Royal Games (The Royals of Monterra) (9 page)

Dr. Pavich had left me supplies to help with the birth. I wasn’t really dressed for it, but I could wash off whatever gross liquids ended up all over me. Autumn Rain was pacing back and forth, clearly in the early stages of labor. I held out my hand to her, talking gently. I let myself into the stall because no one had bothered to bandage up her tail. That could cause an infection for the foal if it came into contact with it.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when Rafe walked up and stood outside the stall. He watched as I finished binding the tail. I felt the horse’s stomach, and she snorted and shied sideways. I pulled my hand away and continued talking to her softly, letting myself back out of the stall.

In the best-case scenario, she would take care of this all by herself. My job was to watch and wait. Just in case.

“You don’t have to stay,” I told him.

“I know I don’t. I want to. I’ve never seen a horse being born.”

“It might take a while,” I warned him. “I mean, she is waxing, but even then . . .”

“Waxing?”

There was no comfortable way to say this, so I just didn’t look him in the face. “When mares are close to delivering, they start to wax, or make secretions out of their teats.”

Autumn Rain ate some hay and continued her pacing. “Is she okay in that stall?”

“Normally we’d let her foal out in the field, but with it being winter, that wouldn’t be safe for either one of them. In here they have security cameras, and they can monitor her and tell when it’s time. She and her foal are too valuable to be left alone.” I crossed my arms over the stall door, and Rafe did the same.

“What could go wrong?”

“A million things. The foal could be too big. It could be breech. It could have one foot turned back. Get stuck in the birth canal. The sac could rupture. She could hemorrhage.” I tried not to think about each and every terrible way this could go wrong, and how Dr. Pavich was relying on me to make it go right. It felt like a lot of responsibility.

Her pacing stopped, and she started switching from getting down on the ground to standing back up. She repeated the process until she got down one last time and, finally, her water sac appeared. Amber-colored liquid started to stream out.

“It’s time!” I said, excited and joyful to watch as another living creature came into the world.

She seemed to have a pretty easy labor. It wasn’t her first foal, and she reacted better than a newer mom might have. Not much longer after the labor started, the foal was out.

“He’s here!” I said, jumping up and down while tugging on Rafe’s arm. It might not be a he. I couldn’t tell yet. Rafe gave me a huge smile, and I couldn’t help but respond. Some piece of me was glad I’d shared this moment with him.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Now he’ll break the sac, stand up, nurse, and be fine.” We watched as the foal struggled on the ground.

“Come on, come on,” I urged. But it was no good. He wasn’t breaking the sac.

The foal couldn’t breathe. He was going to suffocate.

Chapter 9

“Crap!” I said, rummaging through the kit to find a knife. The adrenaline was back as I pulled the stall door open.

Rafe started to follow me, but I told him to stay put. I didn’t need Autumn Rain getting upset. I took the knife and carefully cut open the amnion over the foal’s nose, praying I wouldn’t slip and accidently nick him. I widened the hole to get his nostrils clear of the sac. Definitely not breathing.

“I need the suction bulb. It’s the thing with a bulb on the bottom and a tube at the top.” Dr. Pavich probably had a more technical and precise version with him, but I would make do with what I had. Rafe quickly found it and brought it to me. He stayed in the stall with me, too, but I was too busy to worry about him.

After I sucked out the mucus from the foal’s nose, I held him upside down to get the fluid out of his lungs. It rushed out, and I put him in my lap. “Come on, baby,” I urged. “Breathe!”

I slapped his ribcage, and as I was mentally running through a checklist of what I could do next, the foal took in a big, raspy breath. I laughed with relief and put him down on the ground next to his mother. Rafe and I left the stall. Both mare and foal lay there, exhausted by what they had just been through. The foal started to weakly kick at the sac, trying to get the rest of it off.

“Should you do something else?” Rafe asked as I closed the door.

“More waiting. They need to recuperate like this, because he’s still getting blood from the placenta. When she stands up, the cord will break.”

Ten minutes passed in silence while we waited. Finally, Autumn Rain began to clean the foal, and I did another internal cheer. The licking not only cleaned him, but stimulated the baby’s senses and would help bond them together. There had been a possibility that she might have rejected the foal, but her cleaning him meant that wouldn’t happen.

It could take several hours before the foal would stand up and start nursing. I slumped to the ground, all of the energy dissipating from me. Fear, followed by exhilaration and relief, had taken its toll on me physically.

Rafe sat down next to me. “That was . . .”

I was too tired to turn my head. “What?”

“I always knew you were incredible. You are generous, kind, smart, funny, such a hard worker. Everything about you is amazing. But I didn’t comprehend how amazing until this very moment.”

His words sent a light, bouncy feeling through me, fluttering in my heart and my stomach with glittery sparkles. Without thinking, I reached for his hand. He grasped my hand in return, our fingers intertwined, his warmth seeping into mine.

It was what you would call “a moment.” And from the way he was studying my lips, it was about to turn into a whole different kind of moment, and all this euphoria I was feeling told me that was a super idea.

I bit my lower lip in anticipation, and he sucked in a breath sharply, his eyes dark and fierce. My nerves went taut, like my skin had been pulled too tight. He pulled me close, hugging me against him. Some part of my brain thought,
A hug? Really?
But it was so nice to be held after everything I’d just gone through. That physical contact made me relax, and it made me feel better. Even lighter and happier.

He makes me feel safe.

His arms went slack, and I pulled back slightly. He’d said he wouldn’t kiss me.

But I wanted him to.

My body was totally intent on sabotaging my brain and my heart. I thought I’d had enough time to get over it, to move past this attraction, but it turned out I was wrong. Before I could do anything to ratchet up my current stupidity, we were interrupted by Dr. Pavich and Chuck Montgomery. I got to my feet quickly, as did Rafe. I brushed the dirt off of my jeans while I told the vet what had happened and what I’d done. Both men looked in on the foal.

“Do you have a name?” I asked, trying to ignore Rafe and the way he’d just made me feel.

“Summer Breeze,” Mr. Montgomery said, behaving like a proud father.

“You go on with your boyfriend and get back home,” Dr. Pavich said. I started to protest that Rafe wasn’t my boyfriend, but he continued. “I’ll take over from here and finish up with everything.”

“If something goes wrong, you’ll text me?”

“I will,” he promised. “But I don’t think I’ll have to. You did a great job.”

Leaving behind the supplies, I followed Rafe back to the car. I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. A heaviness settled on top of my chest. A lot had happened today, and I was feeling wiped out. He opened the door for me again, and I got in. When he entered on his side, I suddenly started to cry.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, his concern evident.

“This is so dumb. I don’t even know why I’m crying,” I said, wiping the tears from my cheeks.

“That was a very emotional experience,” he offered.

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

“Did it make you think about Marigold?” He seemed to have a sixth sense where I was concerned. He knew what I was feeling when I felt it, and why. I used to love that deeper connection we had, but now it made staying upset with him really difficult.

Other than my best friend and Aunt Sylvia, Rafe was the only person who knew about my horse and what it had cost me to lose her.

It had been the first big group date on
Marry Me
. After our first meeting, I had been outside running laps around the backyard, since we weren’t allowed to leave the grounds. Rafe had been out there too, and when he saw me, he joined me. We had another fantastic conversation, and I told him all about my farm and how I wanted to be a veterinarian. He told me how he wanted to design software and applications, and again asked me not to tell anyone. It should have been a red flag, but he was too cute and too fun and that was all I could think about.

When we arrived at the horse ranch, I was beside myself with excitement. It had been so long since I had last gone riding. Lemon and I were the only ones who knew what we were doing, and I spent a lot of time helping the professionals keep the girls in a group. The horses could tell that their riders were clueless, and a lot of them just did what they wanted.

I chased after Emily, whose horse had gone pretty far off course toward a small creek. When I reached her and grabbed for the reins, I saw that Emily had her eyes squeezed shut and her fingers knotted in the horse’s mane. I spoke gently to both of them and showed Emily how to make the horse do what she wanted. It seemed to help, and when a ranch hand came by to gather her up, she gave me a grateful smile as she followed behind him.

My horse, a little black-and-white Arabian named Dolly, took an interest in the creek and lapped at the water.

Rafe emerged from the trees on top of a blue roan stallion, looking like he’d spent his entire life riding. There was no hesitation or discomfort, and he had total control over his horse. It surprised me because I would have pegged him for a city boy.

“That was kind of you,” he said, pulling up alongside me. Dolly sidestepped, intimidated by the bigger horse. I let her go where she wanted, patting her on the neck.

“Purely selfish, actually.”

He raised his eyebrow at me, confused.

I let out a laugh. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep tonight if she’d broken her neck because I hadn’t helped her.”

He smiled back at me, a slow, lazy smile that gave me goosebumps. It reminded me of the sun slowly emerging from behind rain clouds. “May I show you something?”

“Sure.” I followed behind him, and the horses trotted along, happy to be out in an open meadow. Dolly strained against the bit, acting like she wanted to break into a gallop. She was probably feeling competitive with the stallion. But because I didn’t know how far we were going, we stayed at a trot so that she wouldn’t tire out too soon.

I had noticed something earlier while running with Rafe—he didn’t feel the need to fill up silence. And in every other date-like situation I’d been in, when things got quiet, I would talk and talk. It tended to make things more awkward, but I couldn’t help it. I always thought that I was boring the other person and that we’d never go out again unless I could singlehandedly keep the conversation going.

But I didn’t feel that way with Rafe. When I was with him, the silence was comfortable. Like he was just happy to be there with me, and we didn’t need to say anything.

We approached a small grove of trees, and after we guided the horses through it, I saw that we were on top of a cliff with a perfect view of the ocean. Rafe got down, loosely tying his horse to a tree to keep him from wandering off.

He came over to help me dismount, and I wavered between letting him and showing him that I was totally capable of getting off of a horse on my own. Deciding it would be silly to waste the opportunity, I threw my leg over and put my hands on his shoulders. He put his hands around my waist, and I noticed for the first time how big his hands were. He lifted and I jumped down. He could have taken total advantage of that situation, but he was respectful. Which I both admired and regretted, just a little.

Walking toward the edge, I shielded my eyes to see more clearly. The sun was directly overhead, and it made the water sparkle and glimmer. A soft breeze blew, making the leaves in the tree behind us rustle. The light blue sky seemed to stretch on for miles. It was the first time since coming to California that I hadn’t had to look directly up to see the sky. I took a deep breath in and thought I could just barely make out the briny smell of the sea.

We stood together quietly, enjoying the spectacular view.

“Thank you for this. I love riding and I love this scenery,” I said. The scenery also included him, with the wind tousling his black hair, the sunlight kissing his sculpted features like even the sun itself adored him. It was the first time since arriving here that I felt calm and like myself again.

“Why don’t you ride anymore?”

A lump formed in my throat, and the tears that welled at the corners of my eyes surprised me. She’d been gone for a couple of years, and I thought I could talk about it without turning into a sprinkler. “I had a horse. Marigold. I helped deliver her on my farm right after I came to live there with my aunt. Her mom died from complications from the birth, and I sort of took her spot. I adored Marigold, and she used to follow me around. I probably spoiled her.” I let out a little laugh, not letting the tears leak. “Anyway, things went really bad really quickly financially, and we couldn’t keep her. Horses are expensive to feed. She was the last one we sold, and it was one of the hardest things that has ever happened to me. I still think about her and miss her all the time. I hope she’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” I said, trying not to choke on the words, smiling even though I wanted to cry.

He put his arm around my shoulders, his thumb rubbing against the top of my arm. I leaned into the comfort he offered, grateful for his strength and warmth that somehow made me feel better.

Standing so close, with his side pressed against mine, was more than my little pulse could take. It sent out a frantic Morse code to the rest of my body, which responded by directing my arms to wrap around his waist.

Without warning, he turned me toward him so that we were facing each other.

The wind blew my hair into my face, and he reached up to brush it away before I could, tucking it behind my ear. Then he studied me, taking me in. He was going to kiss me. But he was giving me the chance to stop him or walk away.

I had no intention of going anywhere. I’d wanted him to kiss me ever since he’d rescued me from that fence.

His hand went to the side of my face, and he moved in so unhurriedly. Part of me was impatient, but the other part enjoyed the anticipation, the waiting to see what it would be like when our lips finally touched. Like I was standing at the precipice of something, realizing everything was about to change. I breathed in that expensive and yummy cologne he wore, the one that made me a bit dizzy. My heartbeat thudded low and slow, although I imagined it wouldn’t stay that way. My breath caught at his expression, at the fire and promise in his eyes.

Then he kissed me.

To say it was an overwhelming, life-changing kind of experience would have been an understatement. It was more like I finally understood why Sleeping Beauty woke up. It was because she got kissed like this.

He kissed me softly, our lips barely even brushing together. Tentatively, like he was trying it out to see what he thought. His peppermint-flavored breath washed over my face in between his exploration. Little ripples of delight pulsed through me while he tightened his embrace, and I melted under the light caresses of his mouth.

When I let out a sigh of pleasure, something changed in him. The scale tipped from sweet and innocent to
holy caliente
. There was nothing tentative or soft about what he did then, the powerful way he captured my lips. My nerves had turned into a minefield, setting off a series of detonations everywhere he put pressure. Like I had a gallon of Pop Rocks bathed in cola exploding inside me.