“I’m stupid,” she said out loud. That was exactly what she was. Stupid to think the nightmare her mother branded her soul with would ever go away. Stupid to believe lightning didn’t strike twice.
‘Stupid. Dumb. Insignificant. They’re all the same,’ the ghost of her mentally-ill mother taunted. ‘And all you’ll ever be.’
‘Child,’ was all the evil spirit of that other crazy woman had to whisper to make McKenna’s blood run cold.
“I’m not your child and you’re not my mothers,” McKenna told her tormentors unequivocally as she shrugged them off, her resolve shaking as much as her shoulders. This wasn’t her first panic attack. It wouldn’t be her last, but she could overcome this one. She could... if she could only get a grip.
Even on her best days, McKenna hated loud noises and small, crowded places. The tiniest things threw her back in time, back into that dark bedroom closet where her mother stored coats, the vacuum cleaner, winter boots and…
‘You.’
McKenna slapped her hands over her ears. “Stop it, Aurora! Just stop!” Swallowing hard, she said what she’d said so many times before. “I am a doctor, a pediatrician. I do good work in this town, and people respect me. They should. I studied, and I worked hard to become who and what I am today. I might be my mother’s daughter, but I am not my mother. I am a survivor. I am strong. I am smart.”
‘You can’t escape this. Bi-polar disorder is genetic. It’s a mental illness, and it’s passed from one generation to the next. From mother to daughter. From the weakest to the weakest,’ the most insidious spirit at her side whispered, the one who should’ve always had her back but never did.
“No, no, no!” McKenna shook her head angrily at that untruth, not arguing with ghosts that weren’t really there. Just because Aurora had been bi-polar and unstable didn’t mean McKenna would be. Mental illness wasn’t always passed. That wasn’t true.
‘But sometimes…’
“You’re wrong. No!” McKenna rocked harder. Faster. She closed her eyes and focused on what she knew to be true. “You’re not my mother. Not anymore. I am a doctor, a pediatrician. I do good work in this town, and people respect me. They should. I might be my mother’s daughter, but I am not my mother. I am a survivor. I am strong. I am smart.”
‘No, you’re not. You’re just like me…’
Breathing hard now, McKenna jumped to her feet, needing to run, but trapped like always. “You are not my mother,” she hissed. “You gave up that right when you left me. When you beat me, do you hear? When you hanged yourself? You weren’t my mom then, and you’re not my mom now. Dad’s right. Mothers love their babies. I will survive you!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Turned out Maverick wasn’t kidding. The magnificent mare standing in what he’d called the birthing stall was as big as a house, and she growled when he and Beau approached.
“Easy, Gorgeous,” Maverick soothed as he climbed over the rails and stepped alongside her, his flat palm on the animal’s long, sweaty snout.
“I didn’t know horses growled,” Beau muttered, because, well. He didn’t know anything about horses, and he had other places to be. Setting his gear inside the barn door, he removed his jacket, but left his holster on.
“Only when they’re extremely stressed, and this mama’s having a hard time, aren’t you, girl?” Maverick said, a particularly calm tone in his voice.
What was that, his horse whisperer voice? Beau nearly snorted. Of all The TEAM, Maverick was the most arrogant. Almost as bad as Alex.
The horse tossed her head and gave another low growl, which ended in a groan. Beau had to admit that she was a pretty thing, her creamy white coat slick with sweat. She had the longest, whitest mane and tail. Her black eyes were too big for her face. Standing there in a single shaft of sun from somewhere overhead, she looked like a mythical unicorn straight out of a fairytale.
“So what’d you want me to do?” Beau asked, testy and needing to be gone.
Maverick answered with an extended palm, a definite hand signal to shut the fuck up.
Beau rolled the pain in his neck off, wishing he could shrug Maverick off as easily.
The horse kept shifting, not lifting those massive hooves off the floor as much as shuffling over it. Her nostrils flared as she bared her teeth. Her prehensile horse lips peeled back, displaying a magnificent set of choppers that Beau had no intention of getting close to. Animals in pain bit people, and he’d already been bitten one too many times. Cradling his injured arm to his chest, he stopped on the safe side of the stall, where nothing would kick the shit out of him.
Speaking of shit… Beau thought he’d be stepping in layers of it by now, but clean hay covered the entire floor of that stall, and the rest of the barn was tidy. Clean. Almost immaculate. There was no pungent odor of mold and urine, only the sweet scent of clean hay. Fresh air. Not what he expected. Most barns he’d been in overseas were manure nightmares, more like dirty shacks where people lived alongside their livestock.
“What now?” he asked, his temper in check for the first time since he’d left McKenna behind.
“Now I need you to hold her halter while I wrap her tail. Climb on in.” Maverick held out a long plastic bag that he’d pulled from a drawer in the cupboard in the corner of the stall.
Beau shook his head and extended his good hand. “Bring her over here. I can hold her halter from where I am right now.”
“Not happening. She needs both of us, now get in here. She won’t bite.” Maverick shot him a lethal glare. “What are you, US Army Ranger or chicken?”
That did it. Snorting, Beau put one boot to the stall bars and carefully climbed to the top rail, using only his good hand for balance. Now was not the time to fall on his face and prove Maverick right. The asshole would probably tell everyone else, and he’d never live it down.
The horse reared back and whinnied—or something. She made a rumbling sound deep in her chest, her eyeballs rimmed with white as if she dared him to join her. Beau planted his ass on the top rail, not chicken. More like concerned. That was all. Cautious. Yeah. “Damn it, Carson. You trying to get me killed?”
Maverick didn’t answer. He’d stuffed the plastic bag in his rear pocket, and there it dangled like a touch football flag, taunting Beau to man up. Too busy running his palms over the mare’s big belly, along her ribs, and down her rump, Maverick seemed oblivious to everything but the horse. The damned guy had nerve, as close as he’d gotten to an animal that could stomp him into all that nice clean hay with one massive hoof. Hell, all that mare had to do was squeeze him against the stall bars, and he’d be pulp.
But did he have one lick of common sense? Uh-uh. Moving back to her front quarters, Maverick wrapped one arm around her sweaty neck and pressed his face against her big cheek. Damned if the mare didn’t bow that big long head of hers and close her eyes like she and Maverick were communicating. Like they were hugging. What the hell?
But if a dumb-as-shit jarhead could do it...
Beau dropped quietly to the floor inside the stall.
“You’re hurting, baby, aren’t you?” Maverick murmured in the horse’s ear as his hand took long, flat strokes down her neck.
Beau snapped the plastic bag out of Maverick’s pocket and eased his injured hand into what really was just a long, plastic sleeve with fingers at one end. Interesting. “I thought horses dropped their, umm, colts in the field?”
“Not mine,” Maverick answered, one arm still wrapped around the mare’s wide neck and his head up close and personal with hers. My hell, what if she reared back or bucked or decided he was worth stepping on? What if she panicked because of her pain and lost her head? Maverick could get hurt.
Not that Beau cared. But he still approached cautiously, so he didn’t disturb the Zen thing going on between Maverick and his horse. “Have you done this a lot before?” Because it’s really weird.
With a slow, deliberate breath, Maverick stepped
away from his ‘baby’ and tugged the rope Beau hadn’t noticed from around his neck. He clipped it to the mare’s halter, then passed the other end to Beau. “Yes, I’ve done this a few times. Here. Keep her on her feet while I take care of business.”
Whatever that meant. Beau stepped into the danger zone. He wrapped the woven rope over the knuckles of his good hand, while he pressed his plastic covered injured arm to his chest to keep it from getting hurt. Thank you, Jesus, that Libby was now a doctor amd could prescribe pain pills.
Surprisingly, the horse still had her head down and her eyes closed. She’d still nicker once in a while, but she didn’t seem to mind him holding her halter. He’d gotten close enough now to detect how her withers and her big belly shivered. How she groaned softly. This mother was in obvious pain. She wasn’t mean. Reaching his good hand to the end of her velvety nose, he said, “You’re not so bad, are you?”
Of course she didn’t answer. She was just a horse, and he was no horse whisperer.
“How long’s it usually take? For a Clydesdale to, umm, drop a colt I mean?” Beau asked, genuinely interested. As big as this mare was, she appeared docile—for now.
“Gorgeous is a Percheron, not a Clydesdale,” Maverick replied from the south end of the horse, where he was busy doing something Beau didn’t want to see. “There’s a difference.”
“If you say so,” Beau muttered. The mare was bigger, wider, and taller than him by a good foot. Maybe more. Her sheer size intimidated him—a little—not that he’d admit it out loud. “You call her Gorgeous?”
Maverick grunted. “Long story, but yeah. That’s not her registered name, but she looks so much like her grandmother. Seemed the right thing to do at the time.”
Beau tossed a glance over his shoulder. One curious and just as big, brown horse hung its head over a stall gate at the opened end of the barn, as if trying to see what Maverick was doing. “That her father, umm, her stud down there?” Beau had no idea how to ask what he meant. He was out of his element. Put a weapon in his hand and he’d sound smarter.
Maverick peered around Gorgeous’s tremendous hindquarters to the horse in question. “The bay? Nah, that’s no stud, that’s Star. He’s a gelding and he’s just nosey.”
“Where are your other horses? Out to pasture?”
“They’re either in the stable or behind the barn, yeah.” Maverick cocked his head as he came around Gorgeous, his hand smoothing over her quivering ribs and up under her mane. “You’ve never been around horses before, have you?”
“Isn’t that obvious?”
For the first time since Beau joined The TEAM, a genuine light lit Maverick’s normally dark, foreboding eyes. “Trust me, you’ve got nothing to worry about with any of these kids, well, except for Joker. He likes to introduce himself by stepping on your foot and leaning into you until you fall on your ass, so watch out for him. The rest are just good kids. Now let’s get this mama comfortable, so I can go back inside and tell China she’s a grandma again.”
“You talk about this old nag like she’s a person,” Beau scoffed even as he looked over his shoulder, wondering ‘Where’s Joker?’
“Some days I like her better than most people.” Maverick fingered a circle in the air. “Walk her around but take it slow. This one’s larger than we expected.”
Beau took a few steps before he asked, “You mean the colt’s bigger?”
Maverick stood there watching Gorgeous, his chin in his fist and his brows narrowed. “Yes, but it’s called a foal, Beau. A newborn horse is a foal. If it’s a male, it’s a colt. A female’s a filly. Once a filly throws her first foal, she’s a mare. Once a colt’s old enough, he’s gelded unless China decides she wants another stallion. Right now, three’s her limit.”
“Where are the stallions?”
“We keep Ebony, Aces Wild, and Hex in a separate paddock away from the geldings and mares. They’re high strung and can be volatile. We don’t take chances with any of our kids.”
Beau grunted. Kids. Maverick kept calling these monsters kids.
“Is she pulling on the lead?” Maverick asked.
“A little.” Gorgeous acted more like she wanted to stop moving, so Beau had slowed his pace, just in case, you know, something dropped out of her south end. “Want me to walk her faster?”
“Nah, you’re doing fine. Just make sure you keep that injured hand clean. I’m still surprised you’re on your feet instead of flat on your back where you should be. That finger operation was no small deal.”
Beau shrugged. “I’ve been hurt worse. This is nothing.”
Maverick opened his mouth to speak, but the horse beat him to it. She groaned. Her whole body shuddered. She twisted to the side like she wanted to see what was happening behind her, and—Oomph! The biggest colt, um, foal, um, whatever slid out of her posterior and into home base.
“She did it. Look, it’s a baby!” blurted out of Beau’s big mouth before he knew what he’d said. But he’d never seen anything so wet and pretty as that foal when it wriggled out of the bag it came in. Beau wasn’t sure why, but tears stung his eyes like the sap he wasn’t and had never been. He’d learned that lesson early. He. Did. Not. Cry.
But something was happening, and Beau wanted it to stop. His chest felt like someone had just punched him, a direct hit to his solar plexus. The foal lay exhausted in the hay, its sides heaving as if being born was a tough job, and with every breath, something happened inside Beau. It couldn’t be another heart attack, though he was pretty sure he hadn’t had one before, either. He pressed his plastic-covered hand to his breastbone, needing that funny, awkward pain to stop pinching him, damn it. To stop squeezing the life out of him. This peculiar sensation was by far, the biggest high he’d ever known. Apparently, birth hurt so much better than death. Who would’ve thought?
Out of nowhere, a firm hand slapped his shoulder, startling him. “You okay, buddy?”
“Hell, yeah,” Beau answered quickly, embarrassed for his unexpected PDA, as in public display of emotion, and more than a little shocked at Maverick’s word choice. No one had called him buddy in a while.
Maverick stood there beside the mare, glowing, the corners of his mouth barely lifted like it hurt his face to smile, too. “I knew you could do it,” he said quietly.
Gorgeous tossed her head and whinnied as if she agreed, which made Beau want to smile. But he didn’t. He wasn’t so sure Maverick had meant him or the mare by that last remark. Damned unsettling the way Maverick was suddenly—someone else. Like Gorgeous. She wasn’t mean. She’d just been in pain with something that large working its way out of her body. Beau couldn’t imagine what giving birth to a baby as big as a smart car felt like. And those long spindly legs. Ouch! Just the thought! He winced in empathy.
Damned if Maverick wasn’t someone else out here in his barn. He’d changed into—a friend? Beau shrugged it off, not ready to believe. But wondering nonetheless what awful thing Maverick’s soul wrestled to expel.
“Oh no,” he said, suddenly lighthearted, when only moments ago he’d been sure Maverick was out to denigrate him and everything he said. “That big baby did not come out of me, wise ass.”
A crooked grin twisted Maverick’s normally grumpy face. “You can let go of the lead now.”
Beau looked down at the rope looped around his good fingers. He looked back at Maverick. “So why’d she need to walk?”
“She didn’t. Most horses drop their foals while standing on their feet. Like you said. It’s no big deal.”
“Then why’d I walk her in circles?”
“Because you needed it. You came into this stall like you were stepping into a lion’s den. Except for stallions, most horses are the gentlest creatures on the planet. So tell me, are you afraid of her now?”
Beau dropped the lead. “I wasn’t afraid,” he growled, though his growl didn’t hold much bite. “I was cautious.”
Liar.
To prove his newfound r
espect for equines—and that he was no chicken—Beau ran his good hand down the mare’s long snout, while Maverick tended to the foal and whatever else was going on back there. With a toss of her head, Gorgeous ditched Beau’s attention for the foal in the hay at her feet, nickering as her tongue took a long swipe over its fuzzy face.
The little thing blinked at the face washing. It was cute in the way of all baby animals. Big brown eyes. Exquisitely long eyelashes. But it was the same color as that Star fellow down the way. Brown with black mane and tail. Not pearly white like the mare.
“So what it is? A colt or a filly?”
Maverick looked up at him from where he knelt in the hay, his dark eyes gleaming in a shaft of golden sunlight that came from somewhere overhead. Maybe straight from heaven, he looked that happy. “We got us a filly,” he said proudly.
“Is that good?”
“Oh, yeah.” Maverick nodded. “I hate cutting the colts, so hell yeah. It’s a damn good day when we get a future mare.”
Beau crouched beside Maverick and the foal, curious. “Cutting must be…?” He let the question trail away.
“Cutting them off,” Maverick said. “I know it’s the smart thing to do, and it’s for their benefit. But it just seems wrong, robbing these perfect little guys of their manhood before they even know what to do with it.”
Automatically, Beau’s manhood shrunk in his jeans. McKenna would love this new baby horse. With that errant, crazy notion still pinging in his head, guilt came with it. Oh, damn. Beau glanced over his shoulder at the barn door. He’d walked out when she’d needed him. Unlike so many others in his life, she hadn’t wanted him to go. He’d hurt her when he’d left, then made it worse, when, like a dumbass, he’d told her, ‘I save people for a living. Go back to bed. Trust me, you’re just one of many.’
The truth was far different. She was one of damned few. His gaze dropped to the miracle in the straw at his feet. So pure. So fresh. But not the miracle that McKenna was. Not by a long shot. He lifted to his feet. “I gotta go.”
Beau (In the Company of Snipers Book 18) Page 17
