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But instead of heading straight to the clinic, she watched him for just a moment as he headed outside to meet the girls on the lawn.
He didn’t walk with the casual assurance of a successful computer salesman. His bearing was military, focused, radiating an element of control and power that spoke of an entirely different line of work. He seemed to have a very clear sense of danger on his heels.
What had Zach been doing all these years—and why was he really back?
* * * *
THE INJURED HORSE, a pretty sorrel with three white stockings and a blaze, stood cross-tied in the aisle of the barn. Nervous and clearly in pain, its eyes were rimmed with white and its ears swiveled like radar antennae as Dana moved between its foreleg, the equipment she’d laid out nearby, and the vet truck she’d parked at the barn door.
After this second e-mail threat, he’d been afraid to let her travel alone. Who knew whether or not someone could be waiting on a darkened curve of the road? In the depths of an isolated, darkened barn?
This vet call had been for real. The next one could be a set-up.
But given Dana’s reaction to his concerns, she wouldn’t be changing her response to night calls anytime soon.
Straightening, he rolled the stiffness out of his left shoulder. What he knew about horses came from a few visits to riding stables and the silver screen, but Dana clearly knew her stuff.
“I believe we’re looking at a coffin bone fracture,” she said finally, giving the gelding a rub behind the ears. “He won’t bear weight, he has a bounding digital pulse, and you saw his reaction to pressure with the hoof tester.”
Amen, Zach thought. She’d used something that looked a lot like a big set of pliers to apply gentle pressure at different angles on the hoof, and the horse had nearly hit the ceiling.
“But because the fracture is inside the hoof wall, there’s not obvious swelling or a fracture site that we’d be able to see if it were someplace else,” Dana continued. “The X-rays I took show a fracture, but the digital equipment at the clinic is much better. Can you bring him in tonight? Once we know for sure, I can get to work on him.”
The owner, a bent and weathered cowboy with a steel-gray mustache, rested an arm on the sorrel gelding’s withers and nodded. “Bad deal, going down like he did. Will he be okay?”
She took a quick look at the gelding’s teeth. “With a young horse like this—what is he—three? There’s a fairly good prognosis, but the healing is usually slow. If it’s the coffin bone we’ll cast him for a couple weeks. Then he’ll need a heavy support shoe and thick leather sole pads for maybe five months. After that, a light bar shoe. Some horses do fine, some need to stay in a bar shoe for life.”
The cowboy stroked the sorrel’s neck. “So you don’t think we’ll need to put him down?”
“Until I see more definitive X-rays I can’t give a final prognosis. But based on what I see so far, I think he’s got a good chance for recovery to full use.” She picked up the portable X-ray machine and the wooden box containing a long-handled hook tester, hook knife, and other paraphernalia. “You’ll bring him in?”
“Right away.”
“Good. This is a mighty nice colt. I’ll go get some bandaging material so we can get that leg stabilized for transfer.”
She strode to her truck and began rummaging through the compartments of the vet box.
The cowboy gave the gelding’s neck a final pat and then turned toward Zach with a lopsided grin and a hand extended in greeting. “Bob Creighton. Guess we didn’t introduce ourselves. Something happens to one of my horses, and I can’t think about much else. You’re her husband?”
Zach had been in a few long-term relationships, but whenever that word started slipping into a woman’s conversations, he’d always started backing off, suddenly finding a dozen reasons to be anywhere else.
Now the word husband had an almost...pleasant...sound to it. The cool night air and the scents of clean sawdust bedding and horse must have affected his brain.
“No. Just a neighbor.”
The cowboy’s grin widened. “That’s one purty gal.”
“And she’s not looking for commitment any more than he is.” Dana shook out a towel onto the floor next to the horse, then laid out an assortment of wrapping materials. “Some of us gain wisdom with age.”
She went down on one knee next to the horse and began wrapping its lower leg in fluffy sheet cotton. “How about you, Bob?”
He chuckled. “A mite wiser than you two. My Betty is in the house, watching our grandkids. We’ve had forty-two years and the good Lord willin’, we’ll have forty-two more.”
“That would be quite a record,” Dana said dryly as she began wrapping over the sheet cotton with elastic bandaging. “You got some sort of youth potion in one of your wells out here?”
“Nothing but common sense to appreciate what we have and a hope that it doesn’t end.” Bob watched her work for another minute, then jingled the keys in his pockets. “I’ll go tell her I have to leave, and then I’ll hitch up the stock trailer.”
Dana wrapped white bandaging over the sheet cotton until it covered the gelding’s leg from the hoof to just below the knee. She eyed it critically, then rose and began picking up leftover supplies. “This ought to keep him more comfortable until we get him into the clinic.”
