Page 15 of Her Three Rangers

It wasn’t necessarily a surprise that Windram looked annoyed. I didn’t know him, after all, and I was interrupting whatever they had been discussing.

Grace’s reaction was the more surprising one. She seemed a little too happy that I showed up and interrupted.

Or maybe it wasn’t so much happiness as… relief?

“I didn’t really need anything,” I said, shrugging as I stopped and turned my attention to the trailer. “I just thought maybe the rodeo had come to town.”

Or the circus.

Grace started to laugh, but caught herself and covered it with an unconvincing cough.

“Do you think you can go ahead and get my mare stitched up, Doctor Black?” Garrick asked, his tone cold and low. He was talking to her, but he hadn’t taken his eyes off me. “Perhaps your… friend,” his lip curled up into a sneer as he continued, “could take a step back and let you do the job I’m paying you for.”

She looked like a deer caught in headlights for a moment as she stood there between us. I took a step toward her, ignoring him for the moment.

“Are you okay here?” I asked. “Am I interrupting? I don’t want to be in the way.”

“You’re not in the way,” she said, shaking her head quickly before turning back to Garrick. “And I’ll be able to suture the cut as soon as Jenny gets back out here with the med kit. I understand that you’re probably distraught right now, but the wound isn’t a deep one, luckily.”

Even though I couldn’t fully see her face when she turned toward him, I could tell just from the way she set her jaw that she wasn’t going to take a whole lot of his shit.

Which was good, because I probably would have decked the guy if he had kept talking.

The three of us turned toward the clinic as Jenny walked out through the front door, an old-fashioned black doctor’s bag in hand.

I looked over at Grace, ready to make a joke about her med kit being from the 1950’s, but her face was still set in that same stony, no nonsense expression. And while Garrick might be just the kind of asshole to push her buttons, I definitely didn’t want to.

Still, even with this harder look, there was no denying how damn good-looking she was. With her light blue eyes and jet black hair piled high on her head, she was the prettiest woman I had ever seen.

Maybe part of it was that she didn’t seem to care about being pretty. She had a natural, easy beauty that even a shapeless white lab coat couldn’t cover up.

“Sorry that took so long,” Jenny said, pulling me from my thoughts as she stepped in close to hand off the medical bag. “Everything okay out here?” she asked, sort of under her breath.

I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one who thought Garrick might be a little sketchy.

“Everything is great,” Grace answered with a terse nod. She didn’t waste time with any other words, though. Stepping inside the trailer with her bag, she went right to work, leaving the three of us standing there avoiding eye contact.

Well, Jenny and Windram were avoiding eye contact. I was more than happy to give him and his trailer a good once-over, trying to take in as many details as I could in case I needed to recall anything later.

For someone who clearly spent a lot of money on his horses, I wondered how much actual time he spent with them. His black leather boots were as shiny as that trailer, and there wasn’t a spot of dirt on his jeans or button-down shirt. Hell, there were still crisp creases in the sleeves where it had been pressed.

He might haul these horses around, but there was no way in hell I’d believe he actually handled them.

Probably didn’t even ride them.

“All done,” Grace said, emerging from the trailer with a slight frown. “Did you want to settle up today, or should we invoice you, Garrick?”

“That was fast,” he said, still looking annoyed and pointedly not answering her question. “Are you sure you got her stitched up good?”

Grace’s shoulders stiffened and she inclined her head just a little. Was it wrong that I thought she was somehow even sexier when she was getting pissed off?

“Quite sure,” she answered, clipping each word. “Like I said before, the cut wasn’t deep. You got lucky. You’ll just need to have your regular vet follow up with it in a few days to make sure there’s no infection.”

He nodded and made a grunting sound that could have maybe passed for agreement, then waved a dismissive hand. “That’ll be all, then. You can send the bill to my office.”

The three of us stood and watched as he locked up the trailer and then walked around to the front of his truck, climbed in and started it without another word. Only as he was pulling away did he even glance back in our direction, the glare on his face unmistakable as his eyes zeroed in on mine.

“What an asshole,” I muttered, before I could stop myself.

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