“I’ll do that. Thanks.” She was going to spend her own money, but he could think what he liked.
“Randall would take you himself, if he was here,” he added deliberately. He had to keep reminding himself that she belonged to his stepbrother.
“Of course he would.”
They walked into the stables, down the stone walkway to the stall where Hurricane was kept. The female vet, middle-aged, with blond hair and blue eyes, glanced at them as they approached.
She grimaced. “I can’t get the stupid tranquilizer gun to work. I should have asked Kells with Game and Fish to show me again how to use it...”
While she was talking, Merrie went right up to the gate of the stall and held her hand out. It contained one of two treats she’d taken from a nearby bag.
She opened her hand, the treat on her palm, and offered it to the nervous gelding.
“Hi, sweetheart. Remember me?” she asked softly, smiling.
Apparently he did, because he came right up to the gate and tossed his mane, whinnying softly.
“That’s a sweet boy,” she said, watching him nibble the treat. She smoothed her bare hand over his head, between his eyes. “What a sweet boy!”
The vet, mesmerized, just stared at her. “He just knocked one of the cowboys into that pile of tin in the aisle,” she pointed out, indicating a small refuse pile from some repairs.
“She has a way with horses, apparently,” Ren said curtly. “Can you keep him diverted while Dr. Branch gets in the pen with him?”
“Of course I can,” Merrie said. She smoothed her hand over the horse’s ears, calming him.
The vet took advantage of the lull to go into the stall and examine the cuts. “I can use a local on these,” she said. “If you can just keep him busy...”
“I can do that,” Merrie assured her.
She talked to Hurricane, smoothing her hand over his face, his ears, his cheek, all the while talking to him. When he felt the needle he started to shift, but Merrie drew him back and laid her forehead against his, talking to him again. He calmed. The vet began to put in the stitches, working efficiently. It didn’t take long.
Dr. Branch came out of the stall with a long sigh. “That’s some bedside manner you’ve got there, Miss...?”
“Grayling,” Merrie said. “My name is Meredith, but everybody calls me Merrie,” she added, with a smile.
“Merrie, then. Thanks for the help.”
“I didn’t mind. I love horses.”
“That one certainly seems to like you,” Dr. Branch said. She shook her head. “I couldn’t get the stupid tranquilizer gun to work. I guess I need more training with it,” she said with a laugh.
“Will he be all right now?” Merrie asked, because she was worried. Some of the cuts had been very deep.
“I gave him an antibiotic,” she replied. “If there’s any obvious infection around the cuts, I may need to come back and see him. You know the signs, I’m sure,” she said to Ren.
“I know them all too well. Thanks for coming, Doc.”
“My pleasure.” She picked up her bag, smiled at Merrie and walked back down the aisle.
“I thought he’d have to be put down,” Ren commented.
“He’s not a bad horse. He’s just been exposed to a bad man,” Merrie replied. She was still smoothing the horse’s forehead. “He’s so beautiful. I drew a portrait of him,” she added softly.
“Did you?” He sounded disinterested. “He’ll settle down now. I have work to do.”
“Am I being evicted?” she asked, eyebrows raised.
“For the time being, yes.”
She sighed, nuzzled Hurricane’s face with her own and left him. He whinnied when she got halfway down the stall. She turned and smiled at him. “I’ll come back again.”
He tossed his head.
“Don’t tell me you can talk to horses, too,” he scoffed.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “Daddy never let us near the stables when he was home.”
He scowled, looking down at her. “What sort of horses did he keep?”
Thoroughbreds, but she wasn’t telling him that. She liked being just plain Merrie. “Quarter horses,” she lied. “He sold them all over the world.”
“But you weren’t allowed to ride them?”
“Not the registered ones, no. He didn’t trust us with them.”
“Why?”
She grimaced. “He thought we might injure one, I guess. He kept a few saddle horses for guests. We got to ride those. They were old and swaybacked, but at least we learned how to ride.”
He raised an eyebrow. There was a big difference between riding a quarter horse and a swayback, he thought privately. He wondered if she was bragging, and her father hadn’t had more than one or two horses. Surely, her clothes were an indication that she and her family didn’t have much money. All her attire seemed to consist of gray sweatpants and sweatshirts, most of which had either writing or logos on them.
Her boots, at least, were proper ones. No designer footwear there, he mused, looking down at her small feet. She had on boots that had seen hard wear. They looked a lot like his own, except that hers hadn’t been subjected to smelly substances and too much water.
“The vet seemed nice,” she commented.
“She was. Nice, and quite smart. Her husband is also a vet. They specialize in large-animal calls.”
“Out here, I guess they’d have to,” she commented, looking around at the long, beautiful pastures that led off to sharp, jagged white peaks in the distance. “Is that the Rocky Mountains?” she asked.
“No. Those are the Teton Mountains. We’re closer to Jackson Hole than we are to Yellowstone.”
“I don’t know much about the territory out here,” she confessed. “I’ve never been out of south Texas in my life.”
He scowled. “Never?”
“Daddy didn’t want us out of his sight,” she said simply.
Daddy sounded like a paranoid schizophrenic. But he wasn’t going to say it out loud.
They walked into the kitchen. Delsey had stopped the bleeding temporarily with a large towel, under which bandages could be seen. A tall, good-looking cowboy with blue eyes and black hair was standing beside Grandy. He looked up when Merrie walked in, and his eyes twinkled.
“It is she. The witch woman!” he teased.
Merrie’s eyebrows met her hairline. “Excuse me?”
“Your fame has preceded you, my lady,” the man said, making her a sweeping bow. “I expected choirs of cherubs singing praises...”
She felt her forehead. “I don’t think I have a fever,” she murmured.
“He does Shakespeare at our local playhouse,” Delsey said, rolling her eyes. “That’s Rory Tubbs, Merrie, although none of us ever use his first name,” she introduced them. “He’s playing King Lear.”
“Not King Lear,” he muttered. “Macbeth!”
“I