“How’d you get him into the barn? Could he walk?”
“I drove the trailer down and picked him up. We did manage to get him on the wash rack. Gave him a shot to take the edge off his pain. Been running cold water on the cut. He’s mostly stopped bleeding, but the gash is a good six inches long and deep. I can see muscles.”
The edges of the cut were ragged, as though something had ripped the flesh rather than sliced it. Vince numbed the area, and trimmed the edges of the cut to fresh tissue.
Vince hunkered down beside the horse’s flank.
Able leaned over him. “What’re you doing? What’s happening? What do you see?”
“Making sure he doesn’t have part of a tree limb stuck in him.” Vince glanced over his shoulder and pointed. “Step back. You’re in my light.”
Anne appeared from settling Tom in the paddock and took the man’s arm. “Come on, Mr. Able. Dr. Peterson likes to work alone. We can wait in the aisle.”
“You left your minihorse in the paddock?” Able craned past her to see what Vince was doing.
“Tom’s fine in your paddock. This is a marvelous place. When did you move in?” Making conversation might divert Able from hovering over Vince.
“What? Oh. We’ve been here a little more than a year. Moved down from Illinois north of Chicago. Taxes were running me out of business.”
“You started from scratch?”
Able tried to slide in closer to Vince but Anne edged him away. “Yeah. Sold my place in Illinois to a developer. Made enough to build this place and have some left over. What’s he doing now?”
“Blast!” Vince snarled. “I don’t believe this.”
“What? What, man?” Able crowded in once more and leaned over Vince’s shoulder.
Vince sat back on his heels. “Look at this. It’s a miracle he didn’t slice a tendon.” He held up a bloody six-inch piece of rusty barbed wire. “You’ve got PVC fence all around this place. Where’d the barbed wire come from?” He surged to his feet and brandished the wire in Able’s face like a sword.
“I—I don’t know. Folks who owned the land before us had cows. They had barbed wire. It was all tangled with wild roses and love vine and such, but we pulled it all out when we put the new fence in.”
“Not quite all, boss,” said a gnarled gnome of a man wearing old-fashioned jodhpurs and cracked brown paddock boots. He’d approached so quietly that Anne hadn’t even noticed him. She bet he’d been a jockey. There was something about his bowed legs that was as revealing as a tattoo.
“What barbed wire? We pulled it all.”
“Where was it?” Vince asked.
“Couldn’t be.” Able frowned and pushed the old man aside.
“Tell me now,” Vince said. Then, since Able stood with his mouth open, he turned to the old man. “Well?”
“We ran out of PVC fence posts with no more’n fifteen, twenty feet left to go across the back of the property.”
“You left barbed wire?”
“It was tight and new,” Able said. “Grown full of wild roses and poison ivy. Wasn’t going anywhere. Lately, we’ve been busy working up the arenas. We figured the horses would stay away from that area until we got around to finishing it. Needed the arenas first.”
“You figured,” the old man whispered.
“We were planning on getting to it next week sometime.”
Vince was doing that red-faced, hard-eyed thing again. Anne had kept him from cussing out the lady at the nursing home. She hoped she’d be able to do the same thing with Able. In this case, however, Vince had more reason to lose his temper—a horse was hurt, and it was a human being’s fault.
She caught the old jockey’s eye. He gave her a tiny nod. He could tell how close Vince was to exploding.
“You’ll be lucky if your horse heals sound,” Vince said in a deceptively quiet voice. As though he couldn’t look at Able any longer, he turned to the old man. “Name?”
“Jimmy.”
“Okay, Jimmy. He’s going to need heavy antibiotics for at least ten days. Then we’ll see if he needs another go-around. I’ll leave you enough medication, and I’ll be back tomorrow. I’ve sutured the skin tears inside and trimmed off the necrotic edges, but you’ll have to let it heal from the inside out. Flush it with cold water every two hours, then flush it again with antiseptic solution.”
“Stall rest?”
“Keep his stall extra clean. Pick out the manure as needed and add clean shavings. Hand walk every couple of hours. Take his temperature when you give him his antibiotics. If his temperature goes up, or if he shows any signs of colic, call me at the clinic. Don’t wait and hope it gets better. Give him some analgesic for the pain and try to keep him on his feet. Ought to know something in forty-eight hours.”
“Yessir. I’ll get him through it if he can be got.” The old man had not taken his eyes off Vince. Now he spared a small smile for Anne. “Thank you, ma’am, Dr. Vince.”
Vince turned to walk out without saying a word to Able.
“Vince,” Anne called after him, “would you load Tom? His lead line is hanging on the gatepost by the paddock he’s in. I’ll be right after you.”
No doubt Able felt Vince had treated him like some kind of criminal. In Vince’s eyes, he was. Although she agreed with Vince, she needed to pour some heavy oil on troubled waters if the clinic intended to keep Able as a client. Nobody liked to lose new clients. His horse needed Vince even if Able didn’t.
“You know horses always figure out ways to get into trouble, Mr. Able. You’re so lucky to have an experienced man like Jimmy caring for him. I know he’ll do his best.”
“Yeah, okay, right.” His head came up. “That blasted barbed wire’s not my fault. I ought to fire the whole lot of ’em.”
“No, you shouldn’t. You’d have to train a whole new crew. Jimmy is a blessing. You’ll finish that new fence first thing tomorrow, won’t you?”
He answered her with a grudging nod and went back into the barn.
She ran to the van. Vince had already loaded Tom and was revving the engine as he waited for her.
Before she’d buckled her seat belt he said, “What’d you say to that numbskull Able?”
“That I felt certain he’d replace the fence tomorrow and how lucky he was to have Jimmy.”
“Not what a tyrant I am?”
“He got that on his own. I was afraid you were going to deck him, and I’d have to bail you out of the Williamston County jail on an assault charge.”
“I considered it. Scared if I got started I wouldn’t stop.”
“You’ve had two close calls today, Vince. You kept your temper both times. Congratulations. I know how much you hate people who hurt animals through sheer stupidity, but all that does is upset you. Why don’t you try turning something like this into a teachable moment? Some good might come out of it. Who knows?”
Ten minutes later Vince parked the van at Martin’s. He and Anne unloaded Tom and walked him down to his paddock, where the other horses waited at the gate.
Anne removed Tom’s sneakers. They were dirty, but they were washable. Vince removed Tom’s halter and turned him loose with the rest of his herd.
“Here’s your wandering boy child,” Anne said. “Home safe.”
They stood side by side as Anne latched the gate. “You, Doctor, stink.”
“Comment on my competence or my odor?”
“Definitely odor.”
“Can I borrow your shower again? How about driving into the café after we’re clean? That carrot cake was a long time back. I’m hungry.”
“I really don’t want to drive into town, but I have the makings for a killer Western omelet. It’s one of the few things I can cook. My big sister, Elaine, is the gourmet cook. I wear the badge of the horse show rider, the cold cheeseburger.”
�
�I need to get another change of clothes from my van, and I should tell Victoria about Tom’s triumph.”
“And Able’s wounded horse. I should be clean and beating eggs by the time you finish with Victoria. I’ll leave the front door open. You know where everything is in the shower.”
* * *
AFTER DEBRIEFING VICTORIA and gathering fresh clothes and boots from his truck, Vince started down the path to Anne’s cottage. For Tom’s visit, he’d put on pressed chinos and a starched shirt. Both were now caked with blood and probably unsalvageable. He might have to start leaving a couple of extra sets in the tack room.
Behind the open curtains, Vince saw Anne, her hair still damp from her shower, standing at the kitchen counter, beating eggs for the omelets.
When he had looked into Seth’s lighted windows, he’d envied the man his warm, glowing home. Envied him the beautiful wife waiting for his kiss, the child cuddled against him.
In the event he did marry at some point, he’d come home bloody, dirty and late to a cold wife, a cold stove and a screaming child who wanted no part of him. He had no frame of reference on how to build a happy family. What did it even look like? Growing up as he did, all he knew was anger, chaos. Disruption. His father talked about wanting peace and harmony, but every time harmony reared its head, Thor Peterson poked it until it withdrew and left only recrimination and hard feelings.
This afternoon had been a small triumph for Anne’s training, but it drove home to Vince how much like his father he was becoming. Irascible, impatient, annoyed with the smallest infraction.
His father’s first rule was, “Do as I say and be quick about it. Never mind what I do.” For as long as Vince could remember, he’d always been on edge around his father. He never knew what word or action would set the old man off. His sons came in for the worst of it, but he could tear a strip off his employees as well.
No child should have to grow up under those conditions. Whenever his father brought home a new wife, Vince assumed she was temporary. He never expected any of the wives to love him, so he never took the chance of loving them.
As the middle child, he’d been pretty much ignored anyway. He’d been able to fly under the family radar a good bit of the time, read his books, work with the farm animals and periodically fight with his brothers. Josh, as the eldest, had the toughest time. Cody, the youngest, never seemed to do much wrong in his father’s eyes. For one thing, he loved cows.
Vince opened the door of Anne’s cottage and heard her in the kitchen humming an old folk song. He recognized that’s what it was, but couldn’t recall the words. Probably something about a tragic love affair. They usually were.
He slipped past her and into the shower. How easy would it be to finish that omelet and slide into her arms?
Too darned hard, as a matter of fact. Once he held her, he was afraid he’d never be able to let her go.
So he must never hold her in the first place.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“LOOKS GREAT, SMELLS GREAT,” Vince said as he sat down at the small kitchen table that served as Anne’s dining table. He tasted a forkful of his outsize omelet. “Most important, tastes great. If this is what you call not being able to cook as well as your sister, she must have a dozen Michelin stars.”
“Elaine cooks fancy. She reads gourmet magazines and actually makes the recipes turn out looking like the ones in the photos. Doesn’t hurt that she and Roger, her husband, had the kitchen updated after Daddy sold them our old house. Elaine believes that entertaining important people is the path to making Roger important.”
“Is it working?”
“Seems to be. He’s made partner in his law firm. Not named partner yet. He’s not printed on his firm’s letterhead, but Elaine thinks her committee work and inviting people with influence to dinner parties will put Roger over the top.” She buttered an English muffin, poured honey on it and took a bite. After a minute, she said, “Now that she’s gotten pregnant, either she’ll slow down, dump her committees and morph into the perfect mother, or she’ll double her efforts to get Roger’s name on that letterhead.”
He took a second muffin and followed Anne’s lead with butter and honey. “What’s your best guess?”
“No clue. I have never understood my sister and she doesn’t understand me. Other people’s opinions matter terribly to her.”
“Not to you?”
“I want to be thought of as honest and competent. I don’t sweat the small stuff.”
Vince put down his muffin and shook his head. “You sure sweat the competence part. Whenever you think I’m stepping on your toes you launch a preemptive strike.”
“You grew up on a farm. I grew up in the city. Even my father thought the horses were a phase I’d grow out of. For him, people ride horses as a hobby, not as a career. And I do respect your ability as a veterinarian.”
“In public. When nobody’s around, not so much.”
“You can be downright arrogant. If you don’t stop snarling at clients, you won’t have them long. Poor Mr. Able. I was afraid you were going to deck him. That would not make Barbara happy.”
He set his fork on his plate. “When people do stupid things that put animals in danger, they should be snarled at.”
They glared at one another across the table. After a long moment, both took a deep breath.
“Sorry,” Anne said.
“Yeah. You’re right. Whenever I start to lose my temper I hear my father’s angry voice come out of my own mouth. Thanks for helping me shut him up. We had a successful day. How about we change the subject. How ’bout those Bears?”
She burst out laughing. “I presume you’re referring to a team. My answer to your question is who are the Bears?”
“This fall I’ll show you. Assuming Barbara hasn’t fired me for running off her clients.”
“She tells Victoria that you are a godsend and a superhero. She’s just scared you’ll heed your family’s call and move back home to Mississippi.”
“No. Not now, not ever. Thanks for dinner, but I need to get home. I have an early day tomorrow.”
“You want some coffee? Or a brandy? After the day you’ve had, I think you deserve it.”
He shook his head and started to get up.
She stopped him. “Okay, what is it with you and your family, Doctor? They put you through vet school...”
He rinsed his empty plate and placed it in the dishwasher.
“Where’s that brandy?”
She pointed to the cabinet over the sink. “The snifters are right beside it.”
He poured himself a splash, leaned back against the kitchen counter and took a sip. “Good stuff.”
He didn’t ask if Anne wanted some, too.
“First off, I paid for vet school,” he said. “My father refused to give me a dime unless I promised to come back afterward to be the farm’s exclusive veterinarian. I inherited some money from my grandmother about that time and made some lucky investments, but I still didn’t have enough. I worked two jobs, and spent my first summer after college breaking horses in Wyoming.”
“Only one summer? Why didn’t you go back the next year?”
“There were—problems.”
* * *
“VICTORIA SAID YOU have two brothers. Older or younger?”
Now that he had opened up a little about his family, she planned to learn as much as she could before he shut down again.
“One of each. My younger brother, Cody, runs the cattle operation. Man’s born to raise cattle. Loves them. My older brother, Joshua, is a CPA and handles the farm finances with constant interference from my father. They each have a house on the family compound built for them by my father as a bribe to keep them close. Like 24/7 close.”
“He didn’t offer to do the same for you?”
“Sure he did. A house, a clinic and marriage
to the girl he’d picked out for me. He’s never forgiven me for saying no to all three.”
* * *
“WHAT WAS WRONG with the girl?” The moment the words left her mouth, Anne could have bitten her tongue. Talk about a Freudian slip. She got out another snifter and poured herself a tiny puddle of brandy. The small sip she took burned all the way down.
“Nothing is wrong with Cheryl,” Vince said. “Her family lives across the road from us. We’ve been friends since kindergarten. I love her like a sister. Couldn’t see myself ever loving her like a wife.”
“Oh.”
“Daddy doesn’t give up easily. Nicki, my brother Cody’s wife, just emailed me that Cheryl announced her engagement to an internist from Hattiesburg.” He chortled. “Bet Daddy’s working on ways to break them up before the ceremony. Man never gives up on what he wants whether it’s good for other people or not.”
“You talk as though your daddy was some sort of monster.”
Vince finished his brandy and poured himself another.
Anne didn’t say anything, but if he finished it, she intended to take his van keys away. He could sleep in Becca’s room or on the couch. As tired as he was, she suspected he wasn’t conscious that he was drinking more than his one beer.
He set the snifter on the kitchen counter. “He’s not a monster. He’s the product of a long line of patriarchs who believed in ruling their roosts. My grandfather was as big as me and my brothers—bigger than my father. My grandmother once told me that if he hadn’t died young in a tractor accident she’d either have left him or killed him, and she’d have preferred killing.”
“Wow.”
“She never admitted he beat her, but I think he did. That’s one thing Daddy never did. He can be mean as a snake. You think my temper is bad? Daddy makes me look like a day-old kitten. As mad as he gets at us, he has never raised a hand to any of us, not even when his marriages were on the rocks and he was battling his wives for custody. I think it’s because he saw my grandfather hit my grandmother.”
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