Page 12 of Saddles and Snowstorms
I didn’t wave back. Couldn’t make my arm work properly. My whole body felt like it was running on different wiring than usual, circuits crossing and sparking where they shouldn’t.
When his truck disappeared in a cloud of dust, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. The silence of the ranch settled around me again, but it felt different now—emptier somehow.
“Goddammit,” I muttered, kicking at a stone.
Inside the barn, Buck whinnied as if he was laughing at me. I shot him a glare through the open door.
“Traitor,” I called out. “One handsome vet with gentle hands and you’re putty. Have some self-respect. Why don’t you be miserable like the rest of us?”
I stalked back to the house, boots heavy against the packed earth. The invitation to the Rusty Spur hung in my mind like a burr in my sock. Impossible to ignore and irritating as hell.
I slammed the screen door behind me and stood in my kitchen, the ticking of the clock suddenly too loud. Friday was two days away. Two damn days to decide if I was going to make the biggest mistake of my life or continue on as I had been—alone but safe.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of chores. I mended fences, checked on the new calf, and mucked out stalls with more force than necessary. By sunset, my muscles ached and my hands were raw, but my mind was no clearer. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Rowan’s face, that little half-smile, the scar on his jaw catching the light.
I heated up a can of beans for dinner and ate standing at the counter, staring out the window at the darkening sky. The ranch was quiet except for the occasional lowing of cattle in the distance. It had never bothered me before, the silence. Now it felt like it was pressing in on all sides.
“This is ridiculous,” I muttered to myself, tossing the empty can in the trash. I was acting like some lovesick teenager, and all because a handsome vet asked me to get a beer. I’d avoided this kind of trouble for years, kept my head down and my life simple. No complications. Noheartache. Just me and my cattle and this little piece of land that belonged to me and no one else.
I poured myself two fingers of whiskey and took it out to the porch. The evening was cold, stars beginning to dot the darkening sky above the prairie as my breath billowed visibly in front of me. I sat in my old rocking chair, the one that had been my father’s, and let the familiar creak of wood against wood soothe me.
The whiskey burned going down, warming my chest. I thought about Rowan—Dr. Walsh—and the way he’d looked at me. Like he knew something about me that I wasn’t ready to admit to myself. The way his fingers had moved so confidently over my horses, gentle but sure. A man who knew what he was doing with those hands.
“Shit,” I muttered, taking another swig as the front of my jeans tightened once more. This was exactly the kind of thinking I needed to avoid.
The night air carried the scent of sage and dust, the essence of this land I’d called home my entire life. I took another deep pull of whiskey, letting the burn chase away thoughts that had no place in my world.
Two days. Two days to decide whether I’d be sitting at my kitchen table Friday night or driving into town to that bar. The Rusty Spur wasn’t much—wooden floors sticky with spilled beer, a jukebox that played mostly country music from twenty years ago, and locals who’d known me my whole life but still didn’t know me at all. Not that I’d ever let them get that close.
The whiskey was gone too quickly. I considered pouring another but decided against it. Early morning would come whether I was ready or not, and the cattle didn’t care if their rancher was nursing a hangover because he wasn’t much of a drinker.
I went to bed with the windows cracked, letting the cold night air seep in. Of course, it did nothing to stop my thoughts from wandering back to Rowan and the way his strong hands would feel against my bare skin. I did my best to ignore the tented sheet in front of me as I attempted to force myself to sleep. It had been nearly ten years since I’d shared an intimate moment with another person. And if I had my way about it, that wasn’t going to change.
I just hoped I could resist Rowan Walsh before it was too late.
Chapter 5
Rowan
“Well,” I said, glancing up at the clock on the wall. “I can be out there in about twenty minutes to take a look at your horse. Just gotta lock up the office for the day and I’ll be on my way.”
“Thank you, Doc,” a man’s voice said from the other end of the phone. “I know you’re done for the day, but she means a lot to me.”
“I’ll do everything I can to help,” I replied. “See you in twenty minutes.”
I hung up the phone, glancing down at the address on the scratch piece of paper in front of me. I’d completely forgotten to get the guy’s name. I needed to get better about that. But I was out of practice answering phones. Usually, it was my assistant taking care of all that. However, she had to leave early that day, so I was running the place by myself. After just a couple hours of it I had a newfound appreciation for her work. It was hard to run an entire vet clinicandbe the doctor all at the same time. And now that my day was done, it was time to make a couple more visits out to my customers who were too big to fit in my examination room.
If things kept going at this rate, I’d need to hire on a partner. But that would have to wait, I didn’t have time to even think about it much less look. Besides, it was possible things would calm down once thenewness wore off. Then again, spring was quickly approaching and that meant things were going to ramp up. Calving season was closing in fast. Every time I drove out of town and saw a cow as big as a parade float walking through the fields, I cringed. Most of them would do fine on their own, but even then, I’d have my hands beyond full with the rest.
With a sigh, I closed up the clinic, grabbed my equipment, and hopped into my truck. The ranch wasn’t far out of town. It was some sort of large cattle operation. Usually, I’d expect to get a call about a sick cow or sickness spreading through the herd while they were in more confined quarters for the winter. But this call was about a colicky horse and from the way the guy was going on about it, it sounded serious. I just hoped I could help him out. He was one of the larger clients in town and I didn’t want to lose him straight out the gate if I couldn’t help his horse.
The drive out to the ranch took me through the rolling prairie of Sagebrush, Texas. Even with winter’s grip still holding tight, there was something beautiful about the landscape, and the way the late afternoon sun painted the hills in shades of amber and gold. I’d only been in town for three months, and I was still getting used to the vastness of northern Texas, so different from the crowded suburbs where I’d done my residency.
I pulled up to a set of massive iron gates with “Turner Ranch” wrought into the metal. The gates stood open, inviting me down a long gravel drive that cut through green winter grass. At the end stood a sprawling ranch house, all stone and timber, with a series of barns and outbuildings stretched behind it.
Off to the right side was another driveway heading back toward a series of cabins with a small parking lot. The moment I saw them, I knew they were rentals. It wasn’t uncommon for bigger ranches to encourage tourism to help them make ends meet. I just didn’t know that anyone in Sagebrush had actually gone through with it. And this one, despite the cold weather and the overcast skies, looked like it as booked up and doing fine.
Before I could even park near the house, a tall figure emerged from the nearest barn, moving with the easy, bow-legged gait of someone who’d spent his life in the saddle. As I stepped out of my truck, I got myfirst good look at him—broad-shouldered, with blonde hair peeking out from under a weathered Stetson, his face bronzed from the sun and creased with worry lines.
