Linda Lael - McKettricks of Texas - Austin

“You’re going to be all right now, Molly,” he promised the mare.

She nickered, the sound barely audible, then nuzzled him in the shoulder.

The backs of Austin’s eyes stung. He stood and got out of the way, feeling worse than useless, so Garrett and Tate could get the mare to her feet, a process that involved considerable kindly cajoling and some lifting, too. Molly stumbled a few times crossing the barnyard, and they had to stop twice so she could rest, but finally she made it into her new stall.

Some of the other horses whinnied in greeting, watching with interest as the mare took her place among them.

Molly had spent her strength, and she immediately folded into the thick bed of wood shavings covering the stall floor.

“Farley’s on his way,” Garrett said, standing behind Austin in the breezeway, laying a hand on his shoulder.

Farley Pomeroy was the local large-animal vet; he’d been taking care of McKettrick livestock for some forty-odd years. When their dad, Jim, was ten or twelve, he’d fallen off the hay truck one summer day and splintered the bone in his right forearm so badly that he required surgery. It had been Doc Pomeroy, who happened to be on the ranch at the time, ministering to a sick calf, who treated Jim for shock and rigged up a splint and a sling for the fifty-mile trip to the hospital.

Austin nodded to let Garrett know he’d heard. If ever a horse had needed Farley’s expert attention, it was this one.

Tate came out of Molly’s stall, took off his hat.

Austin realized then that Libby and Paige were standing nearby.

“You’ll wait for Farley?” Tate asked, meeting Austin’s gaze.

Once again, Austin nodded. “I’ll wait.”

He was aware of it when Tate and Garrett and Libby left the barn, aware too, even without looking, that Paige had stayed behind.

Austin opened the stall door and stepped through it, dropping to one knee beside the little mare.

He didn’t ask her to do it, but Paige found a bucket, filled it from a nearby faucet, and brought it into the stall. Set it down within Molly’s reach. Austin murmured a thanks without looking back at Paige and steadied the bucket with both hands, so the animal could drink.

“Slow, now,” he told Molly. “Real slow.”

When she’d emptied the bucket, Paige took it and went back for more water.

Molly drank thirstily, then rolled onto her side, thrusting her legs out from under her and making both Austin and Paige move quickly to get out of the way.

Shep peered into the stall from the breezeway, Harry at his side.

The dogs made such a picture standing there that Austin gave a ragged chuckle and shook his head. Molly didn’t seem frightened of them, but he stroked her neck just to reassure her, told her she was among friends now, and there was no need to worry.

“Shall I take them into the house?” Paige asked.

“Might be better if they weren’t underfoot when Doc gets here,” Austin answered, not looking at her. “Thanks.”

She left the stall and then the barn, and while Harry was cooperative, it took some doing to get Shep to go along with the plan. He wanted to stick around and help out with the horse-tending, it seemed.

Insisting to himself that it didn’t matter one way or the other, Austin wondered if Paige would come back out to wait with him or stay inside the house.

She returned within five minutes, handed him an icy bottle of water.

He thanked her again, unscrewed the top and drank deeply. His back didn’t hurt, but he knew he’d be asking for it if he continued to crouch, so he stood, stretched his legs, finished off the water.

Paige looked almost like a ranch wife, standing there in that horse stall, her arms folded and her face worried. Maybe it was the jeans.

“How can things like this happen?” she muttered, staring at poor Molly.

Austin knew Paige didn’t expect an answer; she was thinking out loud, that was all. He wanted to put an arm around her shoulders right about then and just hold her against his side for a little while, but he wrote it off as a bad idea and kept his distance—insofar as that was possible in an eight-by-eight-foot stall.

A silence fell between the two of them, but it was a comfortable one. Austin moved out into the breezeway, and he and Paige stood side by side in front of the half door of the stall, both of them focused on the mare.

Soon, Doc Pomeroy’s old rig rattled up outside, backfired, then did some clanking and clattering as the engine shut down.

Austin and Paige exchanged glances, not quite smiles but almost, and turned to watch as the old man trundled into the barn, carrying his battered bag in one gnarled hand. Probably pushing eighty, Doc still had powerful shoulders, a fine head of white hair and the stamina of a much younger man.

“Come on in here, Clifton,” he said, half turning to address the figure hesitating in the wide, sunlit doorway. “I might need a hand.”

Clifton Pomeroy, Doc’s only son, hadn’t shown his face in or around Blue River in a long time. Not since Jim and Sally McKettrick’s funeral, in fact.

As kids, Cliff and Jim McKettrick had been the best of friends. Later on, they’d been business partners. When Jim had shut down the oil wells on the Silver Spur, though, Cliff had objected strenuously, since he’d been making a lot of money brokering McKettrick crude to various small independents. The association—and the friendship—had ended soon after that.

Austin’s dad had never said what happened—giving reasons for things he regarded as his own business had not been Jim McKettrick’s way. On the rare occasions when Cliff Pomeroy’s name had come up, Jim had always clamped his jaw and either left the room or changed the subject.

Now, finding himself back on a ranch he’d left on bad terms, Cliff hung back for a few moments, sizing things up. Then, in that vaguely slick way he had, he strolled easily into the barn, approaching Austin with one hand extended in greeting. His smile was broad and a little too bright, reminiscent of Garrett’s late boss, Senator Morgan Cox.

Because there was no way to avoid doing so without hurting Doc’s feelings, Austin shook hands with Cliff and said hello.

By then, Doc was in the stall with Molly and Garrett. Tate and Libby were entering the barn.

Everybody clustered in front of the stall door.

Doc, crouching next to the mare, looked up and frowned. “What is this?” he demanded. “Some kind of convention?”

Doc had always been a cranky old coot, but he knew his business.

Cliff chuckled nervously, took off his baseball cap and ran a hand through his thinning brown hair. “You want a hand or not, Dad?” he asked, his tone falsely cheerful.

Austin recalled his mom saying that Clifton Pomeroy must have taken after his mother’s people, since he looked nothing like his father.

Doc opened his bag and rooted around inside with one of his pawlike hands. Brought out a round tin and a packet of gauze. Catching Austin’s eye, he said, “You’ll do. The rest of you had better occupy yourselves elsewhere and give this poor horse room to breathe.”

They all stepped away from the door, so Austin could go through.

Garrett struck up a conversation with Cliff, and the whole bunch receded, including Libby and Paige.

By then, Doc had filled one large syringe, set it carefully aside and filled another, and his expression was so grim that Austin was momentarily alarmed.

“What is that stuff?” he rasped, kneeling next to the veterinarian, near Molly’s head.

Doc’s mouth twitched, but he probably hadn’t smiled, or even grinned, in decades, and he didn’t break his record now. “Antibiotics, a mild sedative and a painkiller.”