“Bobby Joe.”
She nodded, cupped one hand around her mouth and shouted his name.
Seth looked back over his shoulder with his eyebrows raised. “I suspect they heard you in Memphis.”
“Sorry.”
“I didn’t mean that. It’s good, but you keep that up, you’ll lose your voice pretty quick.”
“Small price to pay. Bobby Joe!” she shouted again.
They settled into a routine. Seth’s quarter horse bulled his way through the underbrush with his broad shoulders. Emma followed the same path on her walking horse, shouting as she went. Her mare was apparently as bombproof as Sonny had promised. Many horses would’ve been irritated and grumpy with a stranger in the saddle yelling blue murder. Maybe the horse was deaf.
After no more than ten minutes yelling, she realized she was so thirsty she was what her father called “spitting cotton.” Ahead, Seth pulled up under a giant oak. Without a word, he dug into his cantle bag and held a bottle of water out to her.
“Oh, thank you.” She dropped her reins on the horse’s neck, twisted off the cap and drank about half the water in one long pull. Then she handed it back.
“Finish it. I brought a bag of them.”
She did, then asked, “What do I do with the empty? I can’t just drop it.”
“Give it here.” He sidled his horse against hers, took the bottle, put it in his saddle bag, then leaned across and brushed the hair off her forehead. “How you holding up? You didn’t sign on for this, but I’m glad you’re here.” A moment later he added, “To do the yelling and all.” He wheeled away and walked his horse farther into the woods.
“I hope you know where we are,” she called after him. “I’ve been lost since we started. Surely no three-year-old could have come this far.”
“You’d be surprised. We’ll give it another twenty minutes, then head back. They’re sending down a heat-seeking chopper from Memphis after dark if we don’t find him before then. It’s going to be in the low sixties tonight. We leave that child out here, tomorrow we could be looking at recovery instead of rescue.”
She held back a sob. A naked child on the damp ground would be dead of hypothermia before morning at sixty degrees. She began to yell again. There had been no gunshots, so no one else was having any better luck than they were.
Following Seth’s horse, her mare tried to fit in between two saplings. The mare knew how wide she was, but she hadn’t allowed for Emma’s extra width. The tree raked Emma’s thigh. She raised her leg quickly, but not fast enough to avoid what would no doubt be a bad scrape. She started to say “ow!” then bit the inside of her cheek instead.
She would show Seth she was no weakling. Not just some prissy city girl who didn’t even know how to throw a picnic.
He stopped, held up a hand and whispered, “Shut up.”
Well, all righty. He should make up his mind.
Suddenly she heard it, too. Or thought she did. It sounded like a mockingbird. They could imitate anything. Then it came again. Too soft to be a mockingbird. The sound hadn’t changed position either. She searched the trees for the bird just in case.
“Here,” Seth said, handed her his reins and slid to the ground. “Don’t move.”
She’d heard all the stories about trackers who moved soundlessly through the woods. She’d always figured it was nonsense.
Not anymore. Seth didn’t so much as snap a twig as he crept toward the sound. After what seemed to Emma like a millennium, he parted the branches of a small sapling, then disappeared from view as he dropped to his haunches. “Hey, Bobby Joe,” he said so quietly and gently that even a lost child wouldn’t be frightened.
But this one was. He howled. A moment later Emma heard crashing through the brush. She was off her horse instantly. “Seth? Let me.” She took the time to wrap both sets of reins around the nearest limb, then called softly, “Bobby Joe? Honey? It’s okay. You’re not in trouble.” She found Seth, crouching, and touched his shoulder. “Where is he?” she whispered.
He indicated a spot several feet in front of them. “Where?” She couldn’t see anything that resembled a child. Then the failing light reflected off a pair of pale eyes.
She pulled a bottle of water out of Seth’s backpack, undid the cap, lifted it to her mouth and took a swallow. “Mmm! That tastes so good.” She held the bottle out to where the child was still hidden. “I’ll bet you’re thirsty, aren’t you, baby?” She took a step.
“Not a baby,” said an angry little voice. She must be looking right at him. Then a small head crowned with a cap of spiky white-blond hair rose out of the honeysuckle straight in front of her.
She held out the bottle again. “Here you are, Bobby Joe.” A filthy little paw reached out toward her. She moved carefully, as though he were a wild animal. Which, in a sense, he was…
He grabbed the bottle, and the arm retreated. She heard glug, glug sounds and moved closer.
He stood up, and she caught her breath. No wonder the searchers were looking foot by foot. He was encrusted with mud and festooned with honeysuckle. If he’d closed his eyes and stayed still, she might have stepped on him without seeing him. She sank to her knees. “I’ll bet you’re real hungry, too, aren’t you?”
The blond head nodded. She could see him squarely now. His eyes were almost colorless blue.
She slipped off the light jacket she’d worn over her sweater. The head disappeared. “It’s okay. Bet you’re cold. It’s cold out here.” She offered him her jacket, without reaching to touch him.
He ran forward two steps, snatched the jacket and retreated a step. She dropped to her knees and held out her arms. Suddenly, he dived straight at her with enough force to knock her onto her rear end. He locked his legs around her waist and buried his face against her shoulder. She enfolded both of them in her jacket.
He smelled of dirt and urine and fear. But he was alive and still clutching the empty plastic water bottle. “Come on, buddy, let’s go find you some food. What do you say? You hungry?”
“My mommy’s mad.”
“She won’t be mad when we get you home. I promise. We have to show her you’re all right, so she won’t be scared anymore.” She struggled to get to her feet. He was only three, but obviously a muscular little boy, and he clung to her like a limpet.
She felt Seth’s arms around her, and he stood her and Bobby Joe up in one smooth motion. The child shrank from him, but refused to let go of Emma.
“This is Seth,” she said. “He’s been looking for you, too. He helped me find you. He’s going to take us back to your mommy. Is that okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
Seth led them to where the horses were contentedly nibbling honeysuckle drooping from the branch Emma had wrapped their reins around.
Bobby Joe whimpered when Emma tried to unhook him long enough to mount her horse. She settled him on her hip until Seth was able to boost him into her saddle. She mounted behind him, took her reins and waited while Seth mounted his horse and started leading them back toward the road.
Emma kept an arm around Bobby Joe so he couldn’t suddenly catapult off the horse and run back into the brush. Obviously he’d been on a horse before. He acted as though this was his usual mode of transport. Out here, it might well be.
She felt him begin to tremble and heard his sniffly voice. Okay, here we go, she thought. He’d reached his limit. Now that he was safe, it was time for the meltdown.
“Hungry!” This was a wail, a very healthy wail. “Want my mommy!”
She rolled up her jacket sleeves, worked his short arms into them and held out a hand to Seth. “Another water, please, sir. Without the cap.”
The child huddled against her while he slurped down the entire bottle of water. She realized he probably wasn’t all that toilet trained in these circumstances. Oh, well. These jeans were toast anyway.
&n
bsp; Now remounted, Seth held his arms out to take the child onto his horse from hers.
“No!” Bobby Joe wasn’t having it. “Her.”
Emma shrugged and gripped the child more securely. “Seth, aren’t you forgetting something?” She nodded toward his sidearm.
“You’re right. Now, young’un, I got to fire off this pistol so your momma will know we found you safe and sound. You put your hands over your ears and don’t be scared.”
Bobby Joe’s eyes went huge. He put his small hands in their overlong sleeves over his ears.
Seth pointed his pistol above his head and pulled the trigger twice. Neither horse so much as flicked an ear. But then both were used to gunfire from field dog trials.
“Can you hang on to him the whole way back?” Seth asked.
“You sit quietly and hold on to the pommel—the front part of the saddle, Mr. Bobby Joe,” she said into his ear. “The faster we go, the faster you’ll get some lunch, but you mustn’t fall off. Can you hang on for me?”
“Yes’m. I’m hungry.”
Seth was leading them back through the brush to the road. As usual in such treks, the way back took less time than coming in. When they finally reached the road, all the other riders were cantering toward them. Bobby Joe squeaked and huddled back against Emma.
“You found him!” Sonny said.
“It’s okay, Bobby Joe. They’re just going to take us back to your mommy,” Emma whispered.
“Let’s get on back to the trailers. His momma’s waiting up there.”
“I’ll never be able to hold him at anything faster than a walk,” Emma said. “He’s as slippery as an eel.”
“Well, shoot, Seth can hold him. Give him the boy. You can follow along at your leisure.”
“No! Her!” howled Bobby Joe, grasping Emma around the neck so tightly that she choked.
“Well, well, nothing wrong with this young scamp’s lungs! All righty, we’ll walk. But a good running walk, Miss Emma. Can you manage that?”
Emma nodded. “But if I say stop, Mr. Mayor, I mean stop. Got that?”
“Nothing wrong with her lungs either,” Seth said. “Let’s go.”
Emma had ridden very few walking horses and never one at a full-out running walk, but the ride was so smooth that she had no difficulty holding on to Bobby Joe. They’d come to a fork in the road and started back toward the trailers, when Emma heard a woman shout, “Bobby Joe! Baby!”
“Mommy!”
She was tall and thin with precious little meat on her bones, but she could run. She raced up to Emma, took Bobby Joe as he slid out of Emma’s arms and dived at his mother, then crushed him to her and sobbed. “Thank y’all so much!” She narrowed her eyes at her son. “Here you are, buck nekkid with half the county out looking for you! And those chigger bites. If you ever do something like this again I’ll—well, I don’t know what I’ll do because it will never, ever happen again. Do you understand me, Bobby Joe?”
“Yes’m. I’m hungry.”
Even Seth laughed.
By the time the horses were loaded and Bobby Joe and his mother were cuddled in Earl’s truck on their way home, Emma’s chigger bites had begun to itch and turn into small red bumps. She’d picked two swollen ticks off her ankle. She was covered in mud, but Bobby Joe had not wet her jeans. Where her mare had run her into a tree, however, her jeans were split and her bruised and scraped thigh was oozing blood. Underneath Sonny’s hat, her hair was flattened and sweaty. She couldn’t smell herself, but she suspected everyone else could, including Seth. They wouldn’t be smelling roses. Her thighs and stomach muscles—her riding muscles—were protesting that she hadn’t used them for a couple of years.
Her stomach rumbled. And she really needed to go to the bathroom, but she had no intention of using the underbrush. She’d probably get snakebit. Heaven only knew how she looked. Seth’s truck had no mirror on the passenger side, and she never carried a compact, so she’d have to imagine until she got home and into a hot shower.
What an afternoon. It could so easily have ended in tragedy instead of backslapping and congratulations. There wasn’t even any beer. None of the riders had made a pit stop on the way to the meeting place. Seth shared his water, no longer cold. Nobody minded.
In the final analysis, she was sore, itchy, dirty, sweaty and probably smelled.
She’d never felt more alive in her life.
When she finally slid into bed hours later, she was daubed all over with pale pink anti-itch ointment. She glared at herself in the mirror. “I look like I have the measles. I used to be really put together—eyeliner and everything. Now look at me. I think the Australians call it ‘going bush.’”
As she drifted off to sleep, she sat bolt upright. “I’m supposed to work for Barbara tomorrow morning. I’ll never make it.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
BUT OF COURSE she did. She’d been correct about her riding muscles. The first thing out of whack, when she gave up wearing sneakers and riding boots to wear high heels every day instead, was that her calf muscles tightened. Now, after no more than a week of wearing nothing but flats, her muscles were protesting that she wasn’t being fair to expect them to spring back like rubber bands.
Barbara had told her that Monday morning at the clinic was usually busy.
Judging by the trucks and SUVs parked in the clinic lot, the customers had arrived well before the hour the clinic was supposed to open. And she was expected to organize.
She had no idea how to triage animals. She figured she’d start the way the media did its stories—if it bled, it led. Any animal that was bleeding, therefore, went to the front of the line. After that, she hoped Barbara would give her guidance. She suspected, however, that she was on her own.
Barbara had warned about the lame goose called Mabel. The goose didn’t bother the customers with their dogs on leashes and their cats and other critters in cages. It seemed, however, to take a dislike to Emma and flew at her with wings and beak extended. She took a deep breath and shooed it out of her way and off the path to the front door. Like a lot of bullies, it just needed someone to call its bluff.
Mabel seemed to know who didn’t belong; maybe having an animal was the goose’s version of a ticket to pass.
Emma smiled and slipped through the clients to open the front door. It was unlocked, but no one had walked in without being invited. She checked the clock over the registration desk. Two minutes before the eight-thirty opening time. In city shopping malls, even one minute past opening would have resulted in shoving and pushing.
She slipped behind the desk, turned on the computer and smiled at the first person in line. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Pooky threw up all night. I’m scared to death somebody’s tried to poison him.” The woman’s face was ashen. She was attached to a leash, but whatever was at the end of it didn’t show up over the counter.
Emma stood up and peered over the edge. Pooky was some sort of Chihuahua cross. At the moment his ears drooped. He looked pretty miserable. No doubt he was about to throw up. And guess who’d be mopping the floor? Emma quickly took the woman to the closest exam room, and met Barbara coming down the hall toward her. She updated the vet as fast as possible. “Oh—I didn’t even ask her name.”
“There are appointment forms in the top drawer. Hand them out. They can fill them in while they wait.”
“She thinks Pooky was poisoned.”
“He was, by half a fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy. She gives him what she calls Sunday dinner. He’s in here nearly every Monday throwing up. It’s a miracle he doesn’t have pancreatitis.” She disappeared into the exam room.
After a few false starts, Emma began to get into the swing. It helped that after the first rush, the number of clients and the severity of their problems tapered off.
Although most of the clients had dogs and cats,
Barbara also had to drain a foot abscess on a very pregnant nanny goat that arrived standing on the backseat of the owner’s BMW sedan.
“Mignon just hates the truck,” the large lady chauffeuring the goat said. “She rides fine in the BMW. Pregnant as she is, I hate to make her any unhappier.”
At ten minutes after twelve, Barbara locked the front door.
“Can you do that?” Emma asked. “What if somebody shows up late?”
“Then they’ll have to come back. If I didn’t lock the door, neither one of us would get so much as a cracker for lunch. So, how was your first morning?”
“Harder than I thought it would be.”
“But definitely easier for me. It’s pretty clear you have your hands full with the clients. I’ll have to get Betty to clean cages and mop the floor when she comes in after school this afternoon. You couldn’t possibly stay until five thirty, could you?”
Emma felt her heart sink. There went the résumés and the cold calls. “How on earth have you managed? How long since you had somebody in the office?”
“Never full-time, but I had a darling girl going to school in Jackson. She graduated in January and went off to graduate school in March. I haven’t had time to look for anyone full-time since she left. Come on, let’s have some lunch.”
“I didn’t bring anything. Where’s the closest grocery that fixes sandwiches?”
“In town. Don’t worry, I brought lunch for both of us. I heard you had a busy day yesterday.”
Of course Barbara knew about the rescue. Might as well run a continual news feed on a blimp over the county. If she’d gone to bed with Seth, everybody would be discussing it before either of them woke up from postcoital bliss.
Another good reason to avoid even the semblance of an affair.
After lunch Barbara introduced her to the animals being rehabilitated. “I think the fawns can all be released Thursday morning,” Barbara said. “You couldn’t by any chance come early, could you? Seth’s coming to help load, but I could use another person.”
Harlequin Superromance May 2018 Box Set Page 44