“Ready?” he said.
“Just a second.”
Darcy reached inside to position the other forefoot behind the first one.
“To reduce the shoulders in diameter,” she said, “Tara will thank us.”
She took a deep breath.
“Now. Gently, gently.”
Together they pulled the baby out.
“Too little,” Jackson said, as they broke the sac surrounding it so it could breathe. “Not big as a minute.”
“Pretty head,” Darcy muttered, and reached for her tools. “Let’s clean out your nose, little one.”
She used a turkey baster from her bag to clear the foal’s nostrils.
“Towels,” she said. “Let’s get him dry and keep him warm.”
Jackson reached for the towels and began rubbing the colt. Darcy stepped back as he started trying to get to his feet. He wobbled and wavered, but finally he made it to a tremulous four-legged stance.
“Little or not, he’s got a lot of try,” Jackson said.
She craned her neck to look at the baby all over.
“Little colt,” she said. “How’s he bred?”
“Some backyard stud that got in with her at the wrong time of year.”
“That’s for sure,” Darcy said. “I heard on the truck radio the first cold front’s due in here today or tomorrow.”
She stripped off the plastic sleeve and reached for a towel.
“Lots of rubbing,” she said. “Keep going. I’ll help you.”
He handed her a towel.
“My stars!” Darcy said. “Jackson, these are fine, expensive towels you’ve brought out here! And they’re brand new, to boot!”
“Only ones I could find,” he said.
She smiled at him while her small hands moved the thick fabric firmly over the wet colt.
“Spoken like a true bachelor,” she said. “I’m guessing, but I’m sure.”
He nodded.
“Be sure,” he said.
Then he wondered why he’d said that. It didn’t matter one whit between them whether he was married or not.
Was she?
Chapter Three
The baby’s knees buckled, and he nearly fell. Jackson caught him and helped him to the straw where he lay weakly, not even holding up his head.
“Rest up a minute and try again, Stranger,” he said. “You’re gonna make it.”
Jackson’s deep voice vibrated with dogged determination. He pushed his hat back on his head and stared at the foal hard, as if impatient for it to get up again. He moved back to give it room.
Darcy’s heart sank. To her, the tiny foal hardly looked strong enough to make another try. Yet Jackson clearly wanted that so badly that suddenly she did, too.
Not only because she naturally wanted the foal to live, but for Jackson’s sake, to relieve the tension clearly growing in every muscle and bone in his body.
“He hasn’t broken the cord yet, so let him lie there and get more blood from the placenta,” she said quickly. “It’ll help his circulation.”
Jackson kept his eyes on the colt.
“Should you start an IV on him? Tara’s in such bad shape, he’s bound to need help of some kind.”
The urgency in his voice pushed her pulse to an even faster pace. This was an emergency situation doubled, and her adrenaline was kicking in. Along with it came the calm that always carried her on its wave of total concentration.
Except this time it wasn’t total. Jackson’s reckless assumption that the baby would live was nagging at her. What if she couldn’t save it?
“He looks okay right now, though,” he said. “Except his size.”
Dear goodness, the man was obsessing!
“He looks fine,” she said calmly. “But I have to tell you, Jackson, with his mama so sick, there’s a good chance he might have problems.”
His mama was wheezing loud enough to be heard all through the barn. Even worse, Tara had lifted her head only enough to look over her shoulder at her foal, and she still was making no effort to rise.
“You’ll have to be thinking about how aggressively we’ll treat him if he does get sick,” Darcy said. “In the meantime, keep rubbing him dry. I’ve got to see about Tara.”
She felt Jackson’s gaze on her as she began taking the mare’s vitals and adjusting the IV.
“What do you mean, how aggressively we’ll treat him?” he demanded. “We’ll be totally aggressive and use every treatment that’s necessary. Isn’t that what you’re here for?”
Darcy threw him a glance over her shoulder, then looked again. His jaw was clenched, and his eyes were filled with a fierceness she hadn’t seen before. His hands never stopped moving on the foal.
This was more than the normal desire not to lose a newborn animal.
“You’re a rancher, Jackson,” she said, turning to the mare. “You deal with the realities of life and death every day. Most men in this situation would weigh the value of a no-name colt against the enormous expenditure of time and money and effort it’ll take to save him if he turns out to be really sick.”
“I don’t give a rip what it takes,” he snapped. “We’re saving him.”
“All right, then,” she said soothingly.
For a moment the only sounds in the barn were Tara’s harsh breathing and the softer echo of the baby’s.
“If that’s your attitude,” he said coldly, “then why were you so dead set on staying to help these horses?”
Shocked, she whipped her head around to look at him.
The skin stretched tightly over his jawbone was white with fury.
“What do you mean, if that’s my attitude?” she cried. “I’m only facing reality, for heaven’s sake! I’m not a miracle worker, you know!”
“What kind of a veterinarian are you if you don’t care if your patients live or die?”
“I care!”
“Well, act like it. Let’s get some colostrum into this baby.”
An answering fury shook her to her toes.
Yet a terrible compassion was mixed with it.
Jackson’s raw need for the foal to live and the quick, desperate look he flashed at Tara right then tore at Darcy’s heartstrings. Did he love Tara that much? If so, why hadn’t he bought her back long ago? According to what he’d said out on the road, he hadn’t owned her for years.
At that instant, his need became hers, and she wanted nothing more than to save these two for him. Why did she feel such a driving urgency to keep sorrow at bay for this man? She didn’t even know him. She had been forced to offer condolences to many a longtime client, but she hadn’t felt this depth of regret.
“Let me finish with the mare,” she said tightly. “And let that baby get some more blood, like I told you.”
He didn’t answer. Which was a good thing because she probably would’ve