Figured. Seemed it was no longer survival of the fittest, instead it was survival of the richest.
The games his neighbor and his sex-crazed wife played were becoming more than just burrs in Nat’s side.
The mare was in second stage labor. The placenta had ruptured with a gush of yellow-brown liquid three hours ago. Nat had been buoyant, optimistic, but his mood had darkened as time had dragged on.
Normally second stage lasted twenty-to-thirty minutes.
Nat left the loose-box to fetch a length of thick cord. He scrubbed it in a bucket of hot soapy water and hoped to hell he knew what he was doing. The mare was suffering and wouldn’t last much longer.
“Called Logan.” Nat wiped sweat from his brow with his shirt sleeve, swallowed sawdust along with despondency. “He can’t get here for at least another hour.”
Logan Ryder was the former vet’s son, a friend from way back, who ranched down near Hungry Horse. His old man had died last spring, but Logan had spent his youth helping out his father and had more foaling experience than anybody Nat knew.
“One of his kids cut themselves on some broken glass,” Nat said.
“Serious?” Cal asked.
“The kid?” Nat looked up from scrubbing his hands. Shaking his head, he moved his hair out of his face with an impatient swipe. “Nah, Logan said she was okay, just needed a bunch of stitches.”
Cal nodded towards the cord. “What you gonna do?”
“Gonna get this foal out before Banner dies trying.”
Despite the chill, Nat was stripped down to his undershirt, sleeves rolled up. He soaped his hands, rinsed them well and soaped them again. Sweat gathered on his brow and ran down the sides of his face. His hair was damp with perspiration, his clothes rumpled and stained. Exhaustion weighted his muscles like water drag.
Nat made a noose with the cord and waited until the mare finished a contraction. Banner had gotten weaker, head lolling, her breath shallower after every muscle action. He inserted his hand, pushing the rope before him, then nudged the loop out in front of his fingers as he pushed against thick vaginal walls. His arms screamed with tension as he reached fully into the mare and felt just the tip of a sharp little hoof kick against his hand.
A spurt of energy buzzed around his body. At least the foal was still alive. Forcing himself to go just an inch further, he bit down in pain as another contraction hit and his arm was squeezed in a vise. Bones and joints compressed, pain shooting along nerves from his fingers to his elbow. He concentrated on the foal, not the pain, gritted his teeth and breathed out through his nose. The contraction stopped and Nat pressed forward and managed to loop not one, but two tiny hooves.
Hallelujah.
A fierce grin contorted his face as he pulled the coil tight, dragged the hooves back toward him. When he leaned forward again, he could just get a grip on the foal’s fetlocks.
“Get the rope,” he urged Cal.
Cal knelt behind him in the hay, gathered the slack as Nat tightened his grip on the foal. There was no time to waste.
“Next time she has a contraction, heave,” Nat said. He braced himself against the mare’s flank.
“Now!” Nat felt the muscles begin to bear down on his arm. He and Cal pulled as hard as they could while the contraction lasted. The mare kicked uselessly, clearly in agony, but too weak to fight.
The foal had shifted towards them.
He sensed rather than heard someone slip into the stable block and walk down the center aisle towards the stall. Pungent smells of horse and sweat filled the air. The wind rustled the skinny branches of the quaking aspens in the nearby forest so hard they rattled.
“Sas?” Nat shouted. He desperately needed some medical help.
“No,” Eliza Reed said. “It’s me.”
Nat looked over his shoulder and saw her peer uncertainly over the top of the half door.
The woman would be suspicious of water. He turned back to the mare. He didn’t have time to play tour-guide right now. Banner and her foal were dying.
Cal braced his knees on the ground as Nat prepared for the next contraction. Banner’s head lay still against the fresh hay, her breath a thin thread of steam from her nostrils.
“What’s going on? Where’s the vet?” Eliza Reed’s voice rose accusingly, clipping the Irish to a hard edge.
“Foal’s stuck.” Nat stroked the mare’s coat with his free hand. “Vet’s busy.”
He concentrated on the struggling mare. He’d bet a hundred-to-one the vet would have come to the aid of the likes of Mizz Eliza Reed.
“What do you mean the vet’s busy?” Her hoity-toity voice was outraged.
“Too busy for the likes of us,” Nat said not looking up. “That’s what I mean.” It was a damned shame. Banner was one of the most beautiful horses he’d ever known. Even tempered, but brave. She had pure Egyptian bloodlines and was worth thousands of dollars, but even that didn’t matter now. He just wanted this beautiful creature and her foal to live.
Another contraction began.
“Come on, Banner!” Nat urged.
Nat and Cal heaved with all their strength and again the foal shifted toward them. His teeth came together with a snap of anger. He’d seen so much suffering and death in the last few years he was sick to his stomach of it. Please God, spare the mare.
“Come on girl.”
She was gonna die.
She was gonna die because their damned Texan neighbor had some twisted desire to force them out.
Eliza Reed slipped into the stall, skirted around them, and went to kneel beside Banner’s head.
He and Cal gathered for another effort. Banner was beginning to lose consciousness, her head laying still, her sides going lax.
Eliza placed a hand on the mare’s broad cheek, softly, like she was afraid to touch.
“Can I help?” Her luminous green gaze locked on his. Nat looked away, but was drawn back reluctantly. There was something terribly vulnerable about the fierce determination he saw there. Something he didn’t want to acknowledge.
“Only if you believe in miracles,” he said.
Eliza’s eyes went flat. She shook her head.
Banner stopped breathing for a second. Nat’s stomach coiled like a snake in his gut.
“Come on, girl,” Nat shouted, “Come ON!”
Time had run out. They had to get the foal out of there. Cal grabbed a bucket of cold water and doused the mare’s back. She jolted and another contraction hit. Nat pulled on the cord with all his might, sinew stretching and muscles bulging with effort. Eliza joined him, straining against the rope, her breath coming in broken gasps behind him.
The foal was stuck fast. The mare shuddered violently and then lay still.
“Damn it to hell!” Nat’s bellow reverberated around the stables, but the mare didn’t stir. He bowed his head, fighting back the sense of defeat that threatened to overwhelm him.
The mare lay motionless, her sides unmoving, her breath finished.
Dead.
Banner was dead.
They’d needed a miracle but it hadn’t come.
Eliza Reed was staring at him, wide-eyed, on her knees in the damp straw.
Nat’s teeth were clenched so hard they could have been fused. He swallowed. It was too late. Banner was dead. Numb on the inside, he took out his hunting knife, the blade six inches long and as sharp as a scalpel.
“What are you doing?” Eliza asked.
Kneeling next to the mare he put his hand on her warm flank, said a silent prayer for forgiveness and cut. He cut deep. Deep enough to expose the mare’s insides.
Despite death, the muscle contracted violently against the action of the knife. It curled up like heated plastic at the edges. Nat ignored the life-like spasms and cut quickly, careful not to slice into the unborn foal. Finally, with a whoosh of amniotic fluid Nat pulled the foal out.
It wasn’t breathing.
“Fuck.” He was vaguely aware that Cal and Eliza watched him with open-m
outhed expressions of horror and distaste, but he didn’t care. Blood soaked the ground, soaked his clothes.
Nat cursed again, cleaned the mucus from the newborn’s nostrils. He clamped his left hand over the mouth and lower nostril and blew a big breath through the top nostril, deep into the tiny animal’s lungs.
Nothing.
He wiped his mouth, prayed and did it again, and again, compressed the tiny ribs down with a solid push—once, twice, three times. The foal coughed, gagged and opened its eyes.
Nat couldn’t believe it.
Holy damn, he’d actually done it. His neck muscles strained so tight his tendons felt like they’d snap and his heart drummed like a marathon runner on the home stretch. Overwhelmed, he stared at the tiny creature as it started to breathe on its own. Body shaking crazily, hands trembling with palsy, Nat realized he’d saved the foal. With his hand over mouth, he stumbled to the corner of the stall and threw up.
Tears slid down his cheeks, unchecked, emotions raw and exposed. Wiping his mouth, he looked over his shoulders at the foal. The colt was pure black, not an ounce of color in his midnight hide. He had a perfect dished profile, huge liquid eyes and wide nostrils that flared wide with each breath.
Nat couldn’t move, couldn’t even reach out his hand to touch the newborn. The foal tried to stand, four delicate legs teetering beneath him like twigs in the wind. Cal bent down to remove the rope from the foal’s legs and rubbed him with fresh hay, getting rid of the damp mucus and blood.
“You saved him.” Eliza Reed’s voice was rough, no more than a whisper in the shadows.
Relief hit him. Then raw grief settled in as he looked at the mare. His mouth turned arid as he caught Eliza’s gaze, her green eyes huge and brilliant with tears. His own eyes burned again, but he forced himself to get on with the work. He had to clean up Banner, feed the foal.
“Hey?” Shouts echoed down the stable block.
“Nat?” A door banged and footsteps approached.
“You in there?” Logan’s deep voice cut through the darkness.
“Back here.” Nat forced the words past shaky vocal cords.
“She okay?” Sas ran down the aisle, bundled up in a thick down-jacket, carrying her black doctor’s bag. She drew to a halt and her eyes went huge as she stared at the colt. “He’s beautiful. Oh, Nat, he’s gorgeous.” Then she saw the mare, lying cut open beside him. “Sweet Jesus.”
Nat crawled around to the mare’s head, touched her cheek. “She didn’t make it.”
Grief hit him like electric rain—stupid because she was just a horse. But she’d been beautiful, and hadn’t deserved to die like that, in pain, and desperate. No animal did. He was a rancher and a wildlife photographer, knew the twists and turns of Mother Nature better than most, but nothing had prepared him for such an unnecessary death.
A vet could have saved her.
The foal nosed his hand with velvet lips and Nat looked into the tiny creature’s midnight eyes. The little fellow was hungry and wondering where his mama was. He had to get the foal to a surrogate soon, or he had months of bottle-feeding to look forward to.
The door of the stable block banged shut and Nat was surprised by the flash of disappointment he felt when he realized Eliza Reed had left the barn.
Shrugging, Nat turned and watched Logan examine the foal. He broke the umbilical with a sharp jerk, checked the heart rate with the palm of his hand against the thorax.
“I had to resuscitate him.” Nat’s voice was gruff, the walls of his throat tight with anguish.
“Looks pretty damn good to me. I’ll give him a couple of shots, just in case.” The big rancher covered the tiny animal with a blanket to keep him warm. “Got a mare lined up?”
Nat nodded, and prayed to God that the mare would accept a second foal.
“Bumped into Logan at the end of my shift,” Sarah explained. “He told me Banner was having problems and the vet couldn’t get up here.”
Nat nodded. Bitterness wouldn’t do him any good, but he couldn’t let it go.
“I’ll remember that if I ever come across the SOB in a road traffic accident.” She swore softly. Sas might look tiny and sweet, but she was just as ornery as the rest of them. She went over to stand next to the foal, stroked his inquisitive black nose and hugged Cal loosely with her other arm.
“What’re you gonna call him?” Logan asked softly.
Tonight should have been a time to rejoice, but death and hardship tempered it. Nat said nothing for a moment. There was still work to be done and he’d be lucky to see his bed before dawn.
“Redemption.” Nat looked at the delicate black form. “Red, for short.”
“He looks like a Red to me,” Cal said, keeping his arm tightly clasped around Sarah’s waist.
“An awful big burden to put on such tiny shoulders.” Sarah softly stroked the foal’s quivering nose.
“He’ll grow into it.” Logan came to stand next to Nat, clapped him on the back. “He’s gonna be a champ, just like his papa.”
Nat said nothing and prayed.
He hoped it was enough.
***
Tears ran down her cheeks, great ribbons of emotion that flowed like rain, and dripped from her chin. She’d never seen birth before nor death. Never beheld that pure moment when all promise and expectation crystallized into something as wonderful as a newborn foal. Or experienced the agonizing void of helplessness when life ceased. She stumbled out of the stable, barely able to see where she was going. She could hardly breathe, hardly draw the air past her constricted throat as she tried to control the sobs. Blindly, she reached out as a fence loomed in the darkness.
The training ring.
She’d seen violence and evil, wickedness and corruption. But there was more power in that single moment of birth than in everything she’d witnessed while working for the FBI. Power so huge it was staggering. Humbling, heartbreaking, real.
She climbed the rungs and sat astride the top, letting the solitude embrace her, crying her eyes out as she stared sightlessly at the stars above.
She’d loved working undercover at first, before it had sucked out her soul, leaving her as empty as an actor in a never-ending stage play. A grand adventure for a lonely girl with too much money and not much of anything else. She held the top rail between both hands, squeezed the unrelenting wood as hard as she could. She’d had a boring, lonely childhood, raised in the very best private schools, visiting her aunt in America only for the longer breaks. Money was a poor substitute for friendship—a hollow family to love.
Special Agent in Charge Marshall Hayes had approached her during one of her trips to Boston. She swiped at the tears that rolled down her cheeks. His mother and her aunt had been matchmaking—trying to consolidate the family fortunes no doubt. He’d been handsome, exciting. A real live FBI agent.
And he’d pursued her all right. Cornered her in his home office and shown her the FBI recruitment website. With her dual American/British citizenship and master’s degree in Art History she had the perfect background for his team. He wanted her. She just had to pass her basic training.
She pulled a tissue from her pocket and blew her nose. She’d worked her balls off to get through the sixteen weeks of boot camp. Reveled in the challenge—loved the excitement and the sense of danger, longed for the chance to finally prove her worth beyond her bank balance.
But what she’d discovered was that, on the scales of justice, her worth barely registered.
Life sucked. Then you died.
A wolf howled high in the hills. The sound echoed off the outbuildings and reverberated around the yard. A lonely, mournful sound that felt fitting somehow.
She’d been scouting out the ranch, checking the outbuildings and vantage points from within the trees. She’d even had her cover story all worked out before she’d realized these people wouldn’t care if she snooped around, investigated the place. They had nothing to hide. They’d just think she was plain, old-fashioned nosey.
; She rubbed her thighs against the cold as loneliness stole over her, made her think about the things she didn’t have, couldn’t have—like family. She had a few friends, but none she could turn to now. To involve anyone else in her life was too dangerous.
Josie was safe enough as long as she stayed low, and she was street-smart.
Elizabeth wiped the tears from her cheeks with the cuffs of her jacket. She missed Marsh, and Dancer, and all the gang from the Forgeries and Fine Arts Division. But she couldn’t go to them. Marsh had warned her not to get involved with the Organized Crime Unit’s investigation and told her to steer clear of DeLattio. She’d ignored his advice and plowed on. Thought she could handle it. Thought she was clever.
She hooked a strand of hair behind her ear. This was her problem, her mess and she’d clear it up.
A noise behind her startled her and made her jump. She fell off the top rung into the soft sand of the training ring. Her hand slid to the shoulder holster she’d started wearing again, hidden beneath her jacket.
“Sorry,” Nat Sullivan said out of the darkness, “didn’t mean to startle you.”
“No, no, you’re all right.” Elizabeth pulled her hand away from her gun. The man made her nervous, but she wasn’t scared of him. Most men made her nervous nowadays. “Sorry.” She wiped her eyes again embarrassed to be caught crying. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Elizabeth found words to try to cover her emotions. “I’ve never seen anything born before.”
“Well,” his voice was troubled, eyes pensive, “I’m not so sure he was born so much as ripped out.”
He stood a yard away, watching her through the gap between the top rail and the next one down, blood-soaked, dirty and rumpled, in his shirtsleeves on a freezing cold night.
Crimes of Passion Page 35
