He used his legs for traction against the floor of the stall and pulled the foal free of Liza’s quivering body. He ripped at the shroud-like membrane still covering the foal and tore it open. He peeled back the membrane with his fingers and wiped the unmoving foal’s nostrils clear of mucus. The nostrils flared, and the foal took a few breaths. Only then did he realize he’d been holding his own. He let it out as the foal closed its lips around his hand and sucked.
“Holy Mary,” Gus said in an awed tone.
“We’ve got a live wire.” Ryan eased his hand away from the foal’s lips.
He knew better than to cut the navel cord. Liza would break the cord when she got up, or it would snap as the foal struggled to her feet. But he stayed close, knowing that these precious first moments were the time to imprint on the foal. If Liza let him, the foal would accept him and the closeness those first minutes developed would make it much easier on him, any caretakers and, in the long run, the little donkey.
The little foal turned to him and nuzzled, wiping a trail of slime and wetness along his jeans. A trail of slime and wetness that made him a very happy guy. He’d been accepted.
Liza rose to her feet, breaking the umbilical cord. Gus reached a towel toward the foal, and Liza nipped at him.
“I’m your friend,” Gus sputtered as he recoiled against the wall.
The new mother ignored him and began licking her foal dry.
“That licking action is very important,” Ryan said to a near-spellbound Gus. “Especially if this is Liza’s first foal, which I suspect it is. The licking stimulates her mothering instinct, gets her milk flowing, and perhaps most important of all, prevents the foal from getting chilled.”
He stood and flipped the switch to the overhead heater. And said a silent thanks that he’d held his ground in the face of his contractor’s city-boy scorn.
“My wife’s pregnant,” Gus said.
The admission explained the man’s anxiety.
“First child?”
Gus nodded, looking down at the blood covering the straw on the stall floor.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “I’m not available for a repeat performance.”
The attempt at a light moment was lost on Gus. He leaned back against the wall and raked a hand over his face. “It just made me think. You know, with birthing—there’s so much that can go wrong.”
“And so much that goes right,” Ryan countered.
And then his words hit him.
So much that could go right.
He’d focused on what had gone wrong between him and Cara, and it had taken a homeless donkey to get through his skull that he hadn’t focused on what could go right.
Worse, he hadn’t even given Cara a chance to explain. Fueled by old patterns, patterns he hated, he’d launched into her without thinking, hadn’t considered her pain or what she’d suffered. He hadn’t trusted—hadn’t trusted at all. And he’d probably scorched the path to any future he might’ve had with her. A future he’d dreamed about since the day he’d met her, a future he’d set to blazes in a few short, hotheaded minutes.
Ryan watched as Liza ran her tongue tirelessly over her baby, fully focused on the new life she’d brought into the world. And he knew what he had to do.
“Where you staying tonight?”
“There’s a motel about an hour from here,” Gus said.
“Would you consider staying here? Watching over the donkeys? Keeping an eye on these two? I’ve got a couple of rooms fixed up for the caretaker.”
“Beats the heck out of Motel 6.”
“There’s a diner in town; you can run a tab on me.”
The foal nuzzled along Liza’s belly and started nursing.
“Now there’s a mighty sweet sight,” Laird said as he walked into the stall and tossed his vet bag on the straw-covered floor.
“Thank God you’re here.” Ryan rose and started to reach a hand out to shake Laird’s, but seeing the blood still smeared up to his elbows, he drew back.
“Looks like you have it handled,” Laird said as he checked out Liza and her foal. “I’ll have to treat the little one’s navel with iodine.” He reached into his bag. “And she’ll need a tetanus antitoxin shot immediately.” He glanced up at Ryan. “But from the looks of how you’ve handled things, you probably know that.”
“Nope. I got lucky. I helped my dad once, with a mare. She red-bagged, or I never would’ve known what to do.”
“You saved both their lives, I’d say.” Laird looked to Gus. “Has she been a mother before?”
“Don’t know,” Gus said. “She just came in two months ago. It’s hard to starve a donkey, but Liza here was skin and bones. We weren’t sure she’d keep the foal.”
A muscle twitched in Laird’s jaw. “I’ll never understand the minds of some people,” he said, not hiding his disgust. “Instead of connecting to the awe of life, they ignore it and harm everything in their path.”
Ryan looked away. Laird couldn’t know the pain those words knifed into his gut.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Ryan knocked at Cara’s front door. In the minute it took her to answer, he fought to counter the spikes of adrenaline surging in him.
She opened the door, and her eyes went wide.
“Are you okay?” She pointed to his head.
“That depends,” Ryan answered. “Mostly on you.”
She pointed again, but didn’t touch him. “You have blood on your neck.”
He rubbed at his skin. He’d scrubbed his arms past the elbows, changed his shirt and jeans, but evidently had missed a few spots. He’d never been one for mirrors, and he’d been in too much of a rush to talk to her to take time to shower properly.
“The donkeys arrived early. I helped one of them foal.”
She took a step back, staring.
“It was an emergency, and Laird wasn’t around. The foal’s okay. Cute, in fact. Really cute.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Just when I’m sure that there’s nothing you could say to make me ever want to speak to you again, you come up with something like this.”
To his relief she stepped aside and allowed him to enter her living room. He felt like he’d passed the first gate of Castlevania but hadn’t yet come close to facing the shadow powers. Cara crossed to her desk, keeping a good distance between them.
“You were amazing at the meeting,” he said. “What you did. What you said.”
The words came out of his mouth, yet he heard them as if someone else were speaking, and in no way did they express the power of the feelings racing circles in him.
She picked up a pile of papers from her desk. He fought for more words, but they wouldn’t come. She turned, clutching the papers to her chest like a shield.
“I thought you said you’d rather face a fast ball than go to a meeting,” she said.
He couldn’t read her expression, but the wavering flame of hope in his heart sprang to life.
“That part’s still true.”
She dropped the papers into a box beside her. The room was piled with half-packed boxes. Two suitcases stood by the door.
“You going somewhere?” He immediately kicked himself for asking such an obvious, stupid question. But his brain wasn’t functioning. He thought of a dozen things to say, but none would form into words that he trusted.
She leafed through another pile of papers, then shoved them into a box that was already brimming.
“New York.”
He was too late, like in one of those stupid movies where you sit through all the twists and turns and the people split up anyway.
He always hated Casablanca. That Ilsa would leave Rick and moviegoers thought it was a good thing never made any sense to him.
He held out the travel mug of coffee he’d brought. “This is for you. I broke down and read the directions.”
She looked up, and he saw the tears brimming in her eyes. His heart lurched and breathed flames on the f
licker of hope he’d fought not to relinquish. He wanted to take her in his arms, but knew it wouldn’t be the right move. He didn’t know what the right move would be.
She took the mug from him.
“Thank you.”
She stepped back, searching his face. He didn’t know what expression would help crack her armor, would salve the wounds caused by his anger. But whatever she saw in his face sent a wavering smile across hers.
“You must’ve been desperate if you read the directions,” she said. Her hands shook as she removed the lid and sipped. She shut her eyes and tears spilled from behind her lashes. “It’s delicious.”
He took the mug from her hand and set it next to the TV.
“Cara.” He turned her to face him. “You can’t take this all on your shoulders. My... my projections played a part in all this, maybe the bigger part. And my lack of trust. I wanted you to be a simple country woman—to be uncomplicated. I didn’t give you a chance to be anything else. I fell into the trap of my own fantasies, and I dragged you in right along with me.”
She swallowed and parted her lips. God, he wanted to just kiss her and make everything that hung between them vanish. He pulled her into his arms, and when she didn’t resist, he cradled her against his chest.
“I was a Stone Age jackass,” he whispered to the top of her head.
She sniffled against his chest. “Don’t give the donkeys a bad name.”
“You’re right, the animals don’t deserve such comparisons—I was a Stone Age jerk.”
He stroked her hair, wishing he could stroke her heart.
“Jackie told Alex you were planning to tell me next week. You couldn’t have known Henry would out you like that.”
“So much for secrets,” she said with a sniff.
“I should’ve been the kind of guy you could have trusted enough to confide in. Instead I was a bull-headed fool.”
She pulled away and tipped her face to him. “I thought you were a Stone Age jerk.”
Defiance flashed in her eyes. Defiance was easier to stomach than her sadness. She raised a hand and pushed her hair back from her face.
“I was a fool to think that timing mattered,” she said. “The world of billionaires isn’t really what anyone wants to hear about. They think they do, but when it comes down to it, the kind of money my family has doesn’t build bridges. Or make friends.”
“Well, I want to hear about it.” He rubbed her shoulder. “About this one particular billionaire.”
She stepped back, but he kept his hand on her. Some part of him would die if the connection between them was severed.
Her brows drew together, and she looked down at the floor. “When Jackie told me about the paternity suit, I was afraid to face you. Every time I imagined telling you, I saw the horrid similarities. Deception is the silent partner of lies—someone once told me that.”
He winced at hearing her repeat the words he’d flung at her. “You’d never do a thing like she did.”
“But what I did”—she looked up and held him in a firm gaze—“I know deceiving everyone was wrong, but I was dying in my life. Dying. And afraid.” She hugged her arms around her ribs and shook her head. “I had to start over. I never imagined it’d end up like this.”
He tracked his hand down her arm and squeezed. “Nothing’s ended, Cara.”
Spots of color burned in her cheeks. “You saw their faces. Belva... and Perk and the others. I can only imagine what Molly feels.”
He cupped her jaw, gently, and kept her eyes meeting his. “You woke a lot of people up to their prejudices. And to their fantasies and shortcomings. Me included.”
She bit at her lower lip.
“It was about time for me to dust off my trust engines,” he added.
She nodded.
He put both hands on her shoulders. “And there are some fantasies worth testing.” He released one hand and ran it down the back of her spine. “Some that stand the test of even a Stone Age jerk’s follies.”
She sniffed and smiled. And all the dammed-up energy he’d held in for so long rushed into the kiss he pressed to her lips.
The midday sun spilled over the bed and woke Ryan. He hadn’t planned on sleeping. Cara lay curled against him, still sound asleep. He leaned up on his elbow and watched her breathing. It was all he could do not to trace the relaxed smile that rested on her lips, but he didn’t want to wake her. He’d seen the smudged circles under her eyes. She hadn’t been sleeping any better than he had.
He inched away to slide out from under the sheet.
“No,” she murmured as she reached a hand to him. “Not yet. I don’t want to face the world yet.”
He curled back around her. “We can face it together.”
She shot up in the bed, pulling the sheet around her. “You don’t know what you’re asking for.”
“I know what I have.” He kissed the worry lines at the corners of her eyes. “You’re exactly the woman I was looking for.”
The lines around her eyes relaxed. “Well, you aren’t exactly the man I was looking for.” She circled her arms around his neck and pulled him to her, pressed her lips to his. “But you’ll do,” she said between kisses.
“Just glad to be on the team, ma’am.”
She cuffed him, and he grabbed her arm.
“One thing is true,” she said. “Well, lots of things are true. But I now know this—make-up sex is even better than people say.”
He tugged her against his already hard erection. “I’d prefer moving-forward sex.”
“Then we should have a proper date,” she said, pushing him away playfully.
The sheet slipped down, exposing her breasts, her nipples peaked with arousal. Was the woman trying to torture him?
He straddled her and lifted her to him. “How about a proper date for the rest of our lives?”
She took in a sharp breath. Maybe his timing sucked, but he was in the pond now—might as well dive.
“Marry me, Cara.”
A smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. “You haven’t slept and you’re covered with donkey blood.”
“I heard it adds to the attraction.” He leaned down and nipped a kiss to her ear.
She hadn’t answered him. He’d ask again. Every day if he had to. Until he got the answer he had to have.
“Well, you might feel very differently after you’ve had a taste of my world and my family. A taste of Caroline Barrington.”
“Um, last I noticed, your parents aren’t in this bed.” He leaned down, caressed her lips with his. “And I like what I’m tasting right here.”
She shivered as he ran kisses down her neck, to her breasts. Hooking an arm around her waist, he laid her back across the bed. The duvet puffed up around them, cocooning them in a whispering cloud of taste and touch. He needed no words now. He loved her slowly, relishing the way her body rose with her pleasure, how she met his moves with passion. And what he saw in her eyes burned away the restraints that had kept him from trusting completely.
He held her as their breathing returned to normal, as the world returned, as the need for words returned.
“I love you, Cara,” he whispered against her ear. “Marry me. Marry me and we’ll slay our dragons together.”
“Dragons?”
“What would you call them?”
She pressed up from the pillow and turned her face to his. “I can’t possibly make such a decision on an empty stomach.”
The twinkle in her eyes made hope expand in his chest.
“Then let me make you breakfast and then you can agree to marry me.”
“Cain says you don’t know how to make breakfast.”
“I’ve never been so motivated before.”
She giggled. The same, sweet giggle he’d heard that day they’d struggled with Belva’s squash. The day he’d probably lost his heart.
He grabbed his jeans from a chair near the fireplace and knocked the little painting off it. It tumbled toward the still-glowing e
mbers of the fire he’d built just before they’d slept. He grabbed at it and caught it just in time.
“You just saved the three million I’ve earmarked for the clinic. I’m selling that painting at auction next week.”
She was testing him, he knew. Testing his reaction to her world, a world where rare paintings hung in people’s homes. A world of big money.
“But you love it,” he said.
“I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to wrest funds free from the foundation, to deal with all the paperwork and red tape. That painting’s a more immediate source of funds.”
She wrapped the sheet around her, rose from the bed and studied him for a moment, the realization that he knew the painting’s value dawning in her face. “When—when did you know?”
He hoped it was curiosity and not wariness that he saw in the tilt of her head and the furrow between her brows.
“The first morning we made love in this bed. Alex and his sister had dragged me to the impressionist exhibition at the Legion of Honor the week before.”
He rested the painting carefully on the chair. “I just wouldn’t let what my brain was telling me sink in. I’m letting it all sink in now. A little late, but letting it in... letting you in.”
He scooped her into his arms and carried her back to the bed.
She wriggled her feet to the floor. “You’ll never get my answer until I have my breakfast.” She crossed her arms. “And I want to see that baby donkey with my own eyes, to make sure your alibi holds up. Women have been known to fall for stories less believable than that.”
“I’ll never lie to you, Cara.”
“No.” She took his hand in hers, closed her fingers over his. “I know you won’t.” She inhaled deeply. “And with the exception of the life I’ve lived for the past three years, I’ve never lied in my life. I don’t plan to start now.”
Ryan heard the splatter of water against the window. “It’s raining,” he said.
She let go of his hands and walked to the window overlooking her garden. “So it is.” She opened the window and inhaled, closing her eyes. “There’s nothing like the scent of the first autumn rain.”
Love on the Line Page 25
