Tie Dye and Flannel
Rhavensfyre
Tie Dye and Flannel (Chase and Rowan Series, Book 4)
Copyright © 2014 by Rhavensfyre
This is a work of fiction-names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Acknowledgements
To our lovely Beta Readers. You know who you are and you are loved. You put up with the odd, the obvious, and the painful. Your humor keeps us going, and you reassure us when we start to worry that everything has gone all to Hell.
To our readers who wait so patiently for the next book, who fall in love with our characters as much as we do, you are the reason we revisit these worlds we try to so carefully to construct.
To the universe around us, and the people who looked at us strangely as we discussed our plots and plans in public. Our enthusiasm might have caused some ear burning moments, but we hope you enjoyed our banter.
“As I was walking on land I considered mine, a hawk cried out from overhead. I gazed up at it, drifting on the air currents high above me, and I realized I was the trespasser.”
Chapter One
California, 1988
Dr. Stacie Phillips hummed along to the song on the radio. Love Will Find Its Way to You bounced along as happily as her truck did down the dirt road leading to the Flying S. The heavy duty truck springs were designed for the extra weight in the back, not for a comfortable ride or her backside.
All the necessary equipment a large animal vet would need was securely locked into various padded compartments in the utility box that sported the Phillips Vet Services name and logo. The white on white truck was now an even tan color as the dust cloud settled on its otherwise pristine surface. Stacie sighed and shook her head at the professional hazard. “I should buy stock in the local carwash.”
Reba McEntire was one of her favorite singers and this was her go-to tape when no one was around to hear her singing to the road. Even though Reba’s voice sounded grainy as hell from the tape being played so often, it was preferable to the radio and to her own voice, which she likened to the sound of an out of tune coyote howling at the wrong moon. This far out in the middle of nowhere she could barely pick up a signal on a good day, and it hadn’t been a good day so far. She slid a quick glance over at the spot where her antenna should have been, but now only sported a dejected stump where some ass had bent the metal beyond repair sometime last night. “Teenagers with nothing better to do,” Stacie muttered in disgust, conveniently forgetting all the trouble she and Josie used to get into back in high school. Now that she had a job, bills and student loans to pay off, she had learned the fine line between fun and destruction really quick.
Stacie grinned at an old memory of an equally dusty road and a much older and more decrepit pick-up truck carrying a much younger and less wise group of high school students playing hooky for the day. Stacie, Josie and Dee were all on that ride, bouncing in the back of Jess Robin’s Chevy and trying not to spill the beer’s Dee had lifted from his uncle’s “special” refrigerator. The one that sat on the porch and held nothing but beer. The kitchen fridge was for food, but he was too lazy to bring his beer inside, so it sat there, a beacon that called to a bunch of teenagers looking for trouble.
They had carefully pried open the bottom of a case and pulled out a few cans, then slid the much lighter box to the back and under another case and ran for it before he looked up from the television. “We could always threaten to tell his buddies he watches Guiding Light in his underwear if he catches us,” Josie whispered. Stacie’s heart was already prepared to leap out of her chest when Josie’s whisper sent it crawling up her throat and she hissed at her between clenched teeth to hush up. Josie laughed and spun away, leaving Stacie to bring up the rear. Her longer legs made up the distance between them quickly and they both jumped into the truck bed a second before they heard the screen door slam behind them.
“Damn, that was close,” Josie giggled, pulling a lock of bright auburn hair away from her face so she could grin wildly at Stacie. Stacie stared back at her best friend and contemplated punching her.
“Josephine Michelle Turner! That was the stupidest thing in the world to do,” she yelled, channeling Josie’s mother loud enough to be heard over the wind blowing past them.
“Maybe. But you only live once. Come on Stace, live a little, braniac,” Dee St. John teased, then threw her a beer and sidled in closer to Josie. He whispered something in her friend’s ear and she giggled and blushed. Stacie frowned, caught up in an unexpected surge of emotion. Anger? Why was she angry? Both Josie and Dee were her friends. Josie was her best friend. For as long as she could remember it was always the two of them against the world. She pretended to examine the can in her hands while she watched the two of them together. Josie looked up at Dee and smiled, a soft, secretive smile that sent another spike of anger
