Page 13 of Roping Her In

Irritation drove through her, propelling her forward. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” He led the way back to the horses. “Where were you?”

“Can we please be civil?”

“This is me bein’ civil, sweetheart.” Jake threw her a cloudy look. “Hailey, I don’t care when you come out here. There will always be something for you to do.”

“But I want to learn what I need to,” she said. “Don’t you have a—a—a schedule? Won’t you need to know when I’m coming so you can assign my tasks?” She pressed in closer to him, her attraction firing on all cylinders.

“Look, I know you don’t want to talk to me. That’s fine. It’s—it’s fine.” She hated when she repeated herself, and it actually wasn’t fine that the lead veterinarian at her internship ranch wouldn’t speak to her. He hadn’t gotten this position because he was a bad vet, and Hailey simply knew she could learn something from him personally.

“I can text you a schedule that would work for me, and then you can simply type something up or text me, and we won’t have to bother one another.”

He bothered her, all right, but Hailey didn’t want to admit in what way.

“Fine,” he said.

“I have other classes,” Hailey said.

Jake rolled his neck and eyes before settling that piercing dark-eyed gaze on her. “Hailey, I just said you can set your own hours, and if you want to text them to me, fine.” He reached for the rope hanging from the neck of a nearly black horse. “Now, did Leia go over the system we have to take notes?”

He peered at her, actually leaning closer and creating an intimate space with the brim of that sexy cowboy hat. “I go over all the notes, Hailey. They must be thorough.”

She swallowed. “She went over the notes, and I’ve been recording myself assessing the horse, which I’ll transcribe for you before I go.”

He frowned mightily. “Recording yourself?”

“It’s a free app.” She dug in her pocket, a new excitement fueling her. “It’s so much faster than trying to remember everything and type out notes. It actually does a ton of transcribing for you.”

He gave her a wary look, then indicated the gorgeous equine in front of him. “All right, then.” He spoke in such a cowboy drawl, and Hailey swore her eardrums thrummed with a tickle. And the way he said her name? She couldn’t even imagine what would happen to her insides if he ever said it without disdain.

“Show me.” He raised his eyebrows and fell back a step.

Hailey swallowed, her nerves now firing through her like booming canons. But she saw his challenge, and she had never backed down from one, especially not from an arrogant cowboy like Jake Ahlstrom.

“Okay.” She tapped in her passcode on her phone and opened the app. The horses had been put in this arena with dirt on the ground, and ropes attached to the wall to mark stalls. They had troughs for feeding, and she could tell the men and women here had done their best in a pinch.

Name tags had been looped over the front of the rope, and Hailey’s heart pounded hard and then harder as she stepped back to find out the name of the black beauty in front of her. She then stepped past Jake to the mare and took the rope from him, then deliberately tapped to start the app.

“All right, Tempest,” she said and she clipped her phone to her collar so she could use both of her hands. “My name is Hailey, and I’m going to take good care of you.” She smiled at the horse as the equine lowered her head and touched the long length of his nose against her shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re a good girl, aren’t you?” She pushed Jake out of her mind and focused on her tasks. The wind rattled the glass several feet above her, and Hailey honestly felt just as buffeted about.

She watched Tempest breathe, already counting as she looked down to see where the timer sat on her dictation app. “She’s bright, alert, and responsive. She’s bearing weight on all four limbs, and….”

She waited as the seconds clicked on, finally getting where she needed it to be. “Fifteen breaths per minute. It’s a bit elevated, but I’m a new person for her.” She ran one hand down Tempest’s neck. “Breathing appears normal, not too deep or labored, and not shallow.”

She smiled at the horse. “All right, Tempest-girl. Let’s listen to your lungs.” She pulled her stethoscope from her back pocket and fitted it in her ears as she continued to run her hands down the mare’s side. Over and over, to get her used to the touch.

She stood solidly at Tempest’s left shoulder and slipped the stethoscope behind the horse’s elbow, and she glanced down at her recording device again. It counted time for her, and she closed her eyes to pay attention to the rhythmic lub-dub of the horse’s pulse.

Fifteen seconds later, she raised her head. “Heart rate is forty, with a perfectly normal rhythm.” She moved slowly in front of the horse, keeping the rope taut. “Let’s check your mouth, all right, Tempest?”

She tucked her stethoscope away, the movement a bit stilted as one of the ends got caught and wouldn’t go in. She deliberately didn’t look at Jake, though his presence seemed to fill the entire arena.

Hailey fumbled the gloves next, and she pressed her eyes closed in a long blink. She got them on and lifted the mare’s upper lip. “Wow, look at your teeth, girl.” She grinned, because the mucous membranes looked great too.

“Mucous membranes pink and moist.” She looked at her phone, pressed her thumb into the gum until the spot blanched, released it, and glanced at the timer. “Capillary refill one-point-six seconds.”