Читать книгу Stranger At The Crossroads - Gena Dalton - Страница 11

Darcy turned and ran for her truck, her heart pounding because of Jackson’s permission to treat the mare. She was thrilled to have won this battle, not only for the sake of the mare and foal, but also for the challenge of saving them. God willing, the struggle might take over her mind completely and let her forget about everything else.

Her heart was not beating so hard from the powerful way Jackson had looked at her. Yet she could still feel his gaze moving over her in that very assessing kind of look.

Well, if he’d been trying to judge whether she would respond to him as a man, she could tell him right now that she was not interested. Not in any man.

Despite that surprising, insane urge she’d felt— the desire to touch his face and brush his hair that had come over her when his eyes met hers?

Her little voice of truth wouldn’t let her get by with anything.

She punched in the handle of her equipment box and twisted it, then threw up the lid. A horse’s life, no, two of them, depended on her right now, and she needed to get her mind on her business.

Automatically, her hands flew to the necessary compartments and began to make selections. First, the IV catheter, needle holders, suture, cordless clippers and a handful of Betadine solution packets, gauze sponges and a bottle of alcohol. Then both her hands were full. She’d have to come back for the antibiotic injection and the bag of fluids.

No. Good heavens, she couldn’t even think straight! Everything would go much faster if they brought the mare to the truck.

Tara’s hooves scrabbled against the pavement. Darcy heard Jackson kiss to her in encouragement, and when she glanced over her shoulder, the mare was regaining her feet.

“Bring her over here,” Darcy called. “I want to get a dose of antibiotic in her and start some fluids before we walk her home.”

He frowned.

“You’re the one saying she’ll foal any minute,” he said, leading Tara toward her. “Can’t it wait until we get her to the barn?”

That annoyed Darcy thoroughly, although it was a natural enough question.

“I thought you hired me to make these decisions,” she said. Then, less sharply, she added, “Hold her right here, please, with her head as still as possible.”

Jackson did as she asked.

“This won’t take a minute,” Darcy said, quickly clipping a small patch of hair over the mare’s jugular vein.

She scrubbed the site with Betadine, judged the best spot and, in a fluid motion, jabbed the IV catheter into the vein. She began to sew it in place. Tara’s hooves moved restlessly in the gravel at the side of the road but, like most horses, she didn’t seem too bothered by the procedure. Jackson murmured to her in his low, rich voice and stroked her with his gloved hand.

“You’ll probably need to take off your gloves to carry the fluid bag,” Darcy said, “so it won’t slip. You’ll have to hold it above your head to get it to flow through the tubing.”

Jackson stood silent.

When she could look up, she glanced at him.

“You’ll have to carry it,” she said. “I’m too short to hold it high enough for gravity to work.”

He stared, almost glaring at her.

“I’ll carry it,” he snapped.

“Well, then,” she snapped back at him, “we don’t have to worry, do we?”

What an ill-tempered man! This could shape up to be the most nerve-racking foal watch of her entire career.

She should’ve kept on going south. She shouldn’t have stopped—she’d known that when she did it. This was just one more time when she should’ve followed her instincts.

But she had stopped, and this mare might’ve died if she hadn’t, so the thing to do was make the best of the situation and ignore the mercurial Jackson Whoever as much as possible. She’d simply do her Good Samaritan deed, deliver the foal and be on her way.

This mare is going to need IV antibiotics and fluids for days.

There it was again, her eternal, tormenting little voice of truth. Well, it was right. But that didn’t matter; as soon as this foal was on the ground, Jackson could call another veterinarian. A male veterinarian.

She ran a short IV line to the mare’s mane and tied it off. Then she drew up the antibiotic injection and pushed it in the catheter.

“Hold her here a second longer. I’ll get the antibiotic into her, then we’ll head for the barn.”

He didn’t say a word.

They stood in silence while she finished the injection.

“All right, that’s good,” she said, as she started putting things away. “We’re ready for the fluids now.”

Jackson didn’t reply, which roused her temper all over again.

“I didn’t mean to offend you by asking you to do something,” she said tartly, as she dropped her instruments into the container and picked up the bag. “But gravity is the key. Therefore, the bag has to be above the horse’s neck, and I’m not tall enough to hold it there.”

No answer to that, either.

Quickly, she placed the IV line into the port of the bag of fluids and ran the liquid out until all the air bubbles were gone.

She turned to the mare, holding the bag in one hand. Jackson stepped forward and took it from her, held it above Tara’s neck.

“Let’s go,” he said harshly.

Fury raced through her. Ungrateful wretch.

But she bit her tongue and did what she had to do, forcing her thoughts to focus on the mare, only the mare.

“Done,” she said.

Jackson kept the bag high with one hand and held the lead rope with the other as he began to walk away. Stubbornly, he still wore both gloves.

Darcy closed the lid of her box and turned to follow. Somehow, he seemed to know that without even looking at her.

“I’ll take Tara,” he said, throwing the words over his shoulder. “You bring the truck.”

Resentment flared in her blood. She opened her mouth to refuse—and not only to spite him, either. Her instinct was to stay with Tara the whole way and return for the truck once the mare was settled in a clean foaling stall.

He was right, though. She might need her instruments and medicines in a hurry, and he couldn’t run back for the truck if she needed to stay with the mare.

Maybe he was thinking the very same thing but didn’t want to say it. He’d proved sensitive to his physical limitations when she’d stopped on the road.

Or maybe he was such a take-charge kind of guy that he needed to control every move she made now that he’d given in to her request to treat the mare. She didn’t care. All she cared about was this good mare and her baby.

She ran to her truck, jerked open the door and jumped into the driver’s seat. For an instant, she sat there and watched him and Tara, veering off the road to head across the pasture.

People became emotional and crotchety and short-tempered and unreasonable when their favorite animals were sick. Jackson admired Tara and liked her, and apparently she was worth quite a bit as a brood-mare. Plus he’d had to steal her to get help for her. All that, with a tire blowout to boot, was enough to make him hard to deal with—that plus his prejudice about women equine veterinarians.

Jackson led the mare across the pasture toward the gate at a good, fast clip. At least, for him it was, now that lameness slowed his every step. He heard the motor start on Dr. Darcy Hart’s truck.

Thank goodness she couldn’t drive along beside him the whole way—she’d have to go around by the ranch road while he cut across the field. At least he’d have a few minutes of peace before they all reached the barn.

His blood chilled at the thought. What had he done, letting this pushy, interfering woman come onto his place, his refuge?

Just imagining her in his barn, perhaps even in his house—and no telling for how long—made him feel sick. It brought back the lurking nausea that had been his constant companion in those first horrid weeks of consciousness after the wreck. In a year and three months, the only person he’d allowed anywhere near his house and barn, his little corner of the Rocking M Ranch, was his mother.

And he’d never been gone very long from it himself. He’d learned it didn’t take long to become a hermit who had no use for other people.

“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 him, her green eyes wide. For a long moment, her penetrating gaze searched his face while he stared into her eyes. The look held them immobile until Darcy finally moved back.

“We may have a little time,” she said. “If this baby’s sick, too, and even if it’s not, this treatment’s going to be terribly expensive. You may want to call your own veterinarian.”

Well. That was clear enough. Had his feelings been so obvious?

He tried to conceal the embarrassment that suddenly struck him silent by turning toward the window of the stall. With an unnecessary amount of force, he threw out the water still left in the basin.

“I would’ve sworn you were begging for this job not half an hour ago.”

She didn’t answer.

He turned on his heel as best he could and took the pan to her, made himself look her in the eye. Just because a man was no longer attractive to women was no reason to duck his head to them.

“I was,” she said calmly. “I’m just trying to give you an out if you want one.”

That made him feel a little better. Maybe she had interpreted the look as regret that he’d asked her to stay. Maybe she hadn’t recognized the attraction he’d felt, after all.

“The only vet around here that I’d trust with this mare is speaking at a conference in Albuquerque today. And I don’t care what it costs.”

“Very well, then,” she said briskly, “it’s you and me. Let’s get this foal on the ground.”

She untied the mare and unsnapped the lead rope.

Immediately, Tara went to the middle of the stall, circled and started to go down.

“Don’t you need to unhook that fluid line?”

“No, it won’t tangle,” Darcy said, moving past him toward the mare with the same quiet efficiency she’d used before. “This coiled type doesn’t.”

Tara lay down, rolled from side to side, then struggled to her feet. She stood for only a short time, then went down again. This time, after two halfhearted tries, she lay there on her side.

Darcy went onto her knees to examine her.

“It’s an almost undetectable stream,” she said, “but her water has broken. She’s in second stage labor now.”

Tara groaned and tried to push.

“She heard what you said and she’s acting the part.”

Darcy looked at Tara.

“Let’s hope her acting gets results.”

A sharp fear stung him.

“You think she’s too weak?”

“We may have to help her.”

That wasn’t a direct answer, but he didn’t press for one. What did he want—assurance that the mare couldn’t live through this because he’d waited too long to take her away from Blake Collier?

He set his jaw. Maybe he had made yet another of his famous mistakes in judgment, but this was one time he was going to win.

“What do you want me to do?”

Darcy glanced at him, then sat back on her heels and stared at Tara. Her face plainly showed that she was worried, yet there was a calmness about her that hadn’t been there out on the road when she was insisting on treating the mare.

“Go get a bunch of towels,” she said. “This baby may be sick, too, and we’ll have to keep it warm. Blankets.”

“Should I boil any water?” he said dryly. “Sterilize the scissors? Tear the sheets into strips?”

That made her look at him, and he realized, with a little shock, that that had been his intention all along. She smiled, and he felt positively triumphant.

“No,” she said. “My stuff is in sterile surgical packets. But if there’s anything else, I’ll let you know.”

Then she set her attention on the mare again, and Jackson felt lost. He turned and left the barn for the house, trying not to think about the deep green of Darcy’s eyes.

It took him a few minutes to ransack the cabinets—he just threw his towels in the washer and used the same ones over and over without ever looking to see what supplies were in the house. His grandfather had been the last person to live there before him, and he’d probably done the same.

In a cupboard in the bathroom he found stacks of towels his mother must’ve brought over—recently or in Old Clint’s time he had no idea. He grabbed one batch of them and two blankets from the old armoire in the bedroom, then hurried to the barn. Sometimes he’d give the ranch to be able to run across the yard again.

But at least he was alive, as his mother was fond of reminding him whenever she dropped by on one of her infrequent visits. Maybe someday he’d be glad of that.

He heard Tara’s groans before he entered the barn, and they made him forget all about himself. The tortured sound was so dreadful that it hardened his will even more. Tara—and her baby—would live if he had to send the ranch plane to fly Dr. Ward Lincoln back from Albuquerque.

Even as he had the thought, he knew it was as foolish as a desperate child’s. This would all be decided in the next thirty minutes, and this woman horse doctor was the only veterinarian of any kind, much less an equine one, in fifty miles.

And there she was, at her truck, getting something from her vet box.

“She’s getting nowhere,” she said, when she saw Jackson. “It’s uterine inertia.”

Jackson’s heart thudded painfully.

“What can we do?”

“Add calcium supplements to the IV fluids. She’s so weak we’ll probably have to get hold of that foal.”

She turned to the barn with her hands full of supplies.

“Let me put these things down and I’ll help you,” Jackson said.

“Not necessary,” Darcy said. “Let’s go.”

By the time he’d piled the blankets and towels in the corner of the stall, she was standing still, watching Tara thoughtfully.

“Let’s wait a little longer,” she said. “Maybe she’ll get a second wind and deliver on her own.”

Thirty minutes later, after three more valiant tries on the mare’s part accomplished nothing, Darcy spoke.

“She can’t take much more of this, and neither can I.”

She began pulling on a long, plastic sleeve. “Here,” she said, tossing one to him. “Put it on just in case I need you.”

For a second, his anger flared. He couldn’t fit his glove inside the plastic sleeve, and he wasn’t going to try.

“Don’t do it all yourself,” he said sarcastically.

“I’m not,” she snapped, flashing him a surprised look. “You’ll get your chance to be a hero.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

There was a trace of hurt in her voice. Guilt nagged at him. She had no way of knowing what his hands looked like or why he wouldn’t take off his gloves.

Tara groaned again and strained terribly, but there was no visible sign that the baby moved.

“It’s always better not to pull a foal,” Darcy said. “But we don’t want to let her get too weak.”

She went down on her knees behind the mare and gently inserted her plastic-sheathed arm.

Jackson waited, watching her face, but it told him nothing.

“There’s a front leg,” she said, at last. “Now, where’s the other one?”

Finally, after an eternity, she nodded, and Jackson let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“All right,” she said, “there it is, and there’s the nose—and, thank goodness, the sucking motion that says it’s alive. Let me get that muzzle tucked in between those little legs and out you come, baby.”

She worked for a bit, then pulled gently. Once. Twice.

“We’re getting him out, Miss Tara,” she said. “Come on, can you help me, girl?”

Tara groaned and tried again to respond, but she was clearly getting weaker.

Jackson awkwardly lowered himself to a half-sitting, half-kneeling position beside the veterinarian.

“Why don’t you let me help?”

“Because you would keep on saying women aren’t strong enough for this job,” she said, through clenched teeth.

She gave the foal another pull.

Sweat stood on her forehead.

“No, I won’t,” Jackson said. “Because you’ve nearly got him out, and I admit, right now, that you can do the rest. Let me help you.”

“All right,” she said.

She moved over, and he took hold of the small hoof that was visible through the blood and gelatin-like straw-colored fluid coming from the mare. He grasped it firmly.

“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?