LOVE OF A RODEO MAN (MODERN DAY COWBOYS)

by Hutchinson, Bobby

  Mitch felt the angry blood pumping through his veins, the words forming on his lips faster than he could spit them out. “Well, I’m not him, old man. I cared for my brother, but I never wanted to be what he was. Thing is, you’re stuck with me now, with having to deal with me instead of him. You may not like it, but you’re stuck with it, because brother Bob is dead.”

  The last words were spoken with quiet intensity, and too late, Mitch caught sight of his father’s face, shielded from sight before now by the brim of his hat.

  Wilson’s rugged features had turned sickly pale under the ruddy tan, and there were deep lines around his eyes, knifing down from nose to mouth. There was agony in his eyes, and Mitch felt a stab of remorse.

  “Look, Pop..” he began to apologize, but Wilson held up a hand, like a cop stopping traffic.

  “Shut up,” he ordered. “You’ve said enough. Although you’re right about one thing at least, I do miss your brother, damned right I do.” Wilson turned on his heel and stalked off across the open field, walking away from Mitch until his figure became small and foreshortened in the shimmer of the sun.

  Where the hell was he going? Mitch wondered, staring after him. There wasn’t a damn thing out there except grass and a couple of trees. After a few moments he began to berate himself for his outburst, yet feeling wounded by what his father had just admitted.

  Mitch knew he wasn’t the type of man Bob had been. He’d never wanted to be. Why couldn’t Wilson just accept him the way he was? The old man was enough to drive a guy nuts. And that was no excuse for the things Mitch had said. But the words must have been festering inside.

  Not knowing what else to do, Mitch gathered up the tools and began tightening the sagging barbed wire, working full out.

  It was forty minutes before Wilson came back. Without a word, the older man picked up his own tools and went to work with Mitch. The only words exchanged for the rest of the day were ones absolutely necessary about the job.

  Several times that afternoon, Mitch wondered why he hadn’t said to hell with the Carter ranch and gone on with his own career last spring instead of coming home.

  Home.

  That was a laugh. Home was supposed to be somewhere you wanted to be. Well, he wasn’t wearing a ball and chain. Why the hell didn’t he just get on a bus? After all, the rodeo life was still out there; he could pick up right where he’d left off.

  By the time he and Wilson drove home silently for supper, Mitch was sorely tempted to do just that. There were several things stopping him. One was his mother. He didn’t think he could just walk off and leave his mother the way she was. The other was Sara.

  Sara managed to finish her last farm visit of the day by seven-fifteen Saturday evening, and she did it by skipping lunch and dinner. During the course of the afternoon, she gobbled two apples and several raisin cookies a farmer’s wife gave her.

  When the last call was finished, she exceeded the speed limit every mile of the way home. Then she showered, dressed and swiped on lipstick and eyeliner in record time. She was trembling from both hunger and exertion by the time Mitch tapped on her cabin door, but damn it all, she was ready.

  And it all seemed worth it when she opened the door and his eyes narrowed as he looked her up and down. Then he whistled, a soft, appreciative wolf whistle that thrilled her.

  She was wearing a soft blue cotton sundress, with a nearly bare top and straps that crossed in the back, and high-heeled sandals. She’d left her hair loose and wild, curling around her head and shoulders.

  “You look real pretty.”

  “So do you,” she replied, taking in his Western cut, steel gray suit, the high gleam on his boots, the new looking deep gray Stetson on his head.

  They stood smiling foolishly at each other.

  “Well, lovely lady, let’s go dancing.” He gathered her close to his side, and they were already halfway down the path when Sara’s cell began to ring.

  Sara hesitated, and Mitch groaned.

  With an immense effort of will, she ignored the summons and went on walking beside Mitch, and he let out a deep sigh of relief and gratitude.

  “It’s probably nothing, anyway,” she assured him and herself, and he agreed. She didn’t tell him that if it were a real emergency, the answering service also had the number of the hall where the dance was being held.

  As Mitch put his hands around her waist and hoisted her up into the cab of the freshly washed and shining half-ton, Sara sent up a hurried prayer to heaven, asking that the animals in the area get through this one evening without any calamities befalling them.

  So she could, too.

  Chapter Nine

  Music and laughter greeted Sara and Mitch as they walked into the small hall in Plains where the dance was being held. A country band was on the stage, belting out a Western tune, and couples crowded the dance floor.

  There was a cozy, intimate atmosphere in the old building, probably because almost everyone knew everyone else. At least a dozen people had greeted them by the time they found seats at one of the small card tables scattered on the periphery of the dance floor.

  “Care for some punch?” Mitch asked as soon as they were settled. “Strictly nonalcoholic, this place isn’t licensed.”

  Before Sara could answer, Bill Forgie appeared at Mitch’s elbow with Carol beside him.

  “Saw you two come in, mind if we join you? The band is taking a break.”

  “Only if you come with me and do battle for glasses of that bilious looking red stuff,” Mitch assured Bill with a welcoming grin and an affectionate thump on his friend’s shoulder.

  Carol sat down across the table from Sara.

  “Ooops,” she exclaimed as she pulled her chair still farther out. Her pregnant tummy kept her from getting anywhere near the table. “I’ve still got weeks to go, and I can’t figure out how I can get much bigger than this, can you?” she asked, wrinkling her nose at the mound underneath her gaily patterned maternity dress. “The doctor assures me this is only one little baby, but I have moments when I wonder.”

  “You’re absolutely glowing,” Sara complimented the pretty blonde. “You’re a walking advertisement for the pregnant state.”

  “That’s because I’m boiling hot all the time. The glow is actually good old sweat,” Carol said with a laugh. “And I no longer walk, I just sort of lurch along and hope everyone steers clear.”

  The men returned, and soon, the four of them were sipping fruit punch and catching up on anecdotes about the foal Sara and Mitch had delivered.

  “You two sound like doting relatives,” Bill teased when they insisted on knowing every detail about Scarlett and her baby. Mitch caught Sara’s eye and they laughed.

  The birth of the foal was special to them, a milestone in their relationship.

  The lights dimmed and the music started again, a romantic waltz. Mitch stood up, taking Sara’s hand and leading her onto the dance floor. His arm held her tight to him, and with confident grace he swooped her into the rhythm.

  “You’re good at this,” she remarked, loving the sensation of being in his arms, of having him guide them expertly among the other couples.

  “I’ve had lots of practice. There’s always a dance after a rodeo,” he explained. “A guy eventually learns his right foot from his left,” he added.

  Sara was quiet, feeling a ridiculous pang of jealousy for those times when he must have held other women just this same way at countless other dances.

  As if he’d read her mind, he drew her still closer into his arms and dipped his head until she could feel the heat of his breath in her ear. “Tonight’s special, though. You’re special to me, Sara. You’re the most beautiful woman in this room, you know that? I’m gonna dance every single dance with you, and afterward, I know this place where the moon’s twice as big as anywhere else. I’m gonna take you there and hold you and kiss you senseless.”

  He was wonderfully romantic. His words drew heated pictures in her mind. With a sigh of blissful c
ontentment, she felt his cheek press hers, his large, callused hand move slowly, sensuously, across the naked skin of her back, sending delicious waves of feeling trickling down her spine.

  His hand dropped to her waist, tugging until she was molded against him, thigh pressed to thigh, her breasts crushed against his chest. In a deep baritone, he hummed in her ear, low enough so that only she could hear.

  Sara closed her eyes and floated. There were only the two of them, lost in a magic dream world as one romantic song came to an end and with hardly a pause, another began.

  It was near the end of the third song that Sara felt a tap on her shoulder. She opened her eyes, and Mitch paused between one step and another.

  A portly matron who’d been taking tickets at the door when they came in stood beside them. “There’s a phone call for you, miss,” the woman said. “You are the new vet over at Doc Stone’s, aren’t you?”

  Sara’s heart plummeted. She glanced up, and Mitch’s eyes were shuttered and unreadable. He raised an eyebrow at her.

  “Sorry, I’ll have to see what it’s about,” she whispered to him, and, feeling suddenly bereft, she moved out of his arms to follow the woman to a small back room where the old fashioned phone lay off the hook, ominously waiting,

  “Dr. Wingate here, can I help you?”

  “This is George Dolinger, and a stallion of mine’s been ripped to shreds by barbed wire.”

  Sara felt like groaning out loud. This was Doc Stone’s affair, really. George Dolinger was totally obnoxious. She remembered the last call she’d had from him and the outright rudeness he’d displayed. Why should she have to deal with Dolinger tonight of all nights?

  “I called Doc at home, and he absolutely insisted I get you instead, young woman. Now I suggest you get out here right away, because this animal’s bleeding heavily and none of us can do a damn thing with him. He’s rampaging around here, near broke my groom’s leg a minute ago.”

  She was overwhelmingly tempted to say she wouldn’t come. Certainly after the last verbal battle with this man, she was under no obligation to answer an emergency call when she wasn’t even on duty.

  A mental vision of an hysterical, wounded animal rose up in her mind’s eye.

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “You know the way?” Dolinger demanded, and Sara listened as he gave crisp directions.

  She hung up the phone and drew in a deep, dejected breath. Now all she had to do was break the news to Mitch that, as far as dancing was concerned, the evening was over.

  The ranch was brightly lit when she sped down the long, winding driveway barely forty minutes later. Dolinger had turned on all the powerful yard lights, and Sara followed the graveled track right down past the palatial house to the stables.

  She’d barely had a chance to turn off the motor when Dolinger himself appeared at her open side window.

  “Took you long enough,” was his snarled greeting, and Sara counted to three before she swung the door open, taking a perverse delight in making him jump back fast so he didn’t get hit.

  Mitch had been good about the whole thing. He’d been disappointed, but he’d taken her to the office so she could pick up the truck, kissing her with hungry ferocity for a long moment before he let her go.

  “You go on back to the dance,” she’d insisted, hoping with every jealous fiber of her being that he wouldn’t do any such thing.

  “No, it’s no fun without you there. I’m gonna head over to Bitterroot, see if Dave needs a hand in the bar,” Mitch said.

  Sara felt ridiculously pleased. She’d changed into jeans and a shirt, grateful that she also kept a battered pair of runners in with her emergency gear. The last thing she needed tonight, she reflected now, would be to have to appear in front of this critical little man wearing a sundress and high-heeled sandals, looking totally unsuited for the job at hand. She felt nervous and edgy enough without that.

  “Help me with this equipment,” she all but barked at Dolinger as she swiftly assembled the things she thought she’d need from the rear of the truck, shoving several heavy cases at him and struggling into a cover-all. She zipped it as she hurried through the stable door, stopping short for an instant at the scene that greeted her.

  A beautiful dun-colored stallion was being held, with great difficulty, by three men. The tall animal was rolling its eyes in terror and bellowing with pain, repeatedly trying to rear back and break loose from the ropes holding him.

  His legs and underbelly were smeared with frightening quantities of blood, and long, angry gashes ran from his hindquarters around to his sides. He was already having difficulty putting his weight on his hind legs.

  Sara swallowed hard. With lacerations like these, it was touch and go as to whether the animal would regain full use of his limbs. “What’s his name?” she hollered. The horse was making so much noise it was difficult to hear anything.

  “Sergeant,” one of the men bellowed.

  “Try and get him into a loose box, and make sure there’s plenty of light. Where’s hot water and soap?” she demanded of Dolinger, who was standing to one side of her and cursing in a steady, vicious stream as he eyed the damage to his horse.

  He probably saw poor Sergeant simply as so many dollars and cents down the drain, Sara thought with disgust. She doubted that he was feeling sorry for the animal’s pain or sympathizing with his fear.

  Dolinger jerked a thumb over his shoulder, and Sara went into the well-equipped bathroom and scrubbed as quickly as she could.

  “You’ll have to hold him as still as you can while I inject this sedative,” she instructed, preparing a syringe. For several frustrating moments, it seemed impossible that the horse would be still for even the few seconds required for Sara to insert the needle into the jugular, but at last, there was an opportunity and she seized it.

  As the stallion gradually quieted under the effect of the powerful sedative, Sara rapidly taped an intravenous catheter in place and checked his heartbeat. It was strong.

  “Poor old Sergeant,” Sara crooned, watching him closely. In a very few moments, Sergeant was wobbly. He assumed a wide-base stance, swaying slightly from side to side with his head down.

  The time had come to administer the barbiturate through the catheter. Sara injected the drug slowly.

  Sergeant drew in a deep, heavy breath. “Support him as much as you can,” she instructed as the heavy animal began to topple. In another moment, Sergeant was asleep on the clean bed of straw, and Sara was on her knees beside him.

  She opened her case and laid out the instruments she would need and then carefully examined every jagged wound, suturing blood vessels where necessary, meticulously cleansing the ugly lacerations before she began to stitch them up.

  For the next three hours she was unaware of anything outside of the brightly lit circle enclosing her and her unconscious patient. The wounds were anything but easy to repair. Jagged-edged and frighteningly deep in places, they required minute care and delicate stitching, and with several, Sara felt despair threaten to overcome her as her first attempts to stretch the animal’s skin to cover the wound failed.

  When at last all the edges of tough hide were sutured neatly in place, she became aware of knife sharp pains in her shoulders and arms and a crick in her neck from hunching in one position for so long. Her chest and stomach felt tight and sore with tension.

  She also became more aware of her audience. She’d known that the three men who’d held Sergeant earlier were all hunched against the stable wall, obviously paying close attention to everything she was doing, but she’d blocked them out, focusing on the job.

  Now there was admiration and approval in their expressions as they smiled and nodded at her.

  “Good job, Doc. Hell of a mess the poor old thing got himself in.”

  More surprising, Dolinger was also present, sitting apart from the others, hunched like an evil little gnome on a stool in the far corner.

  “Mr. Dolinger, Sergeant will have to
have a cast on that back leg, long enough to allow the worst of the wounds there to heal.”

  Dolinger didn’t fool around, Sara gave him grudging credit for that. He had the men scurrying around at her instruction, and soon the leg was in a firm cast.

  By the time it was accomplished to both Sara’s and Dolinger’s satisfaction, another hour and a half were gone and Sara felt as if she were going to pass out from weariness and hunger.

  “Can you guarantee my stallion will be entirely fit after this, miss?” the ranch owner demanded in an aggressive tone, and Sara met his dour gaze and shook her head.

  “I can’t promise anything. One of those cuts nicked a tendon, which is why I’ve put the cast on. I’ve done my very best, but you must know by now there aren’t any guarantees in this business,” she said, her voice every bit as cold and hard as his had been all evening.

  A glance at her watch told her that midnight had come and gone, and thinking back, she remembered that she hadn’t really had much to eat since breakfast, which now seemed more than a decade ago. As she stood up, she was feeling decidedly light-headed.

  Sergeant was showing faint signs of recovering. Sara decided she’d like to stick around for at least another hour and make absolutely certain that the horse was safely out of the anesthetic before she headed home.

  “Do you think I could have a glass of milk?” she asked Dolinger, wondering what sort of scathing lecture a request like that might bring, but unable to go on without something in her stomach.

  “You hungry?” he barked, and she said, “Yes, as a matter of fact I am. I didn’t have dinner.”

  “C’mon.” Feeling like a stray dog that had been told to heel, Sara fell into step behind him.

  He barged out of the stable, with stern commands to the grooms to keep a close eye on Sergeant, and marched across the yard and up the winding walk to the back door of the house.