Page 46 of Back in the Saddle

“Yes, we can.”

We fell asleep holding each other’s hand. Tonight, the promises were enough. Tomorrow and every day after that we’d need to work on making them real.

16

Taylor

Iran my hand through my hair as I stared at the computer. This shit was hard. Ciaron dealt with as many competing priorities as me. He never seemed bothered by it, and everything flowed smoothly.

I’d forgotten that he’d taken on as much extra work as I had. How did he manage it all and keep on top of all our family responsibilities? Maybe because he didn’t hide behind it all like me. Dread spread through my body. My muscles were so heavy it was an effort to move. I’d done that. I’d hidden behind work. I didn’t want to admit that everything was out of control, so I controlled work to the nth degree.

I was in the middle of checking an order for first-aid materials and thinking about the list of jobs Ciaron had left me, including checking the birthing aids, when I heard a call on the two-way about an injured horse. The stud hand asked for Ciaron. She must have forgotten he was away.

I picked up the two-way. “This is Taylor. Ciaron is on leave today. Lorraine or I can help.”

“I have an injured horse in the Bottom Road Paddock.”

“OK. Be there soon.”

I made my way down to the paddock and turned onto the road after Mum, sitting back a little as the dust flew up from the dry road. We really should have decided which one of us would go. Too late now. We got out of our cars and headed over to the horse and the two stud hands.

“I was showing Sofia the different paddocks, and we noticed Mermaid limping,” Cleo said.

I was a few metres away from Mermaid and I could already tell a vet was needed. The skin on her shoulder was torn away. A flap about the size of a hand hung down. She’d be in a considerable amount of pain.

“Can you get the truck, Mum? We need to get her to the hospital barn.”

She nodded and left the paddock.

I turned to the two stud hands. “Can you please check the fences and look for any low-lying branches that could have caused this?”

They headed off. Of course, Mermaid could have been kicked by another horse as well. But if there was a problem out there in the paddock, we needed to fix it so another horse wasn’t injured.

Mermaid stood beside me quietly as I called the vet. I patted her neck. Then I watched the stud hands while I waited for the truck. I should have told them they’d done a good job spotting the injury. Ciaron would have done that almost straight away, and he would have thanked them. Now, they were too far away.

I examined the injury closer. It wasn’t very deep, thankfully. It was fresh too. The skin wasn’t drying out yet, which meant stitching would be viable. I handed the horse off to Mum when she arrived. “Call me when the vet arrives, please.”

I headed out to the two stud hands who were walking the fence line. “Have you found anything?”

“No, nothing.”

“OK. Thanks. Good job on spotting the injury.”

Cleo smiled. “It was weird that she wasn’t with the herd.”

It was noticing small things like that that made a good stud hand.

“Finish the fence line and if you can’t find anything, head back to work. Let me know either way, please.”

“OK.”

I grabbed my phone out to call Mermaid’s owners. I needed to let them know about her injury and that she required vet treatment. I hated this part of the job. It was another thing Ciaron was good at. He had a great rapport with our clients. It was something I had been more involved in before Mum had retired. I needed to get back into it; our clients were important, as were their horses.

Ciaron did so much that I didn’t give him credit for. And all of it made my job as general manager easier. I’d forgotten we were a team.

I headed back to the office to continue the paperwork. My fingers were brown from patting Mermaid and there was dirt under my nails. No rain meant no natural baths for the horses. When Mum called, I made my way to the hospital barn.

Dan, the vet, looked up and grinned as I walked in, his grey hair shining in the light. “Oooh, we have the big boss today.”

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