“I’m good, thanks.” Liam cleared his throat. “I’m not here to donate. I mean, I am in a way.” He started over. “I’m concerned about the future of the hospital. The dialysis wing, specifically.”
“Ugh, the dialysis wing. Losing money hand over fist.” He listened to the person on the other end of the phone a moment, poured himself a glass of expensive rum and laughed. “Got that right,” he said to the caller, then turned to Liam. “Too many machines to replace. Better to just shut it down.”
Liam frowned. “I think I can raise enough funds to buy the necessary dialysis machines.”
“Waste of time,” Gary said. “We can’t hold back progress. Aggregating services in urban centers is where it’s at. You can’t have a dialysis unit in every little town.”
“Sure you can,” Liam said. “I just told you how we’re going to do it.”
“The machines are only part of the problem. There’s the overhead. The human-hours to run the clinic. If we shut it down, we can shave ten percent off our overall operating costs.”
“How many lives does that represent?” Liam challenged him.
Gary rolled his eyes. “We move the dialysis unit, the patients move, too. And then maybe I can finally get the heck out of this backwater town.” The person on the other end of the phone said something, and Gary laughed.
Figured. Another person willing to tear things apart to get what they wanted with no thought for those left dealing with the wreckage. “You can’t tell me that patients live as long away from their homes and families.”
“You’re taking this too personally. This isn’t about people—it’s about the math.”
Liam knew he’d lose his cool if he didn’t get out of here. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m taking this personally. I’m personally going to keep Chance Creek’s dialysis center open, and then I’m personally going to see to it you lose your job. Got it?”
Gary straightened. “Get the fuck out of here.”
“Gladly.”
“Can you meet me for lunch at the Burger Shack?” Liam said when Tory answered her phone. “I need to talk to someone before I explode.”
“Sure thing. Give me twenty minutes.” She was tired of paperwork, and she wouldn’t mind spending a little time with Liam. God knew she thought about him enough when he wasn’t around.
Too much, she decided as she shut down her laptop, freshened up, grabbed her purse and went out to her truck. She had to remember she was here only temporarily, while Liam was here to stay—if Mary didn’t manage to sell the Flying W.
Lost in thought, she was surprised when another vehicle approached and parked in front of the house. It took Tory a moment to recognize Bart and Maggie Lawson. She’d only vaguely known them growing up, but they’d recently become close to Lance, so she’d seen them around a bit more frequently.
“Lance and Maya aren’t here,” Tory said after greeting them. “I’ll let them know you stopped by when I see them.” When Bart exchanged a glance with Maggie, she added, “Is everything all right?”
“I don’t know how to sugar coat this so I’ll just blurt it out,” Bart began. “We were wandering around the Ridley property.”
“Just for the heck of it,” Maggie put in hurriedly. “We don’t really think we’ll win the contest.”
“We stumbled on something. It looked like someone was already using the property, planting a crop.”
Tory frowned. “Nobody should be using it yet.”
“Exactly,” Maggie said. “Especially not for an illegal harvest.”
“Illegal?”
Bart cleared his throat. “We checked it out. It wasn’t tomatoes or peas, if you catch my drift. Someone’s growing—” He looked to his wife, as if asking for help.
“Pot,” Maggie said bluntly. “They’re growing pot.”
Tory’s heart sank. Just like thirteen years ago, if Olivia was to be believed. But her father and William were gone. Who had planted it this time around?
“Did you call it in?” she asked.
Bart shifted. “We wanted to mention it to Lance first. In case—you know.”
“In case it’s ours.” She wanted to be indignant, but how could she be given her family’s past? “Go ahead and tell anyone you want to,” she said. “It’s not my family’s.” She hoped she was right about that.
“We’ll just leave it alone.” Bart held his hands out wide. “We don’t want any trouble.”
Tory didn’t want any trouble, either, but apparently she didn’t get a say. She watched Bart and Maggie drive off, then heaved a sigh and texted Liam.
He’d sounded upset and she wanted to be there for him, but she needed to be there for her family first.
Normally Liam didn’t mind eating alone, but today was different. Even though Tory had promised to make it up to him, he couldn’t help wondering about her real reason for canceling lunch. When he’d talked to her just minutes ago, she’d seemed happy to come and meet him. Then she’d called back with a vague excuse about being needed at home. He didn’t know what to make of that. Hanging out had been easy at Runaway Lake, but ever since they’d been home, it had gotten much more complicated. Uncle Jed had been on his case earlier about the Founder’s prize again. Who knew what Tory was dealing with at Thorn Hill?
He shouldn’t even be wasting time eating lunch in town. Between the organic certification inspection and the hospital fundraising plan, he had plenty to do. He should zip home and get a start on brainstorming ideas before it was time to come back and pick up Leslie and his mother. Without Gary’s help he wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed, though. What if he secured funds and the hospital refused to take them? He needed to do some kind of grassroots organizing, get people fired up about saving the dialysis unit and make a big enough stink the hospital had to take them seriously.
That meant calling some kind of meeting. He’d invite the nurses from the dialysis unit. Ask them to invite their friends. Put the word out—but carefully. He
