rose in Jess’s throat. It was only two days before Christmas, and the holiday would be tough enough to get through. Why, why, was this happening now? How many times had she spoke up at grange meetings about the illegal dumping going on in the far southeast corner of her land? How many times had she begged the sheriff to look into the matter before one of her animals—or, God forbid, children—ended up hurt? For an inquisitive colt, the bushel of rotting apples and other trash lobbed alongside hundreds of feet of rusty barbed wire had made for an irresistible challenge.
“Shh…” she crooned, though the horse fought harder and harder until he eventually lost balance, falling onto his side. “Honey, you’ll be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”
Liar.
Cold sweat trickled down her back as she worked, and she promised herself that this time her words would ring true. That this crisis—unlike Dwayne’s—could be resolved in a good way. A happy way. A way that didn’t involve tears.
From behind her came a low rumbling, and the crunch of wheels on the lonely dirt road.
She glanced north to see a black pickup approach, kicking dust against an angry gunmetal sky. She knew every vehicle around these parts, and this one didn’t belong. Someone’s holiday company? Didn’t matter why the traveler was there. All that truly mattered was flagging him or her down in time to help.
“I’ll be right back,” she said to Honey before charging into the road’s center, frantically waving her arms. “Help! Please, help!”
The pickup’s male driver fishtailed to a stop on the weed-choked shoulder, instantly grasping the gravity of the situation. “Hand me those,” the tall, lean cowboy-type said as he jumped out from behind the wheel, nodding to her wire cutters before tossing a weather-beaten Stetson into the truck’s bed. “I’ll cut while you try calming him down.”
Working in tandem, the stranger snipped the wire, oblivious to the bloodied gouges on his fingers and palms, as Jess smoothed the colt’s mane and ears, all the while crooning the kind of nonsensical comfort she would’ve to a fevered child.
In his weakened state, the colt had stopped struggling, yet his big brown eyes were still wild.
“Call your vet?” the stranger asked.
“I would’ve, but I don’t have a cell.”
“Here,” he said, standing and passing off the wire cutters. “Use Doc Matthews?”
“Yes, but—” Before she could finish her question as to how he even knew the local horse and cattle expert, the stranger was halfway to his truck. Focusing on the task at hand, she figured on grilling the man about his identity later. After Honey was out of the proverbial woods.
“Doc’s on his way,” the man said a short while later, cell tucked in the chest pocket of his tan, denim work jacket. “And from the looks of this little fella, the sooner Doc gets here, the better.”
Jess snipped the last of the wire from Honey’s right foreleg, breathing easier now that the colt at least had a fighting chance. He’d lost a lot of blood, and the possibility of an infection would be a worry, but for the moment, all she could do was sit beside him, rubbing between his ears. “I can’t thank you enough for stopping.”
“It’s what anyone would’ve done.”
“Yes, well…” Words were hard to get past the burning knot in her throat. “Thanks.”
The grim-faced stranger nodded, then went back to his truck bed for a saddle blanket he gently settled over the colt. “It’s powerful cold out here. I’d like to go ahead and get him to your barn, but without the doc first checking the extent of his injuries—”
“I agree,” she said. “It’s probably best I wait here for him. But you go on to wherever you were headed. Your family’s no doubt missing you.”
His only answer was a grunt.
Turning the collar up on his jacket, eyeing her oversize coat, he asked, “Warm enough?”
“Fine,” she lied, wondering if it was a bad sign that she could hardly feel her toes.
They sat in silence for a spell, icy wind pummeling their backs, Jess at the colt’s head, the stranger at the animal’s left flank.
“Name’s Gage,” he said after a while. “Gage Moore.”
“J-Jess Cummings.” Teeth chattering, she held out her gloved hand for him to shake, but quickly thought better. A nasty cut, rust-colored with dried blood, ran the length of his right forefinger. His left pinkie hadn’t fared much better. Both palms were crisscrossed with smaller cuts, and a frighteningly large amount of blood. “You need a doctor yourself.”
He shrugged. “I’ve suffered worse.”
The shadows behind his eyes told her he wasn’t just talking about his current physical pain.
“Still. If you’d like to follow me and Doc Matthews back to the house, I’ve got a first-aid kit. Least I can do is bandage you up.”
He answered with another shrug.
“Some of those look pretty deep. You may need stitches.”
“I’m good,” he said, gazing at the colt.
Jess knew the man was far from good, but seeing as how the vet had pulled his truck and trailer alongside them, she let the matter slide.
“Little one,” the kindly old vet said to Honey on his approach, raising bushy white eyebrows and shaking his head, “you’ve been nothing but trouble since the day you were born.”
Black leather medical kit beside him, Doc Matthews knelt to perform a perfunctory examination. He wasn’t kidding about Honey having been into his fair share of mischief. He’d given his momma, Buttercup, a rough breech labor, then had proceeded along his rowdy ways to gallop right into a hornet’s nest, bite into an unopened feed bag and eat himself into quite a bellyache, and now, this.
“He going to be all right?” Jess was almost afraid to ask. “You know how attached the girls are. I don’t know how I’d break it to them if—”
“Don’t you worry,” Doc said. “This guy’s tougher than he looks. I’m going to give him something for pain, have Gage help settle him and his momma in my trailer and out of this chill. Then we’ll get them back to the barn so I can stitch up the little guy and salve these wounds. After that, with antibiotics and rest, he should be right as rain.”
Relieved tears stung her eyes, but still Jess wouldn’t allow herself the luxury of breaking down.
“How’d you get all the way out here?” Doc asked her after he and Gage gingerly placed Honey and her still-agitated momma in the horse trailer attached to the vet’s old Ford. He did a quick search for Jess’s truck, or Smoky Joe—the paint she’d been riding since her sixteenth birthday.
In all the excitement, Jess realized she hadn’t tethered Smoky, meaning by now, he was probably back at the barn. With a wry smile, she said, “Looks like I’ve been abandoned. You know Smoky, he’s never been a big fan of cold or Honey’s brand of adventure.”
