Читать книгу Bittersweet - Laura Browning - Страница 7

Chapter 4

Chris fumed the whole way along the aisle. What was it about Anna that seemed to get under his skin? He had done little but think about her ever since last Sunday. Having her crowd his thoughts was not something he enjoyed. He preferred the women in his life to be in the background until he decided otherwise. Look what had happened with Sydney when he gave her too much freedom to do as she pleased. He couldn’t afford to lose control like that with Anna.

What was he thinking? Anna Barlow was not a woman in his life. She was an annoying thorn in his side, and no bigger than a damn horsefly. Maybe he could swat her away and be done with it.

“You can quit scowling, Chris,” Wynter remarked in an amused tone. “We’re almost to the ring.”

They might be almost to the ring, but his thoughts were still stuck on Anna. Why had he asked about Becca? What Anna Barlow did with her kid was no business of his. He had never had anything to do with children or babies, and for all he knew, he didn’t even like them. His mind flashed to those big blue-gray eyes staring at him out of her chubby face that first night when he’d held her, and he smiled. She was cute.

Wynter stopped and studied him as if he were a bug on a pin. “What is it with you and Anna Barlow, Chris?”

That snapped him back to the present. He shook his head.

“Nothing. She doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve just met her, Wyn.”

Wynter tilted her head and raised her auburn brows at him. “Whatever you say.”

Chris’s gaze skittered away as he concentrated on the mare Nelson had under saddle in the ring. She was a steel gray with a mane and tail still pitch black. Coloring like that made a big impact in the show ring, even more if she stayed dark for a while instead of fading like many grays.

“Flashy,” he commented as the young horse bent through the back and came onto the bit. Her strides lengthened and floated now at the trot.

“She’s for sale,” Wynter offered with a grin and propped an arm on the top rail.

“Why?” Chris leaned against the fence. He had difficulty imagining why anyone would want to sell a horse with what appeared to be unlimited potential.

Wynter shrugged. “She belongs to a client. We can’t take any more horses on right now, and the owner says she doesn’t have the time to work with her or campaign her, so she asked a friend of Thomas’s to help sell her.”

“Who’s the owner?”

“She’s from Virginia somewhere,” Wynter replied with a wave of her hand. “I don’t recall the name, but Thomas knows. Ask him.”

“How long have you had her here?”

“A couple of months. She was a bit rusty when she arrived, as if she’d had a lay off, but she’s a quick learner and talented. Her mind’s right to make it big. Plenty of fire, but doesn’t seem to get rattled–at least so far.”

Chris wasn’t in the market for another horse to campaign, but there was something about this mare he liked. He’d like to get a feel of her to see if she worked with the same smoothness she appeared to with Nelson aboard. He was confident she would. He and Nelson Anderson had competed against each other long enough for Chris to know their styles were similar.

“Can I try her?” He tracked the mare’s progress around the ring.

Wynter grinned. “Why do you think I called you to come over, rich boy?”

Chris returned the grin, recalling the insult she used to sling at him with a laugh before she married Nelson Anderson, one of the wealthiest men in the country. Wynter had mucked stalls at Pheasant Run until their trainer, Thomas Sinclair, discovered what a talented rider she was.

“Nelson,” Wynter called. “Rich Boy wants to try her.”

Nelson’s smile flashed beneath the brim of his hard hat and he trotted the mare over on a loose rein.

Chris liked the horse even more once he was on her back. Her canter was powerful and supple, even better than her trot. He sensed the coiled energy in her and called to Nelson and Wynter as he went past, “How is she over fences?”

“Green,” Nelson called. “We’ve been schooling at about three-six right now.”

Chris turned the mare toward a vertical and sat deep in the saddle. The horse wiggled approaching the fence, but kept her ears forward before jumping big and bold. Chris nodded to himself and headed for an oxer on the far side of the ring. This, too, she jumped with almost no effort. He continued to work the mare for several more minutes, and then eased her down to a walk. He liked the way she came right back and relaxed.

As he crossed the ring to Wynter and Nelson, he stroked the mare’s neck and lifted his eyes to catch Anna Barlow standing in the shade outside the barn. Had she watched the entire time? Even from this distance, tension vibrated in every line of her body. Her hands were shoved deep into the pockets of her coveralls until her shoulders appeared almost hunched, and her blue eyes dominated her heart-shaped face. Their gazes locked for an instant, but in the next moment she hurried away.

Chris frowned. What was with that? She acted as if she’d seen a ghost. He shook his head and jumped to the ground. A groom came to take the mare and untack her. Chris dismissed Anna from his thoughts and turned his attention to Nelson and Wynter.

“How much?”

“Fifty.” Wynter priced her, as Nelson stood next to her.

“A little steep for a green, untested mare,” Chris observed.

Wynter shrugged. “That’s what the owner wants, and Thomas says he’s not sure she’ll budge. He gets the feeling she’s reluctant to sell, even though she knows it’s for the best.”

As the mare retreated, Chris pursed his lips. “Have the vet check her. I want x-rays and everything. If she passes, I’ll buy her.”

Wynter grinned and glanced at her husband’s profile. “I told Nelson you’d like her.”

Chris laughed. “Smart woman. That must be why he married you.”

“Oh no,” Wynter said, “I’m sure the scads of money I brought into our relationship was the real reason.”

They laughed. Wynter had been homeless and trying to gain admission to Duke on scholarships and loans when Nelson met her.

At the other end of the aisle, Anna squatted with a clipboard, putting in information and sketching the horse they were examining before they drew blood to ship off to the lab for a Coggins test.

“She sure is a tiny thing,” Wynter remarked as they walked down the aisle. “You say you already met her?”

Chris scowled. “She stitched Bart after that groom let him injure himself.”

Anna glanced in their direction before turning her attention to her work. She did look pale. She was working too hard. Between running around in the heat doing barn calls and trying to nurse and care for a baby by herself, she would make herself sick. When would she realize there was no such thing as Superwoman? By the time they drew parallel to Anna, she returned his glare with one of her own, her delicate jaw clenching and letting him know she was raring to fight if he just said the word. Irritating woman!

“Jim,” Wynter inquired, apparently choosing to ignore the undercurrents Chris knew she felt swirling around them, “I know you’ve got a lot on your plate today, but can you fit in a vet check on the gray mare that came in? We need films too.”

“Anna? You up for it?” Jim said in a quiet tone, looking over the top of the horse’s neck.

Something like pain flashed across her face before she ducked her head. When she lifted her face, her expression was blank.

“Sure, Jim. It’s not a problem.”

Chris tossed the conversation around in his head as he drove to Fincastle later on. Something was going on with Anna Barlow, and it puzzled him. There was the feeling he kept getting as well, as if he should know her from somewhere and couldn’t quite place her. Chris hated mysteries.

Thinking she might have been on some of the show circuits a few years ago, he went through back issues of The Journal. She was small enough and young enough that she might have been showing ponies on the circuit, but everything he checked came up blank. He saw the name Barlow mentioned, but only as a couple references to a Preston Barlow-Barrett at some function or another, but there were never any pictures. Preston Barrett…hadn’t he met her somewhere? Of course he’d heard of the family. Who hadn’t? They were in the same league as Nelson, only the Barretts’ fortune had been built on newspapers not computers. He shook his head at that connection. Beside the difference in the names, he remembered hearing the whole family was built on the mold of Nordic gods: tall, blond, lean and mean. Hardly a description of Anna Barlow. Maybe the mean part.

He would ask her tomorrow. He had scheduled a recheck for his stallion to evaluate how he was healing. The worst she could do was snap his head off, which she’d already done. But he didn’t get the chance. When he arrived at the barn, Jim Douglas was exiting the truck.

“Hey, Jim,” Chris commented, “I was expecting your new vet, Dr. Barlow.”

“She got called to an emergency on the other side of the county. One of the local hog farmers having some problems with a prize boar in this heat.”

Chris raised his eyebrows and tried to hide a grin. Somehow he had a hard time picturing tiny Anna Barlow dealing with an overheated boar. The whole idea still had him grinning as he led the way to Bart’s stall. The stallion pinned his ears and shook his head at them.

“Pleasant as ever, I see,” Jim remarked.

“I’ll get him for you.”

The stallion continued to misbehave until the veterinarian suggested, “Let me take the edge off him a bit. I’d like him to be still for me to get a good look at the incision to make sure everything’s still holding together before we pull those stitches.”

Chris nodded, but he thought back to how Anna had calmed the stallion and stood on that damn mounting block in complete faith the horse would behave while she’d pushed and prodded at his wound. The even more amazing thing was the stallion had never put a foot wrong the whole time.

“She is an amazing vet,” Jim said as much to himself as to Chris, almost as if he had been privy to his thoughts. “This scar is worthy of a plastic surgeon. A few months, and you won’t even be able to tell it’s there.”

“Mm.”

“She was top of her class at Penn State,” Jim continued, “and had a great offer at an equine-only practice in Virginia, near DC, but she refused it.”

“Really?” Chris kept his tone neutral, but he was so curious to find out more about Anna he would take any tidbits offered.

The vet shrugged. “Their loss, our gain.” He checked the area around the wound for any signs of swelling or infection as he added, “Of course, there might have been a lot more offers if she hadn’t been pregnant as she was interviewing. There was also one professor who was not high on her, claimed she was a dilettante with a bad work ethic, but she’s busted her ass for us.”

“I see.” It was time to change the subject. As much as he wanted to know more, it somehow felt underhanded, as though he was sneaking around behind her back instead of doing the logical thing by asking her. “How did the mare do on the vet check?” he asked to change gears.

“Passed. Flying colors. I’m sure Wynter will call you.”

She did, around lunchtime, so Chris hooked the two-horse trailer to go to Pheasant Run. About halfway, he stopped at a country store to grab a bottle of water. As he came back, Anna, or someone who appeared to be her, was headed inside.

Chris started to say something sarcastic about the dried mud on her until he got close enough to see her face. Underneath the dirt streaks, she looked pale and shaky. She brushed by him as if she didn’t even recognize him.

“Anna?” As soon as she glanced his way, he saw she’d been crying. “What’s wrong?”

“I had to kill a pig,” she muttered as she made to move past him again, but Chris touched her sleeve.

“Come over here in the shade under the tree and sit before you pass out.” He knew she was feeling rotten when she made no protest. “Here, take my water. I’ll get more.”

He returned with some wet towels and two more bottles. He offered her the towel and watched as she scrubbed her face and hands. He tracked her movements as she reached around the back of her neck and rubbed the towel between her breasts. Chris swallowed. She looked wiped out.

“What happened?”

She turned to him with a sigh, and a spark of the Anna he knew burst through. “The boar got stuck in some mud near a farm pond. By the time anyone checked on him, he was already overheated. I couldn’t get his temperature down and he started having seizures. I gave his owner the options. Euthanize him or get him to the vet school. He decided to put him down.”

She looked away, blinking several times. “I’ve never had to kill anything before.”

“It happens.” Chris didn’t want to sound callous. He was being realistic. Saving every animal wasn’t always possible. Livestock owners simply had to learn to deal with that–apparently veterinarians did too.

She smiled, her face wan. Again, Chris was overcome with a feeling he knew her from somewhere. “Thanks, Mr. Stevenson–for the water, the towels and the ear to bend. I’d better get back.”

As she rose, Chris clasped her wrist.

“Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

Her blue eyes widened. “I don’t think that’s a good idea…”

“Come on,” Chris coaxed. “Nothing fancy. Bring Becca and we’ll cook at my house, so you don’t have to worry about the whole…” He found himself at a loss for words.

“The whole breast-feeding thing?” Anna finished with a sarcastic tone. “No thanks, Mr. Stevenson. It’s my personal policy not to socialize with clients of the clinic.”

He ignored her tone and smiled at her, not sure why her agreement was so important. “I grill a great steak.”

She shook her head again. “I’m hungry enough to eat half a steer right now, but I can’t accept your invitation to dinner. Please leave it.”

Chris felt... What? Irritation? Surely not disappointment? Trying to keep a check on things, he smiled. “At least let me buy you a sandwich for lunch. I know this place doesn’t look like much, but they make a great toasted pimento cheese.”

She nodded. “A sandwich would be great, if you think you can stand the mud and pig smell.”

“I’ve smelled worse.”

She smiled. The dimple was there. She looked happier, and for once, young and carefree. Chris wanted to kiss her until she begged for more. And he had no idea where that thought came from, since they’d done nothing but rub each other the wrong way since they’d met. Even so, when he turned it over in his head, it didn’t seem half bad.

Instead of following the urge, he said, “I have one request.”

“What’s that?”

“Call me Chris. Mr. Stevenson is my father.”

It surprised him when she blushed before she replied, “Okay, Chris.”