Pamela Britton - A Cowboy's Angel

“Bet your racehorse friends would keel over if they saw me here today.”

It was the only thing she could think to say, but it was true. She knew she wasn’t liked at the racetrack, and that was okay. As long as she saved horses’ lives, that was all that mattered.

“You’re probably right, but what they don’t know won’t hurt them.”

In other words, he didn’t want it known that she was helping him. The words shouldn’t surprise her or bother her, but they did. She tried to hide her disappointment by saying, “Wow. This is nice.”

Like the house on the hill, the stable was a showpiece. She’d been so distracted yesterday she hadn’t paid much attention, but today she’d noticed that while the outside might be nondescript—a simple whitewashed building with an A-frame roof—the inside was a different story. Old-fashioned open-box stalls stretched down both sides, the kind with three-quarter walls and swooping Regency-style grills atop them. The bars were made out of black iron, higher in the back than in the front, but the change in altitude was accomplished with an almost roller coaster–like curve—very swanky. The face of each stall had the same type of bars, one on the left side and one on the right, gently swooping toward each other and meeting in the middle at the stall door. It was as if she’d been transported back two hundred years—well, except for the rubber mats covering the barn aisle. They even had tack trunks—large wooden boxes that held bits and bridles and maybe even a saddle or two—in between the stalls, although they were covered in red vinyl, the crimson color matching the blankets and halters hanging from the stall fronts.

“Actually, more like amazing,” she amended.

“Yeah, my mom had pretty good taste.”

He’d just come from the track, and so he wore a red polo shirt with JJJ stitched across the left breast. She could smell the sweat and horses on him and it should have served as a reminder of what it was she was here to do. Instead she found herself simply inhaling the scent of him and then fighting the urge not to close her eyes.

Way to rein in those hormones!

Clearly fifteen hours away from him had done little to cool her jets.

“I like the old-fashioned look of the place,” she admitted.

He lifted his cowboy hat, then ran a hand through his ample hair, leaving indented rows where his fingers had touched. “Yeah, although my dad complained the entire time that everything was just fine the way it was.” Like a cloud covering the sun, a shadow formed in his eyes. “He never understood the need to show off.”

Unlike my mother.

The words were unspoken, but she gleaned what he wanted to say from the tone of his voice.

“You should open up the place for horse boarding.” She hoped he picked up on the change of subject, because she didn’t like the way staring into his troubled eyes made her heart soften. “I know some hunter/jumper trainers that would kill for a place like this.”

“I don’t have an arena.”

“You could build one. I saw a small track out behind the barn. Build one in the middle.”

He tucked his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Alas, that drew her eye to his midsection and what she knew would be a ridge of muscle just beneath his belly button. Did he have hair there, too? Dark hair that formed a V above his...

Stop it!

She couldn’t help herself. The man was pure good-looking. He could be the spokesperson for a cologne commercial. Sell whiskey to the Amish. Rocks to a coal miner.

“Unfortunately, that’s not in the cards right now.”

Because of his finances, she immediately realized. “Maybe if I help you sell one of your horses, you could do it then.”

What are you doing?

You shouldn’t be helping him to stay in business. Frankly, helping him go out of business should be her goal.

His hands slipped from his pockets. He crossed them in front of him. “So you’re a veterinarian and a horse broker now?”

She shrugged even as inside she mentally sucker punched herself for offering to help him out. Again.

“I’ve come into contact with a lot of different people through vet school, and a lot of really good racehorses are off the track.”

He grinned, but it was a small one, the man seeming almost bemused. “You know, I thought for sure you’d be a real pain in my rear, but you’re surprisingly nice.”

Aww, how sweet....

She had to swallow back her irritation at herself. “Give it time. I promise to offend you soon.”

The smile on his face grew. “You sound like you don’t really want to be friends.”

“I want to do what’s best for the animals.”

“It’s better than being enemies, though, isn’t it?”

No.

She needed him to be an adversary. He was easier to resist that way.

Who was she kidding?

Ever since she’d first spotted him at the racetrack, she’d been smitten. He’d caught her gaze and everything inside her had gone, “Oooh.” She’d contained her reaction only by telling herself the man was a jerk—a racehorse owner—so he was ugly inside. Only he wasn’t ugly inside. At least, she didn’t think so.

She moved toward one of the stalls, berating herself the whole way, but when she caught a glimpse of the animal inside, she said, “Wow.”

The dark bay animal took her breath away—huge shoulders, massive hindquarters, long legs, and all topped off with the prettiest head and large brown eyes she’d ever seen. The horse hardly spared her a glance, though; he was napping, back leg resting, ears cocked back casually.

“What a gorgeous animal.”

“Yup. He’s a dandy, all right,” he said with pride. “Dandy of a Dasher, that’s his registered name. Dandy for short.”

“Is Dandy one of your injured horses?”

He came up next to her and whatever aftershave he wore wafted toward her on a breeze. Sage again. And pine. And then something different, yes, there it was...leather and horses. Her two favorite smells in the world, and they emanated from her enemy.

“He’s the one coming off the sesamoid injury.”

“How bad of a break was it?”

“Doc called it an apical fracture. No tendon damage. I could probably race him, but...”

If he did, the odds of the horse breaking down again were huge, and the next time might be catastrophic. She clutched the front of the stall, her stomach doing that odd little flip thing again, the same thing it’d done when she’d first spotted him at the track. Most owners would send a horse back to work—damn the long-term consequences. That he didn’t, well, it was one more reason to get her lust under control. She could never get involved with a man who raced horses for a living, even if he was one of the nicer ones.

“Did the bone chip?” she asked.

“No. Just a hairline fracture. Enough to make him lame. He’s been off since November.”

That translated to six months. “He should be nice and healed by now.”

“Doc said he is. He gets daily turnout and I haven’t seen him take a lame step in months. Just not sure what to do with him.”

Okay, brace yourself.

She turned and faced him. “This is exactly the type of horse I think I can help you with.” She cleared her throat. “As long as there’s no bone chip or full fracture, there isn’t any reason why he couldn’t go on to perform in a dressage arena or maybe even a jumping pen. I’d want to see his X-rays before I make a judgment call, but if they look good, and you don’t mind, I’d like to put some miles on him under saddle, maybe take some new film in a few weeks to see how he’s holding up and, if it looks good, call a few friends of mine.”

“You want to ride him?”

She took a deep breath before facing him again. Why was he looking at her like that? “Yeah. You know. Leg him up, get a feel for what’s going on up here.” She tapped her head. “Maybe take some video so I can assess how he moves. See if he has any potential.”