Page 3 of Deadly Attraction
The Resistance knows.
Collins dies bloody.
Birth was a miracle.
Even when it was a horse.
Second Chance whinnied, shifting her weight as yet another contraction faded away. Emma stroked her left rear flank, mentally willing the foal inside her to help its mother out.
Sweat ran down the back of Emma’s neck. The barn was stuffy, the natural light long faded. An overhead light and extra lanterns illuminated her job.
“Where is that vet?” Will Longram said. “She should have been here by now.
Emma’s farmhand had done three tours in Iraq, more in other places he didn’t speak about. PTSD seemed to make him especially sensitive to Second Chance’s current situation. The pregnant mare had been neglected and eventually abandoned by her former owners, coming to Emma through the local horse rescue group. In the past two weeks, she and Will had managed to bond with the horse while getting her back into shape. Her coat now glistened, her eyes were clear. The open sores on her neck were nearly healed.
But now, her foal was breach.
As a fresh contraction gripped Second Chance, Emma grabbed the two skinny legs of the foal and pulled. The resistance strained her muscles, made her lower back ache. Digging in her heels, she leaned back and tried to stifle the yell that pushed against her vocal chords. Second Chance was skittish of loud noises and new people. Emma didn’t want to scare the poor girl by cutting loose with her own inner primal animal.
Suddenly, the foal shifted. The buttocks popped out.
“Progress!” Emma said, breathing hard and wiping her forehead with her sleeve. She was covered in dust, blood, and sweat, her muscles screaming for relief.
But the adrenaline rush was incredible. The foal’s life was in her hands. Second Chance’s too. Her exhaustion was nothing compared to the mare’s, and she would not let the new mother down. “Will, help me.”
The man looked left and right, his own skittishness apparent. “I shouldn’t touch her.”
Second Chance wasn’t the only rescue at the ranch. Will believed he was bad luck.
He’d long ago convinced himself it was his fault his unit had been wiped out during a village raid, while he had lived. His imaginary bad luck extended to everything he did; if something went wrong at the ranch, he blamed himself, even though it had nothing to do with him. He’d tried to end his life more than once.
Emma hadn’t yet convinced him of the opposite; that he had lived because he had a larger purpose in this world. A purpose for good. He simply needed to channel his past experiences into something that would help others the way he was helping her.
“Get in here and help me pull, Will. Second Chance needs you.Ineed you.”
At his feet sat Emma’s first rescue—a dog named Lady. The part Lab, part pit bull terrier, was nearly ten years old and didn’t get excited about too many things. She had taken a liking to Will from the start and now followed him everywhere. Emma suspected the dog even slept in his bed.
Will’s forty-something face screwed into a ball of lines and crow’s feet, but he did as he was asked, climbing over the fence into the stall. He moved slowly, carefully, as Second Chance eyed him and took a step away. Lady watched, completely unruffled.
“It’s okay, girl,” Will said to the horse, stopping and giving her a moment to adjust to his presence. Once she glanced away, bobbing her head as if giving him permission, he took a step toward Emma.
She gave him the foal’s scrawny legs and grabbed hold of it just above the buttocks, using the hips for leverage. “Next contraction, we’re getting her out.”
God, she was tired, but this birth was exactly what she needed. Seeing new life come into the world at this time of year would take her mind off the young life that had ended two years ago. A foal would keep her busy over the next few days, give her something to concentrate on so the Christmas depression didn’t swallow her and leave her like a fish out of water, desperately clinging to life until the worst of it passed.
The next contraction hit and she and Will pulled with all their combined weights. A slippery, sucking noise sounded and the foal popped free, taking both of them down with it as it tumbled to the stall floor.
Warm, sticky fluid covered Emma, the weight of the body on top of her making her laugh. “We did it!”
Second Chance turned around and huffed breath through her nose, nudging Emma and the foal. Emma slid the newborn off her and came up onto her hands and knees.
“It’s not breathing,” Will said, backing up. The fear in his eyes was real. “I killed it.”
Emma backed up, too, giving Second Chance space to get to her baby. “Go to work,mamacita. It’s up to you now.”
Instinct took over and Second Chance began cleaning the foal, licking off the birth sac and stimulating the foal’s body. A second later, Emma saw a hoof twitch, saw the foal’s lungs expand.
“You didn’t kill her,” Emma said, leaning back on the stall fence. She shook from head to toe. Using her shirt sleeve, she brushed hair from her eyes. “You saved her.”
