Asha King (10 page)

****

Dani didn’t know how long she’d been walking.

She’d taken off her shirt and tied it around her waist, just the tank top beneath much cooler. She and Sweet Pea had circled the arena over three times before the beat of hooves caught her attention. Carlee and Adam approached on a pair of horses, paused at the gate and dismounted. Dani turned her charge in their direction and started walking back.

Carlee didn’t even bother with the gate; she climbed up the side and jumped down, shooting sand in all directions as she ran for Sweet Pea. Her dark eyes were huge with concern and she reached for the lead immediately. “Has he gone down?”

Dani shook her head and let Carlee take over. She glanced over her shoulder a few times as she walked for the gate.

“The vet’s on his way,” Adam said as she reached him. He held out the reins of the two other horses as she ducked her way between the bars of the gate and squeezed out. “Unsaddle the horses and turn them both out, then head to the end of the driveway and make sure the gate is unlocked for the vet.”

She nodded, not sure of what else to do as he passed off the horses and slipped past her to chase after Carlee.

Dani did as instructed and remembered to grab her hat before taking the long walk to the end of the driveway. Her shirt was still tied about her waist, swinging against her thighs with every step, and she yawned despite the fact that it wasn’t even noon yet. The gate was indeed open, but she ended up pausing to sit on the fence for a few moments alone. A strange twist of feelings wove around her. She hated being lost and she hated things being serious. Right when she was starting to fit in, something came along and threw her off track, reminding her she didn’t have a clue what she was doing.

What if she hadn’t thought to tell Adam what the horse was doing? What if she’d seen other horse problems while she was there but was such a newb, it didn’t occur to her to say anything and now they all might—

The gleam of an SUV coming down the road got her attention. She sat straighter and waited as the navy blue vehicle turned toward the driveway, slowing.

The driver’s side window powered down as the SUV idled; inside was a young man, maybe thirty, with dark hair in smooth curls that fell across his brow.

Dani hopped off the fence. “Are you the vet?”

He nodded and gestured over his shoulder. “Want a ride back down?”

She definitely did and ran around the SUV to hop in the passenger side. Immediately the vehicle climbed the driveway again as Dani let out a breath, cooled by the air conditioning blowing her face.

“Mark Goodwin,” he introduced himself. He wore a black T-shirt and jeans, and either vets out in the country weren’t very formal or he was taking the situation as an emergency call. There was a warmth to him she immediately liked—a kind smile and friendly eyes that put her somewhat at ease. “Is it your horse?”

“Oh, no.” Dani shook her head, raising her hands and splaying her fingers. “I’m just here helping out. It’s Carlee’s horse—she’ll be the one in the field with him.”

“Hmm.” He cut a look her way briefly. “I thought maybe...it’s just that you look familiar.”

The internet was vast and her corner of it was tiny but she very rarely
was
recognized. She hoped this wasn’t one of the times. “Well, I’ve been here a week and in town a lot. Maybe that’s it.”

“Maybe,” he echoed. Mark pulled the car to a halt near the arena and climbed out, going straight to get his gear from the back of the SUV. Dani slipped out as well and jogged over to meet Adam at the arena gate.

“How’s he?” she asked, though she could already guess by Adam’s expression.

“We’ll know more when the vet does,” he said. “Can you head inside and see if Gus has called? He and Dewey were out and I couldn’t get a hold of them.”

Glad to have
something
to do, she nodded and jogged back for the house. The inside was cool, drying the sweat on her head when she slipped her Stetson off. No messages waited on the phone, but she headed into her room to pick up her cell—she’d call Gus there and then head outside and have it with her if he phoned back. Maybe she could find something useful to do, like bring people water? Would the horse need water too? God, why was she so damn
stupid
?

She snatched up her phone and found a message waiting, then pressed it to her ear as she walked back through the house, expecting to hear Therese’s voice since she hadn’t called back.

“I miss you, Dani Girl.”

Dani froze, a chill running through her.

The voice was low, quiet. Strained, and she didn’t recognize it. Silence followed but she knew he was there, his breath heavy on the other end. “I don’t know why you ran away,” he whispered at last. “Why you’re pretending you don’t want me too.”

She squeezed the phone to keep from trembling, held her breath. A nightmare. Why couldn’t this be a nightmare?

“But I’ll come for you,” he continued. “I’ll always—”

Dani slammed her finger down on the end button, severing the call, and stared for a long moment.

He had her number.

She’d changed phones twice in the past three months. But he found her.

She had to call Dr. Van Ike. She had to figure out if he
just
got her number or if he actually found her or—

The phone rang; for a moment, she stared at her cell, trembling, before she realized it came from the other room. The house phone.

Gus.

Dani ran into the living room and plucked the cordless phone from its cradle. “Hello?”

“Dani?”

Thank God.
“Gus. The vet’s here and—” She blinked, blanking for a second after the disruption moments ago. “—and Carlee’s horse is sick. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.”

“We’ll be there soon. I imagine Carlee wants her own man there but reassure her—if need be—that Mark is an excellent large animal vet and Sweet Pea will be well taken care of. Where’ve they got him?”

“The outdoor arena.”

“Bring him a pail of water. Make sure Angela knows what’s going on and have her keep the kids away. Your priority is helping with the horse—don’t worry about the kids. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Atta girl. We’ll be back soon.”

Dani took a deep breath as she hung up, feeling a bit more at ease now that she had another task and some direction.

Then her gaze fell to her own cell phone still in her grasp.

She bit her lip and set the phone on the end table by the couch. Like everyone had been saying, he was probably trying to rattle her. First, she’d help deal with the horse problem and see if she was needed. Later, she’d call Dr. Van Ike and report the problem.

A plan. She liked having a plan.

Chapter Twelve

Mark was pretty much elbow deep in horse shit, emptying out Sweet Pea’s system. Carlee had the halter in both hands, nuzzling her horse’s face even as he pawed at the ground.

It could be something fairly minor, Adam knew. Easily dealt with. But there were also far too many cases of it being caught too late or being a sign of something serious. And if Sweet Pea had turned his stomach, well...

Well, Adam didn’t particularly want to think about it.

“Nothing’s twisted that I can feel,” Mark said as he peeled off his gloves and dumped them in a pail of trash at his feet. He frowned, dark brows pulling together. “There’ve been no other problems?”

Carlee looked past her horse’s muzzle, tears in her eyes. “Nothing. I took a different horse out for the trail ride because I wanted to give him a break after the weekend. But he’s been totally fine.”

“We’ll give him a shot of oil—that should push anything else through. Then walk him and we’ll see how he feels.” Mark rummaged through his box of equipment and produced a syringe and a bottle.

Adam caught movement and tilted his head to glance around the group of them; Dani was pushing through the gate, leaning heavily to her left where she had a pail of something in her hand, and in her right dangled her Stetson by the strap, the hat swinging back and forth. When she reached them, he saw the pail was full of water and hat had several bottles in it.

“Gus called,” she said immediately. “He’s on his way. He said to bring water.” Water sloshed over the brim of the pail as she set it down at her feet, suppressing a little groan. It must’ve been damn heavy and he was grateful to her for trying. He took the bottles as well and passed one to Carlee, then carted over the pail for Sweet Pea to drink from. A glance back at Dani revealed her brows knitted together with worry and his heart twinged. For all he’d bitched about her last week, she was trying during this crisis, and he was grateful.

Sweet Pea dipped his muzzle in the water then raised his head, letting the water slosh down again.

“I’m going to start walking him again,” Carlee said as the horse shifted and pawed at the ground.

Mark nodded. “I’ll walk with you and see how he does.” He scooped up a bottle of water as well and walked along with the pair of them toward the end of the arena.

Adam sighed, emptied the water bottles from Dani’s Stetson to stack them with the vet supplies, and returned the hat to her head. “C’mon. Still chores to be done.”

“We can’t just leave them—”

“We can for now. There’s no point in four of us walking around for a few hours.”

“Hours?” she repeated as they went back through the gate.

Adam nodded. “I think Mark is assuming it’s food or gas caught in the intestinal tract. So they walk Sweet Pea for a few hours and everything works through his system, then he’s fine.”

“But it could be something else?”

She really was clueless but he couldn’t fault her for it when she gazed up at him from under her too-big hat, dark eyes sorrowful and scared. He longed to hold her, his protective streak rising—he wanted to just reassure her everything was fine. Still, he held off, doubting she was interested in comfort rather than what was just physical between them.

“It could be, but probably isn’t—Mark would know. He treats all our horses. The important thing is to keep Sweet Pea moving and to get whatever is in his system through so he stops hurting. The danger comes if he rolls—it twists the organs and you can’t usually do anything about it.”

“That’s horrible,” she said softly.

“Yeah, it is.” And they weren’t equipped, way out there, to do much more about it—only place to do abdominal surgery on a horse was at a university out west and that was ten grand just to get in the door. They stopped near the barn and he took her elbow gently, turning her to face him. “But he should be fine. It’s good you caught it.”

Dani’s beautiful gaze shifted and her head tipped down. “I didn’t catch anything, I just told you.”

“You did good,” he praised. He gave in to his urges and slid his arms around her, enjoying her softness. Her hat fell to sit on her back as she buried her face in his chest and let out a deep, heaving breath.

Something was wrong. He sensed it even if she didn’t speak. She was upset about Sweet Pea, sure, but he’d assured her the horse would likely be okay—what was it keeping her so tense, so shaken?

His fingers moved under her chin to lift her face to his. “It’ll be okay.”

Breathless seconds passed while she stared at him, big eyes shining like tears were about to fall. His heart contracted with the ache of seeing her hurt. He leaned down, hoping a taste of those soft lips might urge her fear away.

But she turned her head sharply away from him and ducked out of his arms. “I’d better start my chores.”

Adam stared after her, wondering what the hell was going on.

****

“We’ve looked into the number—it’s a disposable cell we can’t track,” Dr. Van Ike said on the phone.

Dani sighed, leaning against the wall in her room, and resisted the urge to beat her head against it. “So what do I do?”

“I’d say send your phone in an expedited package to me and we’ll wait to see if any other messages show up. My opinion is to continue not responding, but this way I can listen to any messages that come and they don’t need to stress you.”

A little too late for that, Doc.
Dani rubbed at her eyes. “Okay. There’s stuff going on here so I might not get to it until tomorrow.”

“No problem. You just keep doing what you’re doing, keeping a low profile, and you’ll be fine.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Fine except that she was rattled to her core. She said her goodbyes and hung up, staring for a moment at the cordless plastic receiver of Gus’s phone that she’d used—she still didn’t want to
touch
hers after that voicemail.

It was early afternoon and she’d finished her chores, picked at a sandwich for lunch, and could probably relax for a while since Angela likely didn’t want her help, but Dani didn’t think she could just stand around doing nothing. She slipped her feet back into her boots and started for the living room, first to return the phone, and then to head outside.

Through the living room window, she spotted Carlee still wandering the arena with Sweet Pea. Dani wanted to take back every ill thought she’d ever had about the poor woman.

She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and headed outside.

Adam stood near Mark’s SUV, speaking quietly to the vet. Dani slipped past them and straight for the arena. Her legs and feet ached, muscles she barely knew she had aching—she couldn’t remember the last job she’d had that had her walking so much. Even behind the counter on a busy day at the cafe, it wasn’t like
this
. Still, she realized, being on the ranch was less of a job and more of a lifestyle. They had set hours, sure, but as Sweet Pea proved, the job didn’t really end.

And despite the crisis of the day, she wasn’t entirely sure she’d trade it for any other job at the moment.

She ducked between the rungs of the fence and went out into the arena. Carlee was turned back around, her expression haggard and steps slow.

“Hey,” Dani called with forced brightness. She extended her hand with the bottle of water, which Carlee accepted. “How about I take over for a while?”

Carlee hesitated, glancing at her horse and chewing her bottom lip.

“You’re probably exhausted,” Dani continued. “Have a drink and go talk to the vet. Maybe take a nap or have some lunch. I’ll walk him.”

“I don’t want to ask you to—”

“You’re not asking. I’m
telling
. Take a break.”

Carlee smiled, and even not at full blast, her smile was infectious. “Thank you.”

Dani shifted uncomfortably and took the lead. “It’s nothing.”

“No, I mean it. You’ve been really great. Thanks, Dani.”

“Um...you’re welcome.” Very rarely did people thank her for anything, so Dani just looked away and started walking the horse again.

We’ve entered
The Twilight Zone.
When I’m actually able to blog about this, I’ll have to embellish and say I did mean things or people will never believe it.