Bound By Desire (The Acadian Curse)

Copyright
2012 by
Rebecca Lyndon

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains
material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws
and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is
prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval
system without express written consent from the
author/publisher.

This book is a work of fiction and any
resemblance to persons living or dead, or places, events, or
locales is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the
author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

As always, a huge thank you to Lisa Alder and
L.G.C. Smith for everything that you do. I can’t imagine how I
would get through without your encouragement and support, and
you’ll never know how relieved I am that I don’t have to.

Also, to Lisa M, Martha, Rachel and
Delilah—your invaluable help made this story come to life. Thank
you.

And, of course, my husband, thank you for all
of your patience, help and advice…even the parts I didn’t take.

“Crap.” Sarah McIntire wrenched the steering
wheel of her father’s Ford hard to the left. The tires skidded
across the highway blacktop. That morning’s empty coffee cup flew
from its perch on the wide dash and toppled onto the floorboard.
Trucks this old didn’t come with cup holders.

She barely made the turn. The tires spun
loose for a split second on the private dirt drive before
catching.

She muttered a little prayer of thanks that
she had decided at the last moment to take her father’s truck. If
she had tried that move in her Prius, she would be at the bottom of
the ravine right now.

It had been a sentimental decision to take
the old Ford. Back when she was a kid, her father had been the
town’s only big animal vet, and she had gone with him on just about
every call. There was still a worn spot on the passenger side where
she’d sat by his side for nearly eighteen years.

At first, it had been a matter of
practicality. She was too little to stay home alone, and it was
just too hard to find a sitter at a moment’s notice. But even after
she was old enough to take care of herself for a few hours on her
own, she’d still tagged along. Her father’s work had fascinated
her. He made sick animals well. He eased their pain. Of course, it
wasn’t always smooth and easy.

It had been over a decade since she had
driven this rugged two-lane highway. She thought that she
remembered every curve and pothole. Apparently, she’d been
wrong.

She might be forgiven for not remembering
every inch of the roads around here, but in Sarah’s mind the sin of
missing the turn off to the Anderson Ranch was unpardonable. This
was the place where her life had changed after all. This was where
she had decided to follow in her father’s footsteps and study
veterinary medicine. The place, like the moment, should have been
permanently etched in her mind.

Carl Anderson’s place was where she first
witnessed her father put an animal down. A quarter horse had fallen
on a jump and shattered a leg. Its howls of agony had almost scared
her out of the barn before she’d even set foot in it. But her
father had placed his big hand on her shoulder and she had gone
with him. She’d watched as he put that same calming hand on the
terrified beast, then he had filled his long syringe and put him
out of his misery.

Sarah had tried to be strong. She really did.
But as that beautiful creature closed his eyes, and the life began
to drift out of him, Sarah had started to cry. She couldn’t help
it. Her lip shook and her knees wobbled. Her father had looked up.
It was the understanding in his eyes that had broken her. Sarah ran
out that barn like the spirit of the horse had fled right into
her.

“Nature always knows best, sweet pea,” her
father had said when he’d found her weeping at the end of the
Anderson’s half mile drive. “All we can do is all we can do.”

In that moment a strange truth had clicked in
her mind. Just like life could be beautiful, it could also be
horrible. In order to have the good, you had to accept the bad. But
that didn’t mean that you stopped fighting for the wonderful. At
the age of eight, Sarah had found her calling and her father had
found an assistant.

Of course, she hadn’t followed her father’s
path step for step. By the time she graduated high school, she
couldn’t imagine living her life in a small town where nothing ever
happened and everything stayed the same. After she had earned her
doctorate Sarah had become a professor at the same university where
she had studied. Between the classes and her research she always
found herself far too busy to come home for a visit.

Sarah glanced in the rearview mirror. A trail
of red dust billowed out from the tires, and hung suspended in the
air. It was a familiar sight. The rust-colored clay covered
everything here. It got into everything too—shoes, clothes, cars.
In the ten years she’d been away she hadn’t once missed the gritty
feel of it.

So why was she now staring at it like it was
a welcome banner hung out just for her? It couldn’t be that she
actually missed this place. No, that was just another scrap of
misplaced sentiment. Time could dull the edges of a memory, but
give it another couple of days and Sarah was sure that all the
reasons she had left the little mountain town of Rutledge would
come roaring back—the boredom, the monotony, the tedium. By the end
of the month she would be staring at the back of her father’s front
door, waiting for the moment he returned so she could kiss him on
the cheek, toss him his keys and race the nearly two hundred miles
back home.

Without looking, Sarah cranked up the volume
on the radio. Music filled the cab, popping and fading around each
turn and bend. Her father had never bothered to put a true stereo
in. Like the rest of the truck, the radio worked well enough to see
him through as he traveled along the Plumas County roads.

Sarah popped the stick into neutral as she
crested the hill and coasted into the gravel-lined courtyard that
sprawled out before her.

Well, maybe not everything had stayed the
same.

This wasn't the Anderson place, at least not
how she remembered it. The flat aluminum-sided ranch house that had
stood in the center of the lot was gone, replaced by a double story
log cabin that was at least three times as large. A finely crafted
porch wrapped its way around the entire building. The front of the
house had grass and wildflowers blooming along the edges. A rock
fountain burbled in front. Maybe the Anderson’s had come into money
while she was away.

The dust cloud caught up to her. It overtook
the truck and blocked out the windows. Sarah waited for the worst
of it to pass before reaching for the door handle and stepping
down.

Sarah could just make out the form of someone
that had stepped in front of the Ford. Someone over six feet tall
and with a chest almost as wide as her truck door—someone who most
definitely was not old Carl Anderson.

Sarah sucked in a breath. Damn. Who ever this
guy was, he wasn’t from around here. She would have remembered him.
Hell, if he’d been here when she had graduated high school she
might have found a reason not to leave.

The middle two buttons of his loose fitting,
plaid shirt were secured but Sarah didn’t have any trouble making
out the plain cotton t-shirt that was pulled taut across his chest.
His brows were heavy and his eyes dark. A trace of a beard lined
his jaw and framed his lush looking lips. His hair was tousled, not
really short and not quite long. He didn’t look to have even a
trace of the Anderson’s Scandinavian blood. If he wasn’t some
distant relative, maybe he was a new hand around here.

By the way he was frowning at her, she was no
doubt making an idiot of herself staring at him.

Sarah leaned back into the truck and took her
time grabbing her bag. She attempted to regain some of her
composure. When she emerged, her best smile was firmly in
place.

The gorgeous stranger obviously wasn’t
impressed by her show of professionalism. His frown had turned to a
full-on scowl.

“Where’s Henry?” he asked. He had a drawl—a
long sexy one. Louisiana, if she had to guess.

"He's in Florida.” And with any luck her
father would return covered with mosquito bites and a sun burn that
would dry out any further ideas he had about retiring to a
beachfront condo and guilting his only daughter into replacing him
at his practice.

"And who are you?" he demanded, as though he
didn't have the time to be bothered with her.

"Dr. Sarah McIntire.” She put out her hand.
He looked at it, but didn't take it. Sarah could practically feel
her skin begin to burn under his glare. She pulled it back and
tried not to look too self-conscious as she tucked it into her
pocket.

“McIntire? You’re Henry’s daughter then.” He
sounded annoyed. His jaw tightened as he looked her up and
down.

Sarah gave a tight nod. She couldn’t tell if
it was the thought of a female vet or just the change in routine
that irritated him. She didn’t really care. She was here on a call,
and that was all that mattered, not what some chauvinist ranch hand
thought of her. It didn’t matter how hot he was.

“And you are?” she asked when his rude
silence had stretched on for too long.

“Grant LaCroix.”

“Is Carl around?”

“Carl Anderson died two years ago,” he
said.

“Oh.” Sarah’s heart fell a little in her
chest. The news shouldn’t have been so surprising. Carl Anderson
had been an old man with a couple dozen great-grandchildren when
she’d left town ten years ago. “I’m so sorry.”

“There’s no need for your sympathy. I’m just
the one who bought the place.”

Sarah’s spine stiffened. “Well then, it
appears that I’m here to look after
your
foaling mare.”

He gave the horizon one last hard look before
nodding. He bit into his lip as though the idea pained him. “The
stables are this way. Follow me.”

She strode past him before he had a chance to
turn around. “I remember the way.”

At least she had thought she did. Sarah
rounded the house to find the old barn she recalled so vividly from
her childhood gone. In its place stood a long modern stable.

Mr. LaCroix might not have come to Plumas
County with much in the way of manners, but it appeared that he had
brought along more than enough money to make up for it.

Sarah was a few steps from the entrance when
she heard a loud, shrill whinny. All of her healing instincts
rushed to the surface at the sound of pain. She broke into a run
and was a little surprised to find LaCroix matching her pace.

She found the mare lying on a pile of fresh
hay in her stall. The horse lifted her head as they approached, her
giant brown eyes wide with pain and panic. It was obvious that the
terrified mare was already wary of strangers. As she took a step
forward the mare started kicking violently. Sarah jumped back.

LaCroix didn’t show any hesitation. He rushed
in and knelt by her side. He laid a hand on her neck and brushed
back her mane. The mare calmed dramatically at his touch.

"She wasn’t like this when I called you," he
said.

Sarah inched forward, doing what she could to
avoid the mare’s powerful back legs. She knelt down in the hay and
laid her hands on the mare’s distended belly. The foal was starting
to show. Sarah could see two hooves and a short stretch of leg.
Another contraction racked the mare’s body, but the foal didn’t
budge.

Sarah reached into her bag and snapped on a
pair of long, clean gloves. She slid her fingers up the foal’s leg
and felt inside. Her hand came into contact with haunches instead
of a head. Damn.

“The foal is breech, and it feels stuck. No
wonder you’ve been having such a hard time, girl.” Sarah gently
petted the mare, but she only tensed further. It seemed that Grant
was the only one with the magic touch when it came to the skittish
creature.

Grant glanced out the window behind him at
the darkening sky. "How quickly can you do this?" he asked.

Sarah frowned and shook her head. “You must
be pretty new to horse ranching, Mr. LaCroix.”

“Been doing it my whole life,” he said. “And
call me Grant.”

“Well, then you don’t need me to tell you,
Grant, that Nature runs on her own schedule, no matter how
inconvenient it might be to the rest of us.”