Chapter 10

CAL

The rest of the holiday was pretty much a downer for me. I wanted to go to Jesse and try to explain but Jan talked me out of it. I wasn’t having a lot of fun, and finally left a day early going back to Denver, taking a trailer with me from the ranch to bring my stuff home. It had been seven years since I had lived on the ranch.

I did call her a week or so after I got back but there was no answer.

It took me longer than I had hoped to wrap up things at the hospital ... endless meetings and reviews. There were also a couple of nice parties for the group of interns I was part of. The first day back I met Aaron at the Brewery Bar for Chile Rellenos and a couple of the Tiny sized beers – and some talk about Jessica. He let me talk it out, just saying “hmmm!” once in a while. He showed more excitement about the food that he did about Jessica!

Finally, I packed everything up and started up the mountain to Grand Junction. The practice had a small apartment in the back that Doctor Crane didn’t use anymore. It was small but with a kitchen, a small living room, a good-sized bedroom with bath and a small office with a beautiful antique black walnut desk filling most of the room.

After the long drive I dropped some of the stuff off at the apartment, then headed back up I-70 to Rifle and the ranch to leave the trailer off and the rest of my junk. I had a good-sized bedroom with a tiny bath attached at the ranch.

It was great to see my folks, Jake and his wife and all the ranch hands, many of them having been there since I was a kid. I called Jan but she was busy so we set it up for lunch the following Monday. She did mention that Aaron had been out and met with both her and Jesse. After one of the great ranch breakfasts the next morning, I headed on down the river to my new office and apartment. As I passed De Beque, I could see Jesse’s log cabin up the valley on the right. I thought about stopping but decided she was probably at work already.

The agreement with Doctor Crane - Ben as he insisted, I call him - was open-ended. He was agreeable to turn it over to me whenever we both felt comfortable. He had a small ranch (with a big house) in Green River, Utah, about a hundred miles west on I-70. He suggested we work together for a month, and then he would come in two days a week, or whenever I felt I needed him.

It was actually a very straightforward setup. After the gore and mayhem of Denver Saturday nights, this would almost be a vacation for me! The apartment looked like it would work out great. I planned to spend the week there and go to the ranch on weekends. There was another family doctor in a nearby building and we had an on-call agreement – we would take turns, week on, week off being on-call.

If I needed to go to the ranch, it was only about ninety minutes each way ... but only thirty minutes to Jesse’s ranch. I’d see where things stood when I met with Jan the following day. I spent the rest of the weekend unpacking and stocking the shelves and the icebox (refrigerator really, but old habits die hard). The place was looking pretty comfortable. Mom and dad had given me a new Mac workstation and laptop, all set up for wireless. Doctor Crane had about the same setup in the front office.