The Bride Wore Starlight (19 page)

“It'll be a long time until I do the kid thing,” she said simply and stared at her plate.

“Aw, kids are great,” he said, nodding to Rory. “You'd have pretty babies, that's for sure.”

He knew the instant the words left his lips that what he'd meant as a compliment to her beauty had come off as clumsy at best and inappropriate at worst. But it was the quick pallor and biting of her lip that sent the words boomeranging back into his thick skull and made him groan. Her husband had just told her his cheater girlfriend was pregnant. He set his hand lightly on her forearm and, this time, leaned all the way to her ear.

“I'm so sorry,” he said. “That was the worst thing I could have said. I didn't mean it to hurt you.”

“I know,” she said and an anemic smile followed the words. “Forget it, really. It's just a . . . thing with me at the moment.”

“He's a di—”

“Douchebag,” she whispered.

“Yeah.” He smiled. “And so am I sometimes. I'm sorry.”

“Oh brother.” She shook her head and finally looked at him. “Foot in mouth syndrome doesn't make someone a jerk.”

“All right, you two. Weapons down.” Bella's voice halted both Alec's conversation and the dueling silverware. “I'd best not hear of any Crockett boys causing trouble in Disneyland. Dueling stays at home.”

“I won't cause trouble,” Rory said, scooping up meat sauce with his spoon. “Aunt Harpo's not coming, so I can't.”

“Whoa!” Harper laughed. “Blaming it on me, huh? You little rat.”

Rory grinned and then both his eyebrows shot toward his hairline. “Hey, Uncle Cole. Hang your spoon. Show Alec!”

Alec was surprised to be included in the child's table anarchy. He eyed the boy with exaggerated skepticism. “Don't get in more trouble because of me,” he said.

“Nah. This is just funny.”

“Grandma Sadie hates this trick,” Cole said. “We should wait.”

“But Grandma Sadie does it best of all!”

“I do hate this,” Sadie said, her voice full of admonishment but her eyes twinkling.

“Do it. Do it, pleeeease!” Rory batted a pair of long, dark, very adorable-kid lashes. Alec wasn't quite sure if the child did it on purpose or unconsciously. He was still only ten, but he was a transplanted city kid with no lack of cagey skills.

“Rory, a little bit of fun at the table is great,” Gabe said. “But it's not polite to interrupt the entire meal. Why don't you eat now?”

But Rory was giggling and pointing, and Alec turned to look. Side by side, Sadie and Cole sat stone-faced with the bowls of their spoons hanging from their noses.

“You're kidding me!” he said and failed at holding in a burst of laughter.

One by one the others followed. Harper, Mia, Bella. When Joely turned to him, her eyes and mouth deadpan but her spoon hanging securely from the tip of her cute nose, Alec lost it. Never, never, ever would he have seen this kind of lunacy at either of his childhood tables. He caught Gabe's eyes. His former CO was simply shaking his head.

“I give up. I married into a lunatic asylum,” he said.

“Where's your spoon?” Alec nearly choked on the question.

“I have not got this particular talent,” Gabe admitted. “The ball and chain has tried to teach me, but my nose is evidently not built for it. Go ahead. Try it.”

“I think I need to study the technique a little more before I try something so difficult,” he said.

He looked to Rory, who was placing and replacing his spoon on his nose, only to have it repeatedly slip off into his lap.

“Don't give up, kiddo,” Harper said from behind her spoon. “You'll find the sweet spot eventually, I promise.”

Alec had no idea how long the contest would have continued, but it ended abruptly with the clearing of a throat at the door between the kitchen and the dining room. A couple spoon hanger participants grabbed the utensil from its spot, and the other spoons clattered onto plates.

“Kjære Gud,”
said the intruder.

“Hey, Bjorn!” Harper called.

“I'm, ah, sorry to interrupt.” The ranch foreman scratched the side of his nose as if not daring to say more.

“Not at all,” Cole said. “What's up? I know you wouldn't come all the way in if it wasn't important.”

“Yeah, you just showed me why.” He took them all in as if they were hopelessly certifiable. “Even though that image is now burned into my brain and I regret it, a lot, I need to tell you that the little mustang mare is in labor, but there might be a problem. We've called Doc Ackerman, but she's about an hour out.”

“Damien Finney's horse? Panacea? What's going on?” Joely asked, setting her napkin atop her plate and standing. “When did you find her in trouble?”

“She started pushing about fifteen minutes ago, but nothing's happening. Baby should be out twenty minutes after they get to this point. Called the doc and she's with a colic out at the Johnson place. She'll get here soon as she can, but we don't have that kind of time.”

Cole stood up next and Harper patted his leg. “You and Joely are the horse experts,” she said. “Go. We'll finish up and be down in a few minutes.”

“We can take my truck; it's right out front,” Alec said.

“I've got the four-wheeler.” Bjorn waved them off. “I'll meet you at the barn.”

“C
AN YOU DO
anything for the horse?” Alec asked once Joely had let him boost her into the passenger seat and Cole had climbed into the back seat.

“I don't know,” she said. “It depends on whether there's really a problem and if we can figure out what it is.”

Alec had been around horses all his rodeo life, but he hadn't grown up with them like most cowboys had. He knew a lot about equine injuries and illnesses but precious little about mares and foaling. This mare, he knew, was part of a pilot program Gabe had started for former servicemen suffering from PTSD—a mustang adoption experiment that over the past six months had proven to be incredibly successful with four injured men. The men had bonded so well with the horses that Gabe and Mia were ready to add four more candidates to the program. It made keeping this mare safe all the more important.

“Could be a dystocia,” Cole said.

“Where something's out of place with the foal, right?” Alec asked. At least he knew that much.

“Right. I helped with a few back in the day, when my dad was breeding reining horses. If all else fails we can call him. He's got more experience than I do.”

“That's true. Russ is a wonderful horseman,” Joely said. “But Bjorn's right. We don't have much time. If Pan's in trouble, somebody with expertise has to get here now.”

“Yeah. Except, what I'm afraid of is that we're the experts, Jo-Jo,” Cole said.

Alec pulled up to the barn and threw the pickup into park. He was out and around to Joely's door in seconds, and she didn't argue when he reached for her sides to lift her to the ground. He held her for a few seconds while she found her balance and took her crutches from Cole.

“Good luck,” he said.

“Thanks. Hope we don't need it.”

The laboring mare lay on her side in a thickly bedded stall. She was a pretty thing—a gray that reminded Alec slightly of a diminutive Ghost Pepper. When the new humans showed up at the stall door, she rolled to her belly like a dog and gave a long, wrenching grunt of pain. She swung her head toward her flanks and tried to swish her tail, which was wrapped from the dock to past the end of the tailbone in hot pink elastic bandaging.

“Poor baby. Hey, Pan.” Joely handed Alec her crutches and hobbled her way into the stall first. She knelt at the horse's head and stroked her neck. “This isn't supposed to be so hard is it? Can we see if we can find out what's wrong, baby?”

Once again Alec heard the sweet, healing voice she'd used on Rowan that made him believe Joely could and would fix everything. The concentration in her face was not just compelling, it lit her up with more allure than a Hollywood camera crew could have done.

“Have you ever checked for a dystocia?” Cole asked.

“I felt a couple only after a vet told me they were present,” Joely replied. “And then only because when I was young I got in the way of every vet appointment for the horses we ever had.”

Cole smiled. “I remember that. Well, I can check her, but your arm is a lot smaller and might be better. There's not a lot of room in there. Are you willing to try it?”

“All right.”

“There should be nitrile exam gloves by the first-aid kit in the tack room,” Bjorn said. “Want me to look?”

She shrugged. “They won't be the long sleeves, so it hardly matters. Let's just do it.”

Alec watched in fascinated amazement as Joely scooted around the mare's legs and found a spot where the restless back legs couldn't strike her. She lifted the wrapped tail and found the horse's poor, distended vulva. With no hesitation she worked her hand slowly into the birth canal until it disappeared nearly to the shoulder.

“I think you might be the bravest person I've ever seen,” Alec said, joking.

“Or the dumbest,” she replied with a tight smile. “Okay, I can feel the head. Hello, baby. But . . . ” She squinted then gave a grunt as she felt around. “One foot . . . Dang. I can't find a second. It must be bent under.”

“Crud,” Cole said.

The phone in Bjorn's pocket rang and he grabbed it. “It's Dr. Ackerman,” he said. “Hey, Doc. Joely's checking the foal now. Yeah, our Joely! Okay, we'll put her on.” He handed his Samsung to Alec. “You're closer. Hold this to her ear.”

He nodded, entered the stall, and knelt behind her, placing the phone against her ear.

“Hey, Dr. Ackerman,” she said.

Alec lost track of the quick-flowing jargon and desperate scramble after that. With help from the vet, Joely located the foal's misplaced leg and gave it several tugs only to lose her grip each time in the slippery environment. Eventually, she procured a soft leather strap from the tack room and, with step-by-step instructions, secured it around the baby's hoof. In the midst of the rush, an agitated man who turned out to be Pan's owner arrived and planted himself at the horse's head, stroking and crooning as if he were comforting a human wife.

“Okay,” Joely said to Cole. “I'll pull the leg straight, but you have to make room even though Pan will be pushing against us. It won't be easy.”

“We don't have any choice.” Cole took a deep breath as his hands took the place of Joely's inside the mare's body. With a red-faced effort he pushed the foal backward and Joely pulled on the strap. One minute later she let out a whoop.

“Yes! I think that's it.”

“Yes, ma'am. There's the leg. And, there's the other. And there's its nose!”

Somehow they each got a hand on the foal and pulled together, encouraging the mare with gentle words.

“Come on, Pan, sweetheart, give us just a little help,” Joely said a last time, and eight seconds later, the span of a perfect bronc ride, Alec thought, he added his own whoop as Pan gave birth to a wet, slippery-shiny bundle of baby horse.

Someone handed Alec two towels. Instinctively, he handed the phone back to Bjorn and passed the towels to Joely. With vigorous strokes she and Cole rubbed down the newborn until it snorted, jerked, and tried to lift its ungainly head. They both sat back in the bloodied bedding shavings grinning like idiots. Cole raised his hand, and Joely slapped a high five on his open palm.

“Congratulations, Mom,” he said.

Their ages-old friendship shone through the mini-celebration, making the whole episode intimate and one Alec vaguely wished he could truly share. There was no jealousy, but he wished he were free to grab Joely the way he had when they'd been alone at her door and kiss her in his own version of congratulations. Instead, he watched the high five turn into a laughing hug.

“Yeah, Doc, it looks like the baby is fine,” Bjorn said into the phone. “Okay, that's great. We'll see you when you get here.”

A choked sob sounded from the other end of the mare, and everyone turned at the same time. Damien Finney, the mare's owner, had tears streaming down his face. Everyone burst out laughing.

“Finney, you big sap,” Cole said. “Wait'll I tell Gabe his guy fell apart like Niagara Falls.”

“Go ahead.” Finney made no attempt to control his voice. “I have a baby, and Pan's okay. Best damn thing since I adopted her, man. Dang right I'm a mess. Hell, I don't even know what it is.”

Joely lifted the foal's tail. “It's a colt,” she said softly. “You have a boy, Damien.”

The former veteran bawled all the harder. In response Panacea swung her head up, nudging him in the chest, and then hoisted herself to her feet.

“She's standing already?” Damien asked in wonder, reaching up to her muzzle.

“These mamas are tough,” Joely said. “They have to be ready to protect their babies within minutes.”

Damien scrambled up beside the horse, and Cole did the same, brushing at his jeans and scowling at the muck on his arms and shirt. “Nice,” he said, but he reached for Alec's hand. “Thanks for your help, man.”

“I did nothing except hold the phone.”

“A totally indispensable job.”

Joely shifted, too, got to her hands and knees and, with a grimace, reached up. Alec took her stained hand. She managed to get her good leg beneath herself but buckled back into the shavings when she brought up the left one. She let him reach beneath one armpit and lever her up, but then she brushed off his hold and made for the stall door. She was disheveled, covered pretty much head to toe in blood and fluids, and neither she nor Cole smelled like a spring rose.

“You did great,” he said.

“We did,” she agreed, but the light in her face and the celebration in her eyes from mere seconds before had vanished. “We got a little lucky being able to straighten that leg. It wasn't as complicated as it could have been.”