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I shook my head, not believing her. “You know that’s not true. We both know who she is. She didn’t want to stick around here. She left here, and she had plans to do something else. I understand that becoming a vet was all about helping her father, but I want you to tell me what’s going on with the old man because I know that’s part of it. Tell me what it is.”
Lorna looked up to face me and chewed on her lip before finally speaking.
“She’ll skin me alive if she finds out I told you. You are literally the last person she wants to know this.”
“Lorna,” I pleaded. “I’m not trying to do anything malicious with this information. If anything I want to help her and I don’t know how to do that if I can’t figure out what is going on behind the scenes here. Tell me what it is, and maybe I can do something to help her. She’s your friend, and she’s mine too. I know I’ve wished that it was more, but I’m basically settled into the reality that it isn’t ever going to happen between us. If there is something I can do to fix the situation she’s in though—somehow make things easier for her…I want to do it. Help me help Maddy. Please.”
Maddy’s best friend was hesitant, but eventually, she decided it was worth it to tell me.
“It’s her dad. He’s sick.”
“How sick?” I asked.
“He’s sick like…there’s nothing they can really do for him. It’s not like they have given him an expected amount of time he has left. But basically, they’ve told him he has to take it easy. Nothing crazy going on. It’s his heart. It’s done. There was too much damage from several heart attacks, and now they are waiting for another one. The doctors have told him that one will come eventually and that will be the one that kills him.”
I stood there, not exactly in shock, but absorbing the information. Her father was an older man, and it wasn’t a surprise that he had heart trouble. The fact that he was essentially sitting in his house waiting to die though. That was too much.
“And Maddy is back here to be close to him and help him out financially, correct?”
Lorna nodded. “That was the idea. She didn’t know how long she would stick around, but she wanted something solid and secure enough so that she could stay as long as her father is here and needs her. Lucy is busy and really couldn’t be the one to step up to the plate. So Maddy is here, doing the sort of thing that Maddy does—taking care of everyone else before she considers herself. Alex, she’s not thinking about her happin
ess. It’s her father she’s putting first. I think…” she stopped speaking and shook her head. “Seriously, she will kill me if she knows I said this to you, but I think she loves you. I don’t think it ever stopped. I think the circumstances brought things to a halt. Now she thinks if she brings you back into her life that you are going to turn it upside down and cause problems when all she is trying to do is make her father comfortable in his last days.”
I took a deep breath and thanked Lorna before I left the clinic, stepping out into the early spring sunshine. I knew what I had to do.
Chapter 10
Madison
My phone rang as I was closing up the front of the clinic. Lorna had already gone home for the day and taking the time of day into consideration I figured that it was my father and worried for a moment that something might be wrong at his place.
I picked up the phone and saw that instead, it was Alex’s number. For a moment I held an internal debate—to answer or not? The way he had behaved over the past few months, so hot and cold toward me, was enough to make anyone crazy and I thought that we had settled on the fact that it was better for us not to have anything to do with each other outside of a professional capacity. I swiped to take the call.
“Hello?”
“I’ll cut to the chase,” Alex said. “I need you out here now. It’s the yearling. I think she’s about to have this foal.”
“Give me fifteen minutes. I’ll be there as quickly as I can.”
I ended the call and threw my phone in my bag and gathered things I thought I might need. Pineapple was young, to begin with, but there were so many other concerns surrounding her giving birth. The poor thing was healthy but small, and I worried that even though nature usually had a way of working these things out, her fear might outweigh her instincts.
I ran out to my SUV and threw my bag in the back, hopping in the driver’s seat and speeding away out of town and in the direction of Killarny Estate. It was a quick drive down the mostly abandoned highway, but in the distance, I could see the storm clouds rolling over the hills, a sure sign that we were in for a very noisy evening as was common for a spring evening in Kentucky.
There was electricity in the air, literally, as I made my way up the drive and to the main barn at the ranch. Against the slate gray of the sky came a bolt of lightning slicing through the clouds and rendering the sky into two parts for a split second. It sent a chill up my spine as I parked my vehicle and went running toward the stable where Pineapple was housed.
It was dark in the stable, save for a single utility light shining into one of the larger stalls. Against it, I caught sight of Alex’s tall silhouette, and it made me catch my breath. He stood there, powerful and seemingly in control of the situation, but I knew nature better than this. And I knew Alex better as well. Behind all that strength and confidence in what he knew, there was a worry that something could go wrong. Losing the horse would be too much after everything that had transpired over the past year, and I knew I had to do everything in my power to help her through this delivery.
I rushed up behind him, and he turned to face me.
“Thank you for getting here so quickly,” he said as he turned back to the horse, who was very clearly in pain and scared of what was happening to her. “It seemed to come on pretty quickly. I called you just as soon as I realized what was happening.”
I moved in closer to the horse, saying soothing words and doing what I could to make sure she knew that I was there to help and not harm. Reaching out to touch her I felt the warmth of her body through the sheen of her golden coat. Her muscles rippled beneath my touch and I could sense the uncertainty in her behavior. It was clearly visible in her eyes, but there was something else there. She was slowly submitting to it and letting her body take control of what was a natural process.
“Everything seemed fine this morning. She wasn’t acting the least bit distressed. I can usually tell when a mare is about to foal, but she was acting completely normal.”
I nodded and backed away, coming to grab some instruments from my bag and then moving in to give Pineapple a more thorough examination. Everything looked like it was proceeding as it should and for me, there wasn’t much to do other than monitor her and make sure she didn’t go through any unnecessary stress. The one factor I still had no clue about was the weight of the foal. This was a premature delivery as far as we knew, assuming we had the date correct on the conception.
“All we can do is wait now,” I said as I moved to stand beside Alex.
