gentle hand over the dog’s ribs. “She does have oblique fractures of the second through fifth metacarpals.”

      Devlin frowned. “Four bones? That doesn’t sound good.”

      “Think of them like the bones that lie close together within the palm of your hand. They do show less displacement than I feared, so that’s in her favor. At first glance, I was expecting comminuted—badly shattered—fractures that were perhaps beyond repair, with significant soft tissue damage and possibly the start of necrosis. Meaning, her best chance would be amputation of that leg.”

      Chloe drew in a sharp breath, and the vet looked up at her with a gentle smile. “You’d be surprised at how well dogs can do on three legs.”

      “She has a good chance of recovery, then?”

      The vet nodded. “She’s dehydrated and hasn’t eaten in a long while, so I want to debride her wounds, start IV fluids and antibiotics, and put her on a critical nutrition diet. She does need surgical repair of that leg, probably with bone plates and screws. Do you have any idea where she might have come from?”

      Devlin cleared his throat. “No idea. I’ve been away from Montana for a long time, so I don’t know the locals anymore.”

      “With no chip and no collar, we can’t contact her owners.” Dr. Weldon studied the dog for a moment. “I wonder if this could be Leonard Farley’s dog.” She looked up at the older tech, who shrugged. “Farley was an old Vietnam vet who lived by himself in a remote area. Hikers found him dead last fall. Heart attack, according to the autopsy. There were no relatives to contact, but the sheriff told me he owned a Great Pyrenees service dog that no one ever found.”

      “From the looks of her, this dog didn’t have much more time left.” Devlin shook his head slowly, imagining the dog’s struggle to survive on its own for so long—even throughout an entire Montana winter. “After what she’s been through, she deserves good care and a good home. I’ll take responsibility for now. If an owner turns up, he can settle with me later.”

      “No—I will,” Chloe said firmly. “You were kind enough to help me with getting her here, but it isn’t fair to let you pick up the bills.”

      Chloe and her foolish pride. Yet he could hardly fault her for her strong sense of honor, and his respect for her grew.

      Dr. Weldon looked between the two of them with a wry smile. “Usually I’ve got people trying to avoid responsibility in these cases. I’ll put you both down and let you figure it out between the two of you later.”

      “Just give it to me.” Chloe had that stubborn gleam in her eyes again, but this time she wasn’t going to win.

      A whopping vet bill could be devastating to someone like her, who was between jobs and driving a battered fifteen-year-old SUV. And knowing her parents, they probably came to her for money rather than the other way around. She wouldn’t have any help from them.

      For all the mistakes he’d made during his life in Montana, for all the times he’d hardened his heart and resolutely gone his own way without looking back, this could be one small chance to finally do the right thing.