The Curvy Vet and the Billionaire Cowboy (He Wanted Me Pregnant!) (2 page)

I shook my head. “Triple E is no joke,” I said. “We should start treatment immediately.”

He nodded. “I know, but…that’s the complication. We can’t treat immediately. Come on. Breakfast.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what was going on. Was this really about the horse, or was he trying somehow to…no, that was ridiculous. Of course he wasn’t
interested
in me. So why take me to breakfast? Why not just spit it out?

I looked again at the muscled forearms poking out from under his shirt. At the strong, curving chest. There was something about him I couldn’t put my finger on, something I’d never seen before, and it had me transfixed. And there was the fact that I hadn’t eaten since the previous night, a fact my stomach kept noisily reminding me of. I nodded slowly. “Okay,” I said cautiously. “Breakfast.” I looked in the direction of the huge mansion. “Shouldn’t we tell Mr. Tyler we’re going, though? I wouldn’t want him to come out and wonder where his vet is.”

The cowboy gave me another one of those smiles, teeth gleaming. “Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry, doctor. I’m Russ Tyler.”

Chapter 2

He drove us into the nearby town in his own car—not a Ferrari or a Lamborghini or even some big, expensive SUV, but in a beat-up pickup truck. I was almost silent the whole way. I was trying to reconcile this big, muscled, gorgeous man with the ex-oil tycoon I’d heard about. He didn’t look as if he did deals for a living. He looked as if he’d be more comfortable wrestling with a wellhead—or with a bull, for that matter. I mean, I got that sometimes rich people retired and went and bought a ranch or something, but he was still in his mid-thirties, and from the dust on his jeans he didn’t just saunter around his farm, treating it like a toy. He actually worked at it.

When he opened my door for me and helped me out onto the sidewalk, I finally realized what it was about him that was so different. He was
real,
in a way that the guys in Atlanta—and even the guys I could see around me on the street in Wyoming—weren’t. They were like faded photocopies or fuzzy holograms. He was somehow authentic and buzzing with life.

When he hauled open the door of the diner and showed me in, three different people greeted him by name. This wasn’t the sort of billionaire lifestyle I’d read about in books. Where were the bodyguards and the SUVs with the blacked out glass?

“I don’t get it,” I said as we sat down in a booth. “You eat at diners…you drive an old pick-up truck. Where do you spend your billions?”

“Where they’re needed,” he said. “Like getting you here.”

I shook my head. “I’m very flattered, Mr. Tyler—”

“Russ.”

“…Russ. But there are lots of other vets right here in Wyoming who could have dealt with a case of Triple E.”

“But they’re not the best. I wanted the best.
You’re
the best.”

He didn’t say it as if it was a compliment. He said it as if it was a fact, which made it a thousand times harder to take in.

“I read your paper on Triple E yesterday,” he told me before I could argue. “And then I called a friend at the CDC. He agreed you knew more about it than anyone.”

The waitress arrived, which saved me from further embarrassment. I was proud of the work I’d done on Triple E and other equine diseases, but I still couldn’t believe he’d fly me across the country just to take a look at a sick horse. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a warm glow alongside the shock, though. Someone appreciating—or even noticing—what I did was new to me.

He ordered a cowboy-sized breakfast of eggs, toast and beef hash, together with coffee. “The stuff here is legendary,” he told me proudly. “Brought a man back to life, once, after he’d been dead a week.”

I politely rolled my eyes, but super-strong coffee did sound like exactly what I needed. “I’ll have coffee then, please,” I said. “Maybe some oatmeal. Do they have muesli?”

Russ just stared at me and I remembered I was in the country. I looked around. There was a distinct lack of people eating muesli. My stomach growled. “Some pancakes?” I asked, tentatively.

He nodded. “With bacon? And maple syrup and butter?”

I blanched at that, suddenly self-conscious. But he was smiling so enthusiastically…I nodded.

***

When the food arrived, I looked at the groaning plate and thought,
I can’t eat all that!
And promptly did. The pancakes weren’t the heavy, tasteless stodge you get in a city diner—they were freshly made, crispy at the edges and soft and fluffy in the middle. The butter’s satin-smooth richness melted into the syrup’s sweetness. The bacon was salty and crunchy and perfect, its sharp tang cutting through everything else. And the coffee…heaven in a cup, smoky and strong, coffee you could almost chew. It was like a depth-charge of adrenalin heading down to my stomach, waking me up from the inside out.

Russ had demolished his eggs, toast and beef hash in the meantime, which made my empty plate seem not quite so embarrassing. “Okay,” I said. “I had breakfast. What’s this complication?”

Russ hunkered forward over the table, close enough that I could smell the citrus note of his aftershave. A hot little rush went through me. “Technically, it’s not my horse,” he said. “And I’m not sure where it is.”

I stared at him.

“It’s feral,” he said. “I spotted it yesterday morning. Beautiful mustang mare, running wild out in the mountains. And I’m pretty sure she’s got Triple-E.”

Feral horses, of course, weren’t vaccinated, so Triple-E made sense. “So…you’re going to catch it and bring it back here, so I can treat it?” I asked.

“It’s too rocky out there for a truck. And she looks too shaky to walk back.”

I felt my mouth drop open. “You want me to treat her
out there?”

He nodded, watching my reaction carefully. “I can give her a home, if we can save her.” He leaned even closer. “Doctor Sansom, she’s going to die out there if we don’t help her.”

My mind was spinning. Spending all the money to fly me out to his ranch was crazy enough, but to do all that for a horse he didn’t even own? “Why?” I asked at last.

He looked straight at me. “Because she’s beautiful. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I saw her, and I knew I had to have her, whatever it took.”

I saw that look in his eyes again, as he gazed at me. Which made no sense at all.

“You want me to go out there with you,” I said slowly, working it through in my mind, “into the mountains?”

“A day to get out to where I saw her. Then as long as you need to treat her. A day to get back. I’ve cleared it with your boss at the CDC. And I’ll pay you an extra fee—say a thousand dollars a day?”

I could feel the hot rage start to build inside me. Who did this guy think he was? First he talks my boss into borrowing me, as if I was just a piece of equipment. He puts me through the worst journey of my life, neglects to mention the four hour car trip that’s waiting for me when I arrive, and now he expects me to go on a backwoods safari, with rattlesnakes and cougars and God knows what, and presumably
camping
—
with him
…but it’s okay because he’ll pay me?

Maybe he was like all the billionaires I’d read about, combined with the arrogance of an old-school cowboy. I looked at his face, all smooth charm and rugged good looks. He was used to getting whatever he wanted—I could see that, now.

Well, I wasn’t going to be bought. I stood up. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But no. Find yourself a local vet. Going out into the wilds isn’t what I do.”

He grabbed my arm, his grip like iron. Yet when I looked at his face, he wasn’t angry, exactly. More frustrated—scared of losing something. His face seemed to soften, just for a second. “Wait,” he said. “Let me tell you about her. She has a coat that looks brown until it catches the light, and then it shines almost red. She’s got a patch of white, right here”—he tapped his forehead, between his heavy brows—“in the shape of a diamond. She looks to be young, healthy enough until the Triple E hit her. I saw her run, when she was spooked by something. She’s built for speed, smooth muscles and strong legs.” He paused, and there was real pain in his eyes. “Give it another few days, though, and she’ll start to weaken. She won’t be able to walk, or to drink. She’ll—”

“Stop!” I stared at him for a moment. “Okay,” I said at last. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

He relaxed his grip on my arm and, within a second, that confident charm was back. As he paid the bill, I hit me that I might have just been played. Maybe he’d told me just what I needed to hear. He used to do oil deals for a living, after all—he certainly had the silver tongue. But it didn’t feel like that. It felt like, for a second there, I’d seen through his armor.

Chapter 3

“We’ll have to…camp?” I said in a small voice as we drove back.

“Four or five nights,” he told me. I saw his knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “Unless we’re not in time.”

Four or five nights. Just the two of us. It wasn’t as if I thought he’d be the slightest bit interested in
me,
but that amount of enforced intimacy was still scary. I’d barely dated since college, burying myself in my work instead. I’ve never found it easy, with men. I never know what to say, and wind up talking about science or something, instead of going all giggly and cute and batting my eyelashes like I’m supposed to. I couldn’t even act normal around a normal man. What hope did I have with a billionaire?

I thought of carrying five days’ worth of camping gear, plus my medical supplies. “We’re going to be pretty loaded down,” I said, half to myself.

Russ turned and smiled at me. “We’re not
walking!
” he said. And pulled up next to where two beautiful stallions were being saddled.

Oh.

I climbed nervously out of the pick-up truck and ran a hand over the neck of the nearest horse. “Meet Caesar,” said Russ, patting the black one, “and Constantine.” He stroked the white one. “You’ll be on Constantine. He won’t give you any trouble.”

“Oh,” I said, my voice quavering. “I wouldn’t speak too soon.”

Russ looked at me. “You can
ride,
right?”

I stiffened a little. OK, sure, I was a vet. And yes, I specialized in equine viruses. But just because I was around horses all day, didn’t mean I actually got much of a chance to ride them. I tried to remember when I last sat in a saddle. I remembered leaning forward and whispered in the horse’s ear that I knew it was magic, and wanted it to fly me away to the fairy castle. So that was a clue.

“Of course I can ride,” I said.

He looked at me as if he didn’t quite believe me, but nodded. “You might want to….” He indicated my suit.

I went off to change. When I came back, I was wearing the best I could cobble together from my suitcase: jeans, a white tank top, and boots. The only problem was that I had nothing to keep the sun off my skin. When I’d packed, I’d figured I’d be sitting indoors giving advice around a table, or at most treating an animal in a stable. Being outdoors for days at a time hadn’t entered my head.

I transferred my medical gear into saddle bags, opened up my suitcase and started to pack my own things. I was panicking, and not just from the idea of riding a horse for the first time in years. I like to
prepare
for things. It had taken me about two hours just to pack my carry-on case for the trip, organizing everything into piles and then fitting them in neatly, triple-checking I’d got everything. That was just how I did things. But this guy was paying me a thousand dollars a day, and I wasn’t going to keep him waiting, so I was having to rush. And when I rush, I panic.

“Everything okay?” asked Russ gently. He was already in his saddle, gazing down at me.

“Yes!” I said, trying not to snap at him. “I’m just trying to…” I stared at a pile of neatly-folded sweaters.
Do I need sweaters? Will it be cold at night?
“…make sure I…” I gazed at two tank tops.
Black or white?
“…have everything—”

“Amanda.”

I jerked my head up.

Russ was leaning forward on his horse, smiling down at me. “Sorry—do you mind if I call you Amanda?”

I swallowed. There was something about hearing him say my name that made me go light and fluttery inside. “Of course not,” I squeaked.

“Relax. Take a breath. This is the country. We slow down out here.”

If someone back in Atlanta had noticed me panicking, they would have poked fun at me and I would have felt like a complete idiot. Weirdly, though, Russ sounded genuinely concerned. So I actually did take a breath, a long one…and felt better. Then, moving more slowly, I took what I actually needed out of my case and loaded it. “Okay,” I said. “Done.”

Now all I needed to do was mount up. I put one foot in the stirrup and prepared to hoist myself up into the saddle.
Okay, Amanda,
I thought.
You’ve done this before. Plenty of power, so you get momentum and don’t come straight back down again. One, two three, PUSH!

I heaved down on that foot, powering myself up and swinging my leg over the horse. I felt my ass land neatly on the saddle and grinned.
Done it!