Second Hope

by J. B. McDonald

  They hit the ramp and shifted positions, the men coming around to push her hindquarters off the lip. When her legs dropped free she scrambled, finally lunging up to her feet as instinct told her she might fall. She staggered on the decline of the ramp, crashing down to her knees as everyone raced to get out of the way.

  She pushed up once more, sending shavings scattering from beneath tough hooves, then stumbled and fell. For a long time she remained still, heaving. Her back legs, tipped off the side and standing on solid ground, trembled.

  Then Aaron was there with the strap, looping it under her belly. Nat stooped close to dangerous hooves, reaching beneath the mare to grab the cloth, hoping the horse would stay still for just another moment. The band stretched around the horse’s thin stomach and Nat arched up, snapping the heavy carabiners into place so the material made a sling, and stepped back.

  A small cheer went up from the staff who’d gathered once more. Nat ignored it, focused on getting out of the way before the mare panicked again. She put a hand out on the side of the trailer, stepping up inside it as Aaron moved away as well. In the cab of the tractor, Beth shifted levers expertly. The arm rose, lifting the mare up off her knees. All four legs stiffened, but she didn’t fight. The tractor swung her around, tugging her as gently as a piece of steel could. Braced legs skidded off the ramp and Beth lowered her to the ground, then began the inexorable pull toward the barn. The horse remained stiff-legged, but after watching for a long moment Nat was convinced she wasn’t going to thrash—at least not hard enough to hurt herself, which was always the concern.

  As Nat’s heart finally dropped back into her chest, she took a deep breath and looked around. Now that the main problem had been taken care of, there’d be a million and one little ones. That was always how these things worked. The first one, she realized with a glance back into the trailer, was whether or not the mare would eat. The best person to answer that—

  Hal was speaking with Cole, the two men’s heads tipped together. Hal’s straw yellow hair blended with Cole’s warm brown. The blond was slightly taller, but Cole was better put together. His worn T-shirt stretched across broad shoulders, the bisecting slash of his sling only seeming to emphasize their breadth. His torso had the look of someone who was used to physical labor—riding, in his case—and he had the useful-looking muscle that went along with that. None of the big, soft roundness men got from gyms; he was all compact sinew, shirt following the lines of his body to narrow hips.

  He was wearing sweatpants and work boots. Nat felt her mouth quirk upward as she realized he hadn’t really dressed before coming out to help, just thrown on what he’d need—the boots—and come running. Something in her softened ever so slightly, though she couldn’t exactly say why. She stepped out of the trailer, the dirt crunching as she landed from the long drop down.

  The air smelled like hay and oats, and the morning was filled with the sound of horses nickering, sprinklers going off over one of the pastures, the tractor grumbling along and grain being poured into buckets. All comforting noises, all noises she was used to. They faded into static and made up the day, setting her nerves at ease after her abrupt awakening.

  As she walked forward the two men shifted, bringing her into the conversation without actually stopping.

  “—tried pellets, tried hay, she just don’t seem interested in anything,” Hal said, acknowledging Nat with a nod. “The vets were afraid to try her on oats, seeing as she’s so malnourished. Too much protein when she’s not used to it, they’re worried over foundering.”

  Cole nodded and glanced at Nat as Hal fell silent. “I was just asking if she’d been eating. Looks like the answer’s no.” He watched her steadily, filled with concern for the creature being settled carefully in the barn.

  The questions she would have normally asked, Hal had answered as she’d arrived. She nodded tightly. “The stall we’re putting her in has a pulley-IV system, so we can set her up with that and not worry that she’ll get hung up on tubes.” Then she paused, looking closely at the driver who’d volunteered to bring this horse halfway across the country, to where she might stand a chance. His face was pale, rings settling like bruises under his eyes. Every time he blinked it seemed to last a little longer.

  “When was the last time you slept?” Nat asked suspiciously.

  He blinked again, eyes opening wide as if that might keep him awake. “Don’t rightly remember. Maybe…oh, sometime yesterday, I’m pretty sure…”

  Which, if he could be trusted to tell the truth, still meant he’d driven through the night. Besides, Nat would guess it had been closer to twenty-four hours since he’d had so much as a nap. She glanced around, hailing Beth when she saw her cousin climbing out of the tractor cab. Aaron and Shumway were arguing over the best way to unhook the sling from around the mare without her collapsing.

  When the young woman came closer, Nat tipped her head toward Hal. “You wanna see him set up in one of the spare beds in the bunkhouse?”

  “Oh, I don’t need—” Hal began, but Nat ignored him and Cole chuckled. Hal tapered off, scuffing a boot through the dirt.

  “Yeah, sure.” Beth smiled beguilingly up at the Southerner. “Come on this way. We’ll get you settled. You need anything out of your truck? If you don’t mind leaving the keys, we can just pull it around when we’re done…” Her voice trailed off as they walked away, Beth steering Hal toward the ATV for a shorter trip to the bunkhouse.

  “All right,” Nat breathed to herself. “Now to see what needs to be done.” She started toward the barn, stopping when Cole fell into step beside her. “You could go shower, you know. Or go back to bed.” He didn’t need to be here. Not that she minded—and to her surprise, she realized she didn’t—but this wasn’t his battle. Certainly not his job.

  He smiled, the movement stretching across his face and sparkling in his eyes like sunlight on water. “Are you saying you don’t like the way I smell? Or you want me in bed?”

  At his words—and the image they conjured—her heart sped, heat flashing throughout her body.

  She didn’t want him, of course. She didn’t want men in general; they were tricky, selfish bastards. Somehow, she couldn’t find the cool put-down that would let him know his advances were unwelcome.

  After a beat of silence in which his amusement grew, Nat turned and stretched her legs long, striding purposefully toward the barn. She expected laughter, at the very least. Instead Cole just took two quick steps to catch up and settled into a loping gait beside her. She tensed, but he said nothing else.

  By the time they got inside the mare had been tucked safely into a stall, the sling removed. She’d dropped to the ground again. Aaron was closing up the turn-out where they’d opened the fence to get the tractor in, and Shumway was attempting to get the mare to eat, miming eating a fistful of oat hay himself. She was ignoring him as thoroughly as she’d ignored the rest of them.

  “I’ve offered her alfalfa, timothy, orchard, and now this,” he said, catching sight of Nat and looking up at her, as hurt as if the mare weren’t eating because she didn’t like him. He brandished his handful of greenery. “She won’t try anything! Should I give her some grain? I think we have some of the sweet feed we put Beauty’s anti-inflammatory in…”

  “A handful of sweet feed to tempt her,” Nat agreed, “and leave all the hay in there. We’ll give her some options, see if that helps. And in the meantime let’s set up an IV for some fluids, then get the staff together and make up a watch. I want her on careful surveillance for a while.”

  Shumway nodded, rising with popping knees and leaving the handful of hay behind. Nat stepped out of the way as he passed, sliding back into place to take one last look at the mare. Her staff were good people. They’d take care of the mare. Give her every chance to pull through.

  In the meantime, Nat needed to get dressed and get the other horses taken care of for the day.

  ***

  A shower did Cole worlds of good. He hadn’t slept well the n
ight before—he never did in a strange place—and hours on the road the day before that hadn’t exactly been restful. When he was done he shaved quickly, then ran his fingers through his damp hair. Water-logged, it was the color of honeycomb; bits of darker, wet strands mixing with the lighter, drying ones. He tried not to notice the strain around his eyes—a boring brown—or the sun-creases he was getting. He needed to remember sunglasses, that was all. But sunglasses with cowboy hats looked ridiculous, and the cowboy hat was necessary for reining; it was part of the costume.

  He put on deodorant, splashed on some aftershave, then wrapped the towel around his waist and headed out of the bathroom, down the hall toward his bedroom door.

  He could hear Nat’s shower running, and guessed it was more to wake up than anything. She’d showered the night before. Of course, you never knew women. She could be taking another one so that she could fix her hair or something like that, though she hadn’t seemed the hair-fixing type. Cole had known girls, though, who could take thirty minutes to get their hair in a ponytail.

  He’d dated a hunter-jumper rider, once. Everything had taken her triple the amount of time he’d expected, though he hadn’t ever complained. Some girls just needed that.

  Making a mental note to take his clothes into the bathroom the next time, Cole rounded the corner and hoped no one had come into the house. There was a straight line of sight from the back part of the main room down the hall.

  But he was safe. If anyone was there, they remained around the corner while he ducked into the guest bedroom and closed the door behind him. There was a lock, but he hadn’t used it. Somehow, he doubted Nat would come in and ravish him in the middle of the night.

  Somehow, he doubted he’d mind if she did.

  He hung the towel on the hook that graced the back of the door, then dug one-handed through his things to find a pair of briefs and some clean jeans. He only owned one pair of khakis, and hadn’t brought them. His duffel was filled with denim and T-shirts. He pulled his pants up, fought one-handed with the zipper and the button until it all slid into place, then dragged a green tee down over his chest, wincing as he carefully lifted his injured arm through the sleeve before putting it back in the sling. He headed out without bothering with socks. His boots were by the door, where he’d left them after stepping in a manure pile. He doubted even a cowgirl wanted that in her house.

  And it was a lovely house. He was filled with the sense of it again as he entered the main room. The floors were wood, the cream walls broken up by wooden door- and window frames, burgundy borders along the ceiling. The bar, the kitchen and the cupboards that hid the entertainment center all matched the floors. The furniture was heavy leather, big comfortable things he could see falling asleep in. Throw rugs with patterns reminiscent of Native American designs littered the ground in deep greens, blues, browns and cream. Despite all the dark, it was big enough—and with the sun now up, there were enough windows—that it felt airy but comfortable, a place you could laze around in rather than the pristine, white houses that were so fashionable at the moment. This was a place for animals and children, and he kept half expecting to see a dog curled up on the sofa.

  Cole felt at ease here, more than he did even in his own home. He’d bought the house because it had been on the land he’d wanted, but it had never quite fit. Someone else had designed it, and he’d hired a decorator. That had been a mistake—looking around here, he could see that—but he’d been gone too much to either have the time or inclination to furnish the place.

  Nat’s wooden floor was slightly irregular on the pads of his feet as he ambled across the room, stepping around the counter into the little kitchen. It didn’t take long to find the coffeepot, and only slightly longer to find the coffee grounds. He figured if Nat wasn’t long in the shower he could have coffee ready, and if she did take time fussing with her hair and make-up, he could have breakfast ready.

  His thoughts roamed as he remembered the morning, already hectic and it wasn’t even—he glanced at the oven clock—eight a.m. The arrival of the mare had sent everyone into overdrive, but Nat had handled it admirably well. He smiled, flipping the “on” switch and listening to coffee percolate, remembering the way Nat had tuned everything out, focusing on the horse in the trailer. Just when he thought she was projecting every anti-friendly vibe there was, she’d done that. Women were soft for horses, he’d seen that over and over. But most didn’t have the gumption to brave striking hooves to get the beast up, or to sit with an unresponsive mare, ignoring the ugly wounds and knobby joints to look at her as if she were the loveliest thing in the world.

  God knew most men didn’t have that quality, either. But seeing it on Nat had warmed his heart a little, made him smile in a way he hadn’t smiled for a long time. So many people were in the horse business for the money or prestige, for the fun or the speed or the very act of being part of the Old West for a little while longer. This was someone who was actually in it for the horses.

  If she ever turned that sort of love onto a person…they’d be very lucky, indeed.

  Humming tunelessly, Cole opened the refrigerator to dig around for breakfast fixings. He was hoping for eggs, maybe bacon, but he’d take toast and eat it happily. The day was with him, though; on the second shelf was a carton of eggs, and in one of the drawers a plastic package of sausage. Not the bacon he’d been hoping for, but certainly a close second. He put the sausage on top of the carton and picked everything up one-handed, nudging the door closed with his elbow. He paused to glance over the bits and pieces held to the front of the appliance with various magnets.

  Coupons, notes, a shopping list. Photos of people—here and there he recognized staff members—and horses. He smiled when he saw one that was clearly a younger Nat, tricked out in English riding breeches, a jacket and boots, her helmet the durable sort worn by jumpers. She sat proudly on a big black horse, and it was only a moment’s work to realize it was the same mare she’d been riding bareback the night before. A blue ribbon hung from the bridle, another from the saddle. Obviously, it had been a good day.

  Happy for her youthful success, he set the eggs on the counter with the sausage and rooted through the cupboards until he found a frying pan.

  He’d melted butter in the pan to keep everything from sticking and had put the sausages in to cook, looking for a second pan for the eggs, when Nat came out. Heat spread through his chest, the reaction pulled from him almost unconsciously. She looked clean and fresh, her face scrubbed but make-up free, her hair braided in a wet plait down her back. A tank top—a man’s undershirt, if he wasn’t mistaken—cut out her shoulders, emphasizing the soft shadowing of toned muscle. The cloth was thin enough to give him a tempting outline of stomach muscles, cords of them strong down her torso before the waistband of her jeans cut them off, rounding with the swell of hips.

  She was going to be the death of him, he realized as she came closer, smelling of shampoo and warm water and something…something that had to be only her, like oats and pine rolled into human flesh. A very attractive flesh at that, pale and flawless, gliding over a strong but feminine bone structure.

  One of those well-arched eyebrows winged upward. “Breakfast?”

  Cole chuckled, amused at her dubious tone. “It’s generally the first meal of the day. I could fix you lunch if you prefer, but given the hour it might still be counted as breakfast.”

  He was rewarded with a wry smile, the other eyebrow rising to meet the first. “A morning person. Good to know.” Her gaze—not quite green, not quite blue, somewhere in the middle like a clear day on the ocean—traveled the kitchen and landed on the stove. “I’m not sure how long those sausages have been in the fridge,” she said, wincing. “You might—”

  He didn’t wait for her to finish. Food poisoning was never a good way to start any day. He picked the pan up and tipped it into the large trash can at the end of the counter, relieved the lid was operated by foot. Lifting the lid while holding the frying pan with just one hand, his o
ther still in the sling, would have been difficult. The pan clattered back onto the stove, and he flipped the egg carton open. “How many?”

  She looked a little nonplussed. He couldn’t quite keep from smiling at her expression, like someone offering her eggs was the most unheard of thing ever.

  “I don’t generally eat breakfast…” She trailed off warily, hovering just on the other side of the counter, as if she wasn’t sure if she should enter the kitchen and shove him out, or if the whole thing was too surreal and she needed to just leave.

  “If I make it, will you eat it?”

  “I suppose.” She still looked doubtful.

  He chuckled, picked up one egg and cracked it into the melted butter. One egg, for a woman who didn’t normally eat breakfast at all, was probably plenty.

  She slid onto a barstool, still looking a bit uncertain. He couldn’t decide if it was that there was someone in her kitchen, someone cooking her breakfast, or someone simply being nice. He hoped it wasn’t the latter. When it became clear that she wasn’t going to start a conversation, Cole did.

  “How long did you do jumping?” He opened a drawer, looking for a spatula. No luck. He tried another one, and then realized they were hanging on hooks above the range. He plucked one off and flipped her egg over, letting it sizzle in the pan.

  “I don’t know. Ten years?” she said idly.

  “All on the same mare?” He gestured toward the fridge and the photo held up with a magnet, tipping his head to watch Nat.

  Her gaze flicked toward the picture, and she shook her head. “The last five was on Jasmine. We had big plans. Olympics and all that.” There was a dry smile in her voice, the acknowledgement from a greater span of years that it wouldn’t have happened, though it had been a goal at the time.