she’d checked. But now he lifted his head and seemed more alert as she approached the stall. She couldn’t believe the number of sutures Sam had so patiently tied in the cold and dark, while the light she was supposed to be holding steady wavered about. Maybe he had made a fatal mistake with her father’s horse last year, but he’d done a good job tonight. The horse would have bled to death if he hadn’t relented and agreed to treat the animal.
Was it her fault that the horse had gotten out in the first place? She honestly didn’t know. The gate had been open when she’d found him, injured and bleeding, and she had used it earlier that day. Margarite had gone through it, too. One of them was responsible.
Even if it wasn’t her fault, Jodie felt like crap. She hated making mistakes. She pushed her hands into the pockets of the down coat and watched as the horse tucked his nose to his chest and closed his eyes. A few minutes later she left the barn. She needed to get some sleep.
Or try to.
Margarite was in the kitchen tidying up when Jodie walked into the covered porch. The woman’s charcoal-colored hair was rolled into pin curls—something Jodie hadn’t seen since her grandmother had passed away—and she was wearing a blue fuzzy robe that zipped from her ankles to her chin. Quite the look, but somehow Margarite managed to pull it off with an air of dignity.
“Do you want some tea or something?” she asked through the open door to the porch as Jodie slipped out of her boots and hung up the coat she’d worn over her pajamas.
“No. Thanks.” She padded into the kitchen in her stocking feet, ruffling her hair to shake off the droplets of water from melting snowflakes.
“Is he okay?” Margarite folded the dishcloth she’d been using to wipe down the counters, then adjusted the stools at the breakfast bar. The housekeeper liked everything to be just so. Margarite would have latched the gate all the way.
“So far.” Jodie hoped he stayed okay or she’d have even more explaining to do to her father.
“He’ll recover.” The housekeeper snapped off the kitchen light and both women walked through the dining room to the staircase.
Again Jodie felt a wave of guilt.
Margarite tilted her chin up to look Jodie straight in the eye. “Accidents happen on ranches.” Her voice was stern. “Understand?”
“Yeah.” Jodie pressed her lips together. “Are you sure you can give the shot tomorrow?”
Margarite’s face contorted into an expression of prolonged suffering. “Yes, I can give the shot if you can hold the horse. But the very instant Mike gets back, he’s taking over. I hate to give penicillin. It’s a very thick liquid and the needle’s big and it takes forever—”
Jodie held up a hand. “Thanks. I understand.” She gave a shudder and headed for her bedroom. So much for sleeping.
CHAPTER TWO
“WHY AREN’T YOU at practice?” Sam frowned as Beau, one of his twin nephews, came in through the front door of the vet clinic, the bells Katie had attached to the door announcing his entrance.
“I’m ineligible this week.”
“What?” Sam stood up behind the desk. At fifteen, Beau was almost as tall as him, but was still very much a kid inside—a kid who wasn’t doing too well in school. “I thought you said you had your classes under control.”
Beau flashed him an angry look. “I thought I did have them under control.”
“Which one?”
“Guess.”
Sam didn’t need to. Math. As always. Beau’s twin, Tyler, didn’t have as much trouble with the subject as Beau did, but Ty couldn’t seem to explain the concepts to his brother. Heaven knew he’d tried, since Beau was six feet two inches tall and the top scorer on the basketball team. Ty was a quarter inch shorter and two points behind Beau in the stats. The team did all right with one brother, but with two, they were a force to be reckoned with.
“How bad?”
Beau swallowed as he glanced down, blond hair falling over his forehead. “A little lower than a D.”
“How much lower?”
“Fifty-five percent.” Beau dropped his backpack, which must have weighed forty pounds, judging from the sound it made when it hit the floor. “It was that last test.” He all but exploded as he said it. “I don’t get it. I studied the chapter and I thought I understood everything.”
Sam swallowed his anger. Beau was clearly upset, and the boy had spent way too much time close to tears over the past year and a half. “How’d Ty do?” he asked quietly.
“He passed. Of course.”
Sam moved out from behind the desk and crossed the room. He put a hand on the kid’s shoulder, then pulled him into a rough embrace. He didn’t know what else to do. How could he tell if Beau was honestly doing all he could to pass his classes, or whether he was putting in a moderate effort and hoping for the best? Sam had been in this parenting gig for only eighteen months, since his brother and sister-in-law were killed by a drunken driver while crossing a street in Las Vegas, and he’d received custody of their sons.
He let out a breath. He’d forgotten what hell the teen years could be, but he was reexperiencing them now in living color.
“What am I going to do?” Beau muttered before stepping back. He tipped his chin up, stared at the ceiling.
“You’re going to get your ass in a chair and work on math tonight. We have a couple days to raise your grade before the next eligibility check. Have you talked to the teacher?”
“No.”
“E-mail her. See what she has to say, what you need to work on. Then after supper we’re going over that test.”
As it turned out, though, Sam didn’t have the time. He and Beau had just settled at the kitchen table with pad, pencil and failed test paper in front of them when the phone rang.
“It’s the Taylor ranch,” Tyler called from Sam’s den.
Sam reached for the extension. One of the Taylors’ show mares had kicked its leg through a fencing panel and got hung up. The leg was swollen almost double and the owners suspected she might have a broken tibia.
He climbed into his canvas bib overalls, clamped the plaid wool hat on his head. “Listen,” he said in a low voice to Tyler. “Get your test and sit down with your brother and see what the two of you can figure out.”
“But—”
Sam had been a parent long enough to perfect The Look, which he now employed full force. “You want your brother eligible, right?”
“Right.”
“Then I don’t care if you have other plans. Help him out.”
“All right.”
“HAVE YOU HEARD FROM MIKE?” Jodie
