Page 39 of Wilder

But this?

This wasn’t about the ranch. This wasn’t about morning chores or scheduling rotations or checking in on the other hands.

This was me, reaching for him because I needed to hear his voice. I needed him to tell me everything was going to be okay before I had a massive breakdown. Because right now, as my thoughts were spiraling and my gut twisted itself into knots, the only thing I could think about was how badly I wanted to hear his voice.

I wanted him to tell me Pelly was okay. That she wasn’t scared and she wasn’t hurting. That she was going to make it through this, and it wasn’t as bad as I was imagining, that I didn’t need to be freaking the hell out while stuck hundreds of miles away, useless and helpless to do anything.

I needed him to steady me before I lost my grip on my own damn emotions and had a massive breakdown at four in the goddamn morning on my brother’s front porch.

And that?

That was the part that terrified me the most.

Just as quickly, though, I pushed the thought away. Shoved it deep down, where it couldn’t distract me from what I needed to be doing right now.

Tapping on his name, I drew the phone up to my ear and waited for the other side to ring. Two tones passed before the other end finally picked up.

“Asher.”

CHAPTER 10

Wilder

His voice sounded small when he responded with a tight, “Hey.”

I didn’t like it.

Didn’t like how lost it made him sound, even from just that single word alone. How his usual sunlit energy was strained and stretched too thin, trying to hide behind the carefully measured tone he was using.

Asher was supposed to be glee and reckless charm personified—not whatever this was. Worrying himself sick over something he couldn’t control was pointless. He couldn’t fix a damn thing from where he was, hundreds of miles away. And even if he had been here, he wouldn’t be doing anything different than I was right now.

I would’ve dragged him along to this hospital, sat him down next to me in one of these ungodly stiff waiting room chairs and watched his knee bounce a mile a minute, fingers twitching in his lap, while we waited for another vet tech to come pushing through those back doors and update us on whatever latest test they’d run.

Right now, he was supposed to be off spending time with his family—on a well-deserved vacation I had no business interrupting. He’d earned it tenfold with the amount of work he’d put in day in and day out these past few months, let alone the entire goddamn year I’d had him.

Four hundred and twenty-nine days. That was it. In that short amount of time, he’d done more than most veterans did in their entire first five seasons on the ranch without bitching or complaining about anything outside of the rare hassling comments made toward his fellow ranch hands while they messed around with each other.

Impressive was the bare minimum when it came to the kind of compliment I could give Asher Torres, yet nothing else really seemed to fit otherwise.

I adjusted the grip on my phone, keeping my voice steady as I said, “She’s okay, Asher.”

He was silent on the other end. Nothing but the sound of his soft breathing coming through on the other side of the line.

By now, I knew him pretty well. At least, I liked to think I did.

Asher wasn’t one for the kind of nice platitude most folks gave to kids his age; didn’t really care for soft words or a gentle ‘it’ll be okay, don’t worry’ that might ease anyone else less who was less in tune with the world around them.

None of that would help. That simply wasn’t how he processed things. He needed facts, the cold hard trust. Straight and unfiltered, even if it was ugly.

So, that’s what I gave him.

“Vet thinks she got into something before we put her away for the night. Ate something she wasn’t supposed to and it really upset her system. There’s a good possibility she had a seizure, so they’re running a few tests to check her bloodwork. EEG will have to be performed if her bloodwork comes back abnormal.”

Watching Elena’s expression pinch as she’d delivered the news to me had gutted me. She’d been the specialist here for as long as I’d been a ranch hand and was never one to beat around the bush when it came to my animals. I appreciated that about her, much like I appreciated Teddy’s gentle approach, too.

Two sides of the same coin and both valuable beyond belief in this industry.

But having to be told how close of a call we’d come to losing one of our fillies after finally getting her back to where she was before all the abuse was the last thing I’d been hoping to hear. She’d already come to us in bad shape as it was and only came around because of a special hand.