Page 7 of High Density

The little one has a completely white mask, with chestnut on her stomach and legs, as well as framing every patch of white on her body. Her eyes are the kind of pale blue you know is going to stick. She’ll be a beauty.

Doc sidles up to me, a roll of bandages in her hands, the rough fabric of her coveralls brushes my bare skin causing goosebumps to rise up.

“Don’t move,” she warns me. “I’ll just work around you.”

She gets even closer as she tries to wrap up the mare’s tail to keep it out of the way. I close my eyes and groan on the inside, my body all too aware of her proximity. A soft deep chuckle has me snap my eyes open, only to find Bo’s amused look aimed at me. When I narrow my eyes on him, it only makes him chuckle more.

Asshole.

The entire process of waiting for sedation to take effect, making sure the uterus is cleaned, and slowly massaging it back into the mare’s abdominal cavity, feels like it takes hours. By the time I can let go of the sheet and help clean up, my arms feel like lead and my resistance is almost nonexistent.

So when Janey approaches the sink where I’m washing up—her coveralls hanging down from the waist, revealing her strong upper body in nothing more than a white tank top—the last string of resistance breaks.

“We need to talk.”

Her eyes snap wide open.

“We do?”

“Damn right.”

Chapter Three

Janey

“Breakfast.”

I look over my shoulder to find Alex behind me.

I was just stripping out of my coveralls at the back of my truck, and loading everything up.

It was a good morning, difficult, but with the best possible outcome. Thank God for all the help, otherwise it could’ve ended up with a totally different result. Everyone stepped up, but I was particularly impressed with JD, and not just because of that smooth, sculpted chest he was flashing.

As if his good looks weren’t intimidating enough, that chest only emphasized it. Not only do I suspect he is years too young for me, but I know for a fact he’s well out of my league in the looks department.

Still, when he announced we needed to talk, I folded like a cheap suit instead of telling him where to shove it. Then he stalked out of the barn, leaving me standing there like an idiot.So I quickly washed up, and rushed to pack up my things, hoping to be out of here before he returned.

“I can’t,” I tell Alex.

“Yeah, you can. You haven’t even had the coffee I brought into the barn. Besides, Ama will have a shit fit if you take off before eating something.”

“I have clinic this morning,” I insist.

“Then grab something for on the go. It’ll take you five minutes.”

The walk-in clinic opened an hour ago, five minutes won’t make a big difference.

“Okay. I’ll drive the truck over.”

Since my business here is usually at the barn, I park my truck there and not by the house. In fact, I don’t think I’ve actually ever been inside the house. The outside is beautiful—all natural stone and wood—so I imagine the inside will be spectacular as well.

I pull the truck into an empty spot next to JD’s old pickup and walk up to the porch, where Alex is waiting for me. She leads the way into the house, where the smell of bacon and fresh coffee greet me. We walk through a hallway, past a set of stairs leading up to a large, open kitchen. The entire back of the house is one open living space, with a large dining space in front of massive picture windows in the middle, and a comfortable seating area with a big stone fireplace on the far side.

Ama glances up when we walk in and points her spatula at a seat at the huge kitchen island.

“Sit.”

She is not someone to mess with, from what I understand. I’ve been told she’s waved the scepter at the ranch house since long before Alex came along, even though she doesn’t live here. At the time, I guess it was just Jonas and his men living here, butover the years more women came along, as they all seemed to have found their significant others.

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