Page 29 of Saddles and Snowstorms
“Thanks.”
The line went dead and I tucked my phone back in my pocket. The calf next to me made a few more pathetic sounds before laying down in the snow.
“Oh no you don’t,” I said, reaching down and getting my armsaround him. “You’re not gonna die on me now. Not after all the shit you put me through.”
With one loud grunt, I managed to get the calf off the ground and up around my shoulders, making him a bit easier to carry. Blood smeared over my jacket and I clicked my tongue. Hopefully it would wash out. If not, it could just join the plethora of stains already gathered in the fabric from years of farm service.
The trek back to the barn was a blur of white and cold. My boots sank deeper with each step, the calf’s weight making me stagger. Blood—warm at first but quickly cooling—dripped down my neck and back.
“Almost there,” I muttered, more to myself than the calf.
By the time I reached the barn, my legs were numb stumps, and my arms trembled from the strain. I shouldered open the door and nearly fell inside, catching myself against a post at the last second. The sudden shelter from the wind was almost disorienting.
I laid the calf down on a clean pile of hay and quickly checked his wound. The belt was holding, but blood still seeped around it. The calf’s mother lowed frantically from her pen, sensing her baby’s distress.
“He’ll be alright,” I told her, though I wasn’t sure if I believed it myself.
I grabbed some clean towels from my supply shelf and pressed them against the wound, then threw a blanket over the calf’s shivering body. My own hands were shaking so bad I could barely manage it.
“Fuck,” I whispered, looking down at my blood-covered clothes.
I knew I needed to get back to the house and change before Rowan arrived. I couldn’t let him see me like this—covered in blood, half-frozen, looking like I’d been through hell. Which I had, but that wasn’t the point.
“You stay put,” I told the calf, as if the poor creature had any intention of going anywhere. His eyes were glassy, his breathing shallow. I tucked the blanket around him more securely and headed for the door. It was the best I could do for him for now. I just hoped Rowan made it in time to save him.
The wind hit me like a physical blow when I stepped outside again. The snow was coming down even harder now, if that was possible, and the path I’d trampled earlier was already filling in. I tuckedmy chin against my chest and pushed forward, my frozen jeans scratching against my thighs with each step.
By the time I made it to the house, Hank had his front paws up on the windowsill, staring at me through frosted glass. I allowed myself to grin a little, ready to feel the warmth inside the cabin once more. However, the moment I stepped up onto the porch steps, everything went wrong.
Without warning, my boot went flying out from under me the moment I put my weight on it. I glanced down just in time to see the patch of ice that had formed on the steps without my notice. My arms flailed as I fell backward, my hands never quite finding the railing.
I wasn’t sure how it happened, but as my feet came out from under me, one of my boots managed to work its way between the railing balusters, trapping my foot. The rest of my body went down, hitting the ground hard. At the same time I heard a sickening crunch in my ankle and streak of white hot pain shot up my leg. However, the next second my head struck the ground, cutting off the pain in an instant as everything went dark.
Chapter 11
Rowan
Trying to drive a truck down a road I couldn’t see was a feat in and of itself. The fact that I found Brooks’ driveway was even more of a miracle. It had taken me nearly twenty minutes to drive the four miles out to Brooks’ farm. Everything was a whiteout with only tiny breaks in the snow here and there where I could gauge my progress. They never lasted for long though. Still, I managed to make it there. I just hoped I wasn’t too late to help that calf.
I’d spent the previous night kicking myself for giving Brooks my number in the first place. I knew I was barking up the wrong tree. Clearly Brooks wasn’t interested in me. And yet, there was something about that handsome face, his stubbly chin, and the touch of gray at his temples that had me hook, line, and sinker. He’d worked his way under my skin and now, no matter how mad I got at him or how much I told myself it would never work, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. My only saving grace was my work that kept me so busy and exhausted that I didn’t have time to fantasize about him. Still, that didn’t stop him from visiting my dreams where he did things to me that would make a porn star blush.
Those kinds of thoughts were the ones I pushed away because they were what got me in trouble last time. My ex had been a horny fling turned situationship that eventually evolved into somethingmore. Or at least I thought it had, anyway. I told myself when I left Austin that no matter how horny I got, I wouldn’t date a hookup again. So, in that way, I was avoiding thinking about sex with Brooks in order to keep him on the table as a dating option. However, even I realized the amount of mental gymnastics I was doing for a guy that wanted nothing to do with me was a red flag. Clearly, I needed to get a life, or get laid, or both so I could stop obsessing over something that was never going to happen.
So, instead of thinking about Brooks while I wound my way up his driveway, I tried to focus on the calf. If things were as bad as he’d claimed, I’d need to do stitches. I had the supplies for that. But if the calf needed a transfusion or something like that… I could probably pull it off but the chances of it surviving were less than half. Hopefully it wasn’t that bad.
But when I pulled up to Brooks’ cabin at last, my heart nearly stopped, the calf driven from my mind in and instant. There, lying at the base of the covered porch, was a figure half buried in snow. The moment I saw the brim of that beat up brown hat, I knew exactly who it was.
“Brooks…” I whispered, my eyes going wide in shock.
In a flash I was out of my truck, running up toward the cabin. The wind and snow stung like needles everywhere it touched bare skin, but I ignored the pain. I dropped down into the snow next to Brooks’ still body, ripping one of my gloves off. With my bare hands I brushed away the snow, searching for his neck where I pressed my fingers against his carotid artery. It took me a moment to will myself to calm down enough to search for a pulse. There was one thankfully, but it was faint.
“Stay with me Brooks,” I said, brushing more of the snow off him.
It was clear that he’d hit his head and probably knocked himself unconscious. And he was cold. The likelihood of a concussion was high, and the cold wasn’t going to make that better. However, it wasn’t until I tried to move him that I realized his leg was tangled up in the balusters of his porch railing. Pulling his pantleg back I saw a dark bruise on the skin, but not where I’d expect one if he’d broken his ankle. Either way, it would have to wait until I got him inside.
With a grunt, I freed his leg from the porch railing and hoisted him up. Brooks was a big man—all hard muscle and dense bone—and it took everything I had to carry him up those three porch steps and intothe cabin. The door wasn’t locked, thank God for small-town Texas habits.
Inside, the cabin was cold but not freezing. A dying fire smoldered in the hearth, telling me that Brooks hadn’t been out there too long. Hank, his border collie, bounced around worriedly, dragging his casted leg. It was going to exacerbate his condition, but I didn’t have the time or the energy to pay attention to the dog at the moment. I kicked the door shut behind me and made my way to what I assumed was his bedroom, laying him down on a queen-sized bed with a worn quilt.
