Page 49 of Irish Rebel
“He’ll get tending.”
Keeley merely glanced over her shoulder at Tarmack. “You can go.” Her voice held the regal ring of dismissal—princess to peasant. “Someone will deliver the check to you in the morning.”
The tone burned in Tarmack’s gut. She wouldn’t be so hoity-toity without her damn bodyguard, he thought. He’d have taught her a little respect if the Irish bastard hadn’t been around.
He bunched a fist impotently in his pocket and tried to save face. “I’m not just letting you take the horse and leave me with nothing but your say-so. I don’t give a damn who you are.”
Brian straightened again, blood in his eye, but Keeley merely held up a hand. “Mo, would you please take Mr. Tarmack to the dining room. If you’d ask my father to write him a check for the five thousand, and I’ll straighten it out later.”
“Happy to.” She grabbed Keeley by the shoulders, kissed her. “I knew you’d do it.” Then with a sniff she turned away. “Come with me, Tarmack. You’ll get your money.”
“I’m sorry, Miss Keeley.” Larry ran his cap through his hands. “I didn’t know how bad it was till I saw the ride here. I couldn’t get up on him seeing how he was.”
“You did the right thing. Don’t worry.”
“He did pay me ahead, like he said.”
She nodded, stepped out of the box again, gesturing to him. “How much do you have left?”
“’Bout twenty.”
“Come and see me tomorrow. We’ll take care of it.”
“’Preciate it, Miss Keeley. That horse there, he ain’t worth no five, you know.”
She studied the gelding. His color was muddy, his face too square for elegance and made homelier still by an off-center blaze of dirty white. And his eyes were unbearably sad.
“Sure he is, Larry. He’s worth it to me.”
Chapter Nine
“You don’t have to help with this.”
Brian said nothing, simply continued to clip the gelding’s legs. Bots were a common enough problem, especially with horses at grass. But this one had been sadly neglected. He had no doubt the eggs the botfly had laid on the gelding’s legs had been transferred to the stomach.
“Brian, really.” Keeley continued to mix the blister for the knee spavin. “You’ve had a really long day. I can handle this.”
“Sure you can. You can handle this, morons like Tarmack, washed-up jockeys and everything else that comes along before breakfast. Nobody’s saying different.”
Since the statement wasn’t delivered in what could be mistaken for a complimentary tone, Keeley turned to frown at him. “What’s wrong with you?”
“There’s not a bloody thing wrong with me. But you could use some work. Do you have to do everything yourself, every flaming step and stage of it? Can’t you just take help when help’s offered and shut the hell up?”
She did shut the hell up, for ten shocked seconds. “I simply assumed that you’d be tired after your trip.”
“I’ll let you know when I’m tired.”
“The gelding here doesn’t seem to be the only one with something nasty in his system.”
“Well, it’s you in my system, princess, and it feels a bit nasty at the moment.”
Hurt came first, a quick short-armed jab. Pride sprang in to defend. “I’ll be happy to purge you, just like I’ll purge this horse tomorrow.”
“If I thought it would work,” he muttered, “I’d purge myself. You’ll want to wait until at least midday,” Brian told her. “You can’t be sure the last time he was fed.”
“I know how to treat stomach-bots, thank you.” Gently she began to apply the blister to the injured knee.
“Here, you’ll get that all over your clothes.”
