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“I told you she’d make it,” Tiffany said. The precocious little bay looked so healthy.The filly couldn’t die. Not now.
Mac’s knowing eyes traveled over the mare and foal, but he didn’t offer his thoughts to Tiffany. She read the hesitation in his gaze. It’s still too early to tell, he was saying without uttering a word.
As Tiffany watched the two horses, she realized that the stall had already been cleaned. The smell of fresh straw and warm horses filled the small rooms attached to the broodmare barn, which were used for the express purpose of foaling.
“You didn’t have to stay in the sitting-up room,” Tiffany remarked, knowing that she was wasting her breath. Mac was from the old school of horse training. “There’s a monitor in the den.”
“Aye, and what good does it do ya?”
“I used it last night.”
Mac laughed. “As if you don’t trust me.” She was about to protest, but he stilled her with a wave of his arm. “I like to be close, especially since we’ve had so much trouble. If anything goes wrong, I’m right next door.” He cocked his head in the direction of the sitting-up room positioned between the two foaling boxes. “It’s what I’m used to.”
Tiffany didn’t argue. Mac had been around horses long before the introduction of video cameras and closed-circuit television. “There’s fresh coffee up at the house, and Louise is in the process of whipping up a special brunch, if you can stick around.”
“The missus—”
“Is invited, too.”
Mac rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin and cracked a wide smile. “She might like that, ya know. She’s always grumblin’ ’bout cookin’ for me,” he teased.
“I’ll bet.” Tiffany laughed in reply. Emma McDougal positively doted on her husband of over forty years, but Mac was none the worse for his wife’s spoiling. “Why don’t you grab a cup of coffee, or take this thermos and then go home for a while? Bring Emma back with you around eleven.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll stay here until Vance arrives.” Tiffany checked her watch. “And then, if Vance approves, we’ll let John watch the horses.”
“If you think you can trust him—”
Tiffany waved Mac off. “John’s only nineteen, I grant you, but he’s been around horses all his life, and he’s the best stable boy since—”
“You?” Mac asked, his eyes saddening.
Tiffany pushed aside the unpleasant memories. When she had been a stable boy to her father, Mac had been with the horses on the racing circuit, but he had learned of her duties through Ellery. “Maybe,” she acknowledged. “Now, go on, get out of here.”
Mac took his cue and left Tiffany to watch over the new mother and filly. The little bay foal scampered around her mother on legs that had grown stronger with the passing of the night. “You’re going to make it, aren’t you?” Tiffany asked, before glancing at the foaling record and noting that everything had been recorded perfectly. The time that the mare’s water broke, when the foal was born, when it stood, and when it first suckled were duly noted along with the foal’s sex and color. Everything looked normal.
Tiffany looked at the impish bay horse and let out a long sigh. “Let her live,” she prayed in a soft whisper that seemed to echo through the rafters in the high ceiling.
She was just straightening up the sitting-up room when she heard the door to the foaling shed creak open.
“Tiffany?” Dustin called softly.
“In here.” She peeked around the corner and was surprised to find Dustin dressed in a business suit. “What’s going on?” she asked, pointing a moving finger at his neatly pressed clothes.
“I’m going back to Florida.”
“Today?” She stepped back into the corridor to meet him. His face was set in hard determination, and a small frown pulled at the corners of his mouth.
“Have to.”
Tiffany held her palms up in the air. “Wait a minute! You just got here yesterday.”
Dustin’s gold eyes held hers. “Do you want me to stay?” he asked, his voice much too familiar in the well-lit building. The only other sound was the whisper of hay being moved by the horses’ feet.
“Yes . . . no . . .” She shook her head in bewilderment. “If you want to. What’s the rush?”
He looked genuinely disappointed and refused to smile. “I only came back to make sure that you were all right,” he admitted, his frown deepening. “And from the looks of it, you’re fine.” His eyes slid down her slim form. She was clad only in worn jeans and a pink pullover, but with her hair wound over her head and the sparkle back in her intense blue eyes, she appeared both elegant and dignified, a no-nonsense lady who had her act together.
