LOVE OF A RODEO MAN (MODERN DAY COWBOYS) (4 page)

Sara shook her head. “I really must get home now, I still have to stop at t
he clinic tonight.” She reached a hand to Ruth and grasped the woman’s chilly fingers warmly in her own. “Thank you so much for having me and making such a lovely dinner.”

A tiny, strained smile flitted across Ruth’s mouth and then was gone.

“It was such a pleasure. But I’m afraid I’m not good company these days. I’m so lonesome, but I can’t seem to...” The easy tears that lurked so near the surface filled her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, and she mopped them away with the back of one hand in an absent gesture that tore at Sara’s heartstrings.

Wilson came up be
hind his wife and put a protective arm around her shoulders. “Now, Mother, don’t start in crying again,” he admonished, but there was male helplessness in his blustery voice.

Mitch had gotten to his feet. He didn’t say anything, but when Sara finished her strained goodbyes and thank-yous and hurried across the yard, he followed her out the door.

All the way to the truck, he walked beside her, stubborn and silent, like an ominous shadow, his loping stride matching her own step for step.

How could this... this narrow-minded chauvinist... affect her without saying a darned word?
Her heart pounded as if she was running full speed, and she could feel the pulse in her throat hammering. Her knees felt weak. When she reached the truck, she whirled around and faced him.

“I’m very grateful for your help with
the pigs,” she snapped. He was still frowning, and she’d never seen anyone who could frown quite that effectively. Except maybe Wilson Carter, come to think of it. Mitch was more like his father than he probably realized.

Tilting her chin at a deliberately aggressive angle, she turned away and opened the door of the truck.

His hand suddenly closed around her upper arm, the hardness and power of his fingers evident through the thin sleeve of her T-shirt, forcing her to turn and face him.

“Sara,” he said, and in
his voice was a confused blending of regret and warmth, and something more, that stopped her angry movement away from his grip.

“Damn it all, I’m sorry the day ended this way.” He lifted one shoulder in a rueful half shrug, still holding her arm, and she felt the urgency in his touch. “The fact is, I always liked and respected your sister Frankie.”

His eyes were a clear, transparent green with flecks of gold in the warm light. Sara noted that he’d actually forgotten his hat, and his shining dark hair was alive in the dying rays of the sun, his skin as bronzed as an old copper penny, making the lightness of his eyes more arresting.

“Sara, I like you, too, even though I may not agree with all your ideas. And I’m grateful to you for s
taying to supper tonight.” He hesitated a bit, then blurted, “You know, that story you told about the snake? I think that’s the first time I’ve heard my mom actually laugh since I came home three months ago.” His face tightened, and the frown reappeared. “She went into a kind of depression when Bob was killed, and we can’t seem to get her out of it.”

“I’m sorry about your brother, Mitch,” she said softly.

He nodded. “So’m I.” A wry grin came and went, and he looked beyond her, squinting off into the sunset, his voice harsh. “Sometimes I’m damned mad at brother Bob for dying and leaving me holding the bag with this ranch and all. Bob always got along with the old man a hell of a lot better than I did, and for all I know he even liked raising pigs and sheep and staying in one place...”

Sara didn’t understand all that he was saying, but she heard the trace of bitterness in his tone clearly enough. He was still holding her arm, and not knowing what to say, she simply stood and looked at him for long, endless moments, recording the high forehead and endearingly crooked nose, the hard, sensual mouth and strong chin. He was such an ap
pealing man. They’d had fun together.

Yet he’d said things at dinner that made her want to break Ruth’s dinner plates over his well-shaped, thick skull. But now his words touched her. This other Mitch was struggling with his inner s
elf the same way she had countless times in her life, and it made her feel close to him, in a way that could only prove to be dangerous.

She didn’t need or want the complications of romance at this particular stage in her career, and his words made it clear that settling down was the last thing he wanted or needed. He was a cowboy at heart, a rover. She’d do well to stay as far away from Mitch Carter as she could get. And with total female irrationality, she found herself hoping that maybe he was about to kiss her.

The awareness between them arced for one dangerous, endless second. Then he dropped her arm as if it scalded him and took a step back.

“Anyhow, Sara, what I wanted to know was, would you maybe stop by if you’re around this way and have a coffee with Mom? Just if you’re in the area.”

Disappointment trickled through her. He only wanted company for his mother, then. Well, she liked Ruth.

“Sure, Mitch. Thanks again for holding the pigs.” She hopped in the truck, and in the process of backing and turning, she deliberately avoided looking his way. As she drove off down the long la
ne, though, she peered into the rearview mirror. He was still standing there in the yard, cupping his hands around a match to light a cigarette, in that way that suggested a winter gale instead of a breathless midsummer twilight.

He was a lonely figure, poised there in the sunset. A cowboy, strong in going and weak in staying.

One of Gram’s favorite sayings popped illogically into Sara’s head as the truck hit a pothole, forcing her to pay attention to the gravel road ahead. “Never fall in love with a man thinking you’re gonna change him.”

Sara snorted and determinedly kept her attention on avoiding the worst of the ruts until she turned the corner and knew Mitch was lost to view.

That would be the day when she, Sara Wingate, doctor of veterinary medicine, fell in love with a Montana cowboy who probably thought a woman’s place was in the kitchen. Barefoot, probably. Pregnant, certainly.

Sara felt a wave of heat envelope her that had nothing to do with the weather and a wh
ole lot to do with the biological processes involved in becoming pregnant by Mitch Carter.

That would be the day.

Mitch was slowly getting used to waking up each morning in the same place. For the first weeks after he had left the rodeo life and come home to stay, he’d spent his groggy waking moments, as he always had to do on the rodeo circuit, trying to figure out where in hell he was,
the name of the town, the location of the nearest diner for breakfast.

Now, as morning followed morning on the Carter ranch and the gentle dawn of a Montana summer brightened the window in his small cabin out behind the main house, he gradually became accustomed to stability and routine, to waking up in the same n
arrow bed under the same patchwork quilt he’d had as a boy. He no longer had to repeat silently, you’re on the ranch, ten miles out of Plains, Montana. You’re home.

He still didn’t like it. Home didn’t seem to fit how he felt at all. There was an unchanging pattern that stifled his soul on this ranch where he’d be
en born and grown to young manhood. Even as a boy, he couldn’t wait to grow up and leave, and homesickness was a thing that had never troubled him in his years on the road. Now he was a man, and he was going to have to learn to want to stay and grow old here, just the way his parents had done. It was the hardest thing he’d ever tried to do, this taming the restlessness in his character, and some mornings he despaired.

He sorely missed the excitement, the Challenge, the raw emotion he thrived on during competition, it bothered him most when he was still halfway between asleep and awake, when logic still slumbered and instinct ruled his brain. But the morning after he met Sara, these thoughts were totally absent for once.

Instead, there was the image of a tall woman with golden brown hair and soft gray eyes, hovering tantalizingly just behind his eyelids. And the dream he’d been enjoying was about Sara, as well. Ridiculously he felt himself blushing crimson at the vivid memory of that dream.

Mitch and Sara had tested the pigs on Tuesday.

That Friday evening, just past seven o’clock, having showered, shaved and changed into fresh Levi’s, Mitch steered his pickup into the dusty parking lot at Bitterroot Resort and wondered which of the assorted vehicles might belong to her.

Or did she bring the vet truck home with her at night? It wasn’t here now, at any rate. There was the usual collection of vehicles clustered around the sprawling log building that housed the tavern, indicative of the clientele the place attracted: customized hot rods, trucks with mag wheels, several decrepit hulks apparently held together only with baling wire, five shiny motorcycles and four saddle horses hitched to the old rail.

Bitterroot Tavern was the favorite watering hole for the rowdy young males in the area, which automatically made it th
e favorite hangout for the less inhibited females.

Mitch pushed open the heavy door. The jukebox was turned loud, playing fifties rock and roll, and the air was thick and blue with cigarette smoke. The din of voices rose and fell in waves of indecipherable sound, punctuated with pithy curses and loud cheers from a group around the bar in the corner, where a lively game of keno was in progress.

Mitch’s gaze roved quickly around the room, checking and dismissing all the women. Sara wasn’t there. It was crazy to think she would be. She wasn’t the type to hang around a tavern like this one, just because her stepfather owned it. Still, Mitch hadn’t banked on feeling quite so let down. His shoulders slumped with disappointment as he maneuvered his way over to the bar.

“Evenin’, Mitch,” the bartender-owner greeted.

“Hello, Dave.”

Dave Hoffman loomed half a head taller and fifty pounds heavier than most of his patrons, and it was typical of him that he would remember
Mitch’s name after the most casual of meetings, here in the noisy tavern weeks before.

“What’ll it be?”

“Draft,” Mitch replied.

Dave served him effici
ently and then dialed the telephone on the shelf under the bar, frowning when the number obviously didn’t answer.

“Damn,” he muttered irritably, hanging up the receiver. He raised his voice in an effort to be heard over the din. “Any of you guys see Doc Stone’s old jalopy on your way over here? Doc Stone, the old vet from Plains?”

Several people casually shook their heads, but most didn’t pay any attention to Dave’s query, except for one skinny young man plugging quarters into the cigarette machine.

“Doc Stone? He’s gone to Spokane, hitched a ride on my cousin’s plane this afternoon,” he volunteered, retrieving his package and ripping off the cellophane wrapping. Dave muttered a soft string of swear words.

“Somebody call for a vet?” Mitch asked quietly.

“My stepdaughter works for Doc Stone, and she’s out on a call and needs a helping hand pretty bad. I figure the old codger’s taking advantage of her. He’s never around at all, anymore.”

Dave muttered distractedly, “Now what the hell am I going to do? I promised her I’d round up the doc and send him over.”

“Sara needs help? What’s the problem?”

“You know Sara?” Dave studied Mitch with narrowed blue eyes.

Mitch nodded. “She was up at our ranch the other day, blood-testing pigs. The Carter ranch?”

“Yeah, I remember. That was the day Floyd O’Malley pulled the fast one on her with his shoulder.”

“Yeah, that was the day. Is
Floyd out on call with her tonight?”

Dave snorted and jerked his chin over at a small table in a dark corner of the room. “He’s right there, been lifting full tankards of beer with his sore arm all afternoon. He’s in no shape to help with anything.”

“What sort of help does Sara need, d’you figure? Where is she?” If only it wasn’t pigs again, Mitch thought with a sinking feeling in his gut

“She’s out in the valley
, Bill Forgie’s place about fifteen miles west of Paradise. He’s raising Arab horses, and one of his prize mares is having trouble foaling. Bill’s away, he’s driving a horse trailer down to Missoula to pick up a stallion, and Sara called about half an hour ago, said she was going to need assistance. Only her and Bill’s wife out there, and she has to do an operation or something.”

“I remember Bill Forgi
e, we were on the ball team together in high school.” With the feeling he might be getting in over his head, Mitch added slowly, “I’ve watched plenty of foals get born, but I don’t know how I’d do helping at surgery. I’m willing to drive out and give it a try, though, Dave.”

“Know the old Skinner place, where the bridge crosses the river? Take the left fork in that road, go about four miles after that,” Dave explained eagerly. “If you can help Sara, I’m grateful to you, Mitch. I’d go myself, but leaving this place unsupervised on a Friday night. ..”

The drive through the early twilight out to the isolated ranch was pleasant. In a short time, Mitch was steering down the long driveway. The veterinary service truck was parked next to the old frame barn, and Mitch pulled his own truck in neatly beside it and climbed slowly out, admiring the open lush fields and the clear green water in the pond not far away.

Bill Forgie sure had himself a beautiful piece of property. In a pasture below the barns four magnificent Arab horses were grazing, and Mitch paused for a moment to admire them. He looked around appraisingly. The house and barns were obviously very old and in need of much repair, original log structures by the look of them, and the small truck parked up by the buildings looked ancient.

It was obvious Bill Forgie had put his money into stock instead of fancy trappings, Mitch noted admirin
gly. The double doors to the barn were open, and he could hear subdued female voices and the gasps of a mare in terrible pain as he stepped inside.

The mare was inside a roomy box stall, and Sara was on her knees beside the trembling animal. There was no sign of the foal yet, although blood and some placental fluid were evident in the straw on the floor of the stall. Sara was in the process of plunging a syringe into the mare’s flank, and she didn’t glance up.

Mitch turned to the short, pretty woman standing outside the stall area. He lifted his hat politely.

“Ma’am, I’m a friend of Bill’s from way back. Mitch Carter’s my name. I dropped by to see if maybe I could help.”

Bill’s wife had strawberry-blond hair and a noticeably pregnant middle, and she gave Mitch a look of utter relief and gratitude.

“I’m Carol Forgie. Lord, you have no idea how grateful I am to see you. I’m absolutely no help to the doctor—I keep getting nauseous and I can’t even bend over properly. B
ill won’t be back for hours and we need help.” Tears glistened in her cornflower-blue eyes.

Just then, both of them turned toward the stall as the mare’s breathing changed audibly, and her painful gasping seemed to ease slightly. Mitch moved quickly over to where Sara was kneeling, the used syringe still in her hand, and he crouched down beside her.

“Hi, Sara,” he greeted softly. “Doc Stone’s gone to Spokane, and Floyd’s tied one on at the tavern,” he related rapidly in a low voice. “I’ll help if I can, just tell me what you want done.”

Sweat was trickling down Sara’s forehead in tiny drops, and she rubbed the back of one hand distractedly across it. Her gray eyes were troubled as she glanced at the mare’s heaving body and then met Mitch’s concerned eyes.

He could see by her expression how relieved she was to have someone to help. She motioned at the shoulder-length polyethylene glove discarded on the straw nearby.

“I’ve just examined the mare again—her name’s Scarlett—and I’m almost certain now that the foal’s dead. I got my finger in the mouth, and there’s no tongue reflex, n
o pulse, no heartbeat.”

Her de
spair was reflected by a slight tremor in her voice, and he knew she was struggling to control her emotions. A professional didn’t reveal the depth of their feelings about a situation like this, he knew that. But it was evident she cared deeply.

“Scarlett’s pretty weak, and I don’t want to lose her, but it seems as if the foal’s hopelessly lodged inside her. I’ve tried and tried to reposition it, with no luck.” She was thinking out loud as much as filling Mitch in on what was occurring. Her forehead creased in an unhappy frown, and she said softly, “I don’t see much alternative now except to extract the foal, and I’ll need your help.”

It took a moment for Mitch to absorb her meaning, and when he did he gave an involuntary shudder. He’d heard once or twice of similar situations in which the fetus had to be cut up inside the mother with a wire saw and extracted piece by piece.

He swallowed hard. What was he getting himself into? How did this infernal woman manage to involve him in these damned awful situations? He was no vet, for God’s sake. What if he got sick?

He shuddered again as he caught sight of Sara’s large bag of obstetrical instruments on the floor nearby. The top of the bag gaped open, and the tools inside reminded him of medieval torture devices. He suddenly felt more than a little queasy, and he sympathized with Carol Forgie. But he was reminded forcibly that at least one of them was a total professional. Sara knew exactly what she was doing.

“I’ve given Scarlett an injection to relax and sedate her. With your help, Mitch, I’ll have one last try at getting the foal in position for delivery before we have to...” The unfinished sentence hung ominously between them as she quickly and thoroughly washed her hands in the bucket of water and antisepti
c and then pulled a fresh polyethylene glove up over her hand and arm to the shoulder of her one-piece jumpsuit.

She’d bandaged the mare’s tail earlier to keep the dirty hairs from causing infection,
and now as Mitch helped, she crouched down and gently, carefully, slid fingers, hand and arm into the mare’s vulva.

There was no sound in the barn now except for the mare’s heavy, labored breathing and occasional grunt of pain, and Sara’s panting breaths. She was soon lying prone on the floor with Mitch doing his best to support her shoulders and brace her straining form as she tried repeatedly to reposition the incredibly long legs of the unborn foal and get them in the proper position for delivery.

“Can’t...legs are...locked...” she gasped, her face fiery red with the effort and the awkward position she was forced to maintain. She shut her eyes, throwing her entire concentration on the invisible task she had undertaken.

Through her coverall, Mitch could feel the muscles in her warm, slender body straining beneath his hands. He was oblivious to Carol Forgie, hovering helplessly nearby, to the passage of time, even to the steamy and overwhelmingly pungent smells of animal excrement and imminent birth rising around them.

There was only Sara, and himself, and the mare. It seemed as if they were locked in a desperate struggle with birth and death, and sweat ran freely down into his eyes and dripped off his chin. He fumbled once for the clean handkerchief in his pocket and used it to tenderly wipe Sara’s face free of sweat.

His reward was a grateful glance as she tried yet again. This time, inch by slow inch, she worked the spindly legs out. The nearly unconscious mare gave small grunts and whinnies of pain now and then, and each time she had a contraction the foal’s body would be forced down, then drawn back, often canceling the progress Sara had just made.