“Don’t let that bag slip out of your grip,” Darcy Hart called as she drove slowly down the ranch road while he crossed the ditch. “Hold it above her neck and keep her moving.”
Know-it-all woman horse doctor.
His tongue itched to tell her to turn around, go out to the state road and keep driving, to get out of his sight and never come back. But Tara’s life was at stake.
“Fresh straw’s in the aisle,” he called. “Turn in at the barn nearest the house.”
Much as he needed the relief of being rid of her, he would force his raw nerves to cope. This mare was not going to die—she’d already been through far too much, and he was going to save her if it hare-lipped the governor. And the foal, too.
Dr. Darcy Hart moved on down the road, but slowly, as if hovering and watching every limping step he took would do some good somehow. The woman was a control freak.
But who cared? He didn’t. All that mattered to him was that she prove to be as skillful as she was stubborn.
That and getting Tara to a stall before she went down to foal.
He set his jaw and made his aching leg move faster.
By the time he reached the barn, the bright red truck was backed up at right angles to the door. He led Tara in and down the aisle, ignoring the discomfort that flooded him. Darcy had already invaded his private space. Another person, a stranger, was here with him, and he didn’t like that.
“I’m thinking this stall. Any objections?”
Darcy’s voice came from the center stall on the right, marked by its door swinging open. He stopped and looked in.
“No,” he said. “That’s fine. It’s the biggest.”
She was stretching up, standing on the folding ladder from the feed room, threading a piece of baling wire around a rafter. As he watched, she twisted the two ends of it together into a hook.
“It took me a minute to realize the stalls weren’t all the same size,” she said. “This barn is really old, isn’t it?”
He certainly wasn’t going to be drawn into a lot of idle palavering.
“Right,” he said brusquely.
“Hang the bag on this,” she said, just as brusquely, “and then we need some more straw. I just spread one bale in a hurry, for fear she’d be trying to go down as soon as you got her in here.”
He felt a vague irritation that he had read her wrong. Evidently, she didn’t want any idle palavering, either.
“I’ll get some more,” he said, “I like it deep.”
He’d show her that he did, indeed, know how to foal out a mare. He led Tara into the stall, tied her, hung the fluids bag and went for more bedding.
“I think her water’s about to break,” Darcy called, running past him toward her truck. “I’ve got to wash her and wrap her tail.”
He grabbed the first bale and reached for the wire cutters, then threw the straw into the stall with one hand. He tossed in another bale and another, following to spread them nearly before they landed. He clipped the wire on all of them as fast as he could with his clumsy fingers and started spreading the bedding with his feet, as always.
The game leg buckled beneath his full weight, and he had to grab the bars at the top of the stall wall to keep from falling. Instinctively, he glanced toward the door, wondering whether the woman doctor had seen.
Then anger surged through him—anger directed at himself. Why did he even care whether she saw and pitied him?
He set his jaw and took the manure fork from its hook on the wall. He never should’ve let her come onto his place.
He hurried into the stall and used the fork to spread the straw. Tara moved restlessly, tried to turn her head to look at him and kicked at the wall.
Jackson took a minute to pet and talk to her.
“This’ll only take a minute—I should’ve done it out on the road,” Darcy said, as she ran down the aisle.
She slowed at the door of the stall and came in more calmly, so as not to agitate Tara any further, then set her kit and an open canvas bag on the floor. A roll of vet wrap bulged in the back pocket of her jeans.
“But then, you may still be in the first stage, right, Miss Tara?”
She crooned to the mare, running her hand over Tara’s hip and then gathering her tail to be wrapped. Jackson reached for it and held it while Darcy quickly tore open the package and wrapped the tail securely.
“You may only be wanting to go down and roll around and get right back up, but we’re taking no chances, Missy,” she said. “We’re a careful bunch here on the Rocking M.”
Jackson felt her glance at him. For a moment, he expected her to ask something about the ranch name or make some remark about it, but she surprised him again.
“Would you get me some water in that basin, please, Jackson?”
He took the basin and went to the pump.
We’re a careful bunch, here on the Rocking M.
We. That was silly crooning to a horse, nothing more. The good doctor Darcy Hart didn’t mean anything by it. She wasn’t invading the place or implying any connection to the ranch, and it was stupid to feel that she was. He was losing his mind.
Having her—or anybody else—here was going to make him crazier than he already was, but the alternative was worse. He was going to save this mare if it was the last good thing he ever did.
He carried the basin to the stall, his awkward gait sloshing a little of the water out with each step. Doc was squatting down just inside the door getting something from her kit, and he splashed a little on her as he lurched into the stall.
Heat rushed into his face.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“No problem.”
She stood and turned to him.
“Hold that for me, will you? This won’t take long, and then we’ll untie her.”
He had to stand close to her with the basin of water, and then, with her between him and the mare, he had to look down at her—at least, at the top of her head. Her hair caught the sunlight streaming in through the window and shot flashes of red flame into the air.
Its color wasn’t exactly red, though. It was more of an auburn and it was definitely, uncontrollably curly. The wind had whipped it in all directions, but she gave no indication that she knew or cared.
If that had been Rhonda, she would’ve gone to the house and fixed her hair, no matter how soon this mare might be foaling. For the first time in more than a year, the thought of Rhonda made him smile. She would never have become a veterinarian because the job might’ve caused her to break one of her perfectly painted fingernails.
Dr. Darcy’s nails were short and plain, her hands small and sure.
Her scent was very different, too, almost like new grass or a fresh wind. Rhonda wore a perfume—
He stopped his feeble brain in its tracks.
If he needed any proof of his weakened mental state, that was it, right there. Comparing a woman who had been his fiancée with a woman he’d just met was nothing short of insane.
“Done,” she said, throwing a towel onto her canvas bag. “Thanks.”
“Glad to help,” he said.
But for a moment, he couldn’t quite force his feet to work, couldn’t step away from her. Honestly, he wanted to reach out and touch her.
She glanced at