Love on the Line (33 page)

“That sound usually means they’re lonely or there’s a predator nearby.” The man studied the donkey. “Or she’s due any minute.”

The little donkey paced circles along the back wall.

“She don’t look right to me,” Gus said. “You have a vet in this town? I’m decent at wrangling but know next to nothing about all this.”

Ryan reached for his cellphone. In his haste he’d left it on the table beside his bed.

“I’ll call from the house. But just in case, I’ll bring towels and some sheets.”

“You know something about foaling?”

His surprise rankled, but was understandable.

“I grew up on a ranch, so I know a little. But probably not enough.”

Ryan raced to the house and called Laird. He cursed when Laird’s answering machine picked up. He was probably out tending to some medical emergency in town. Ryan left a message urging him to get over to the ranch as soon as he could.

Then he raced down the hall to the linen closet and grabbed an armful of towels and sheets.

“Mighty nice towels, Mr. Rea,” the man said when Ryan opened the gate to the stall. “Mighty nice place all around.”

“My name’s Ryan.”

Liza let out another bray, this one weaker and sounding more pathetic.

“Is the vet coming?”

“No answer.”

Gus patted Liza’s neck. “Something’s not right—donkeys are stoic animals. They almost never show pain.”

Liza lay down and stayed down. She rolled from side to side, braying. Ryan wished he could do something to help her pain. Avoiding her kicking legs, he knelt and lifted her tail. And his heart sank in his chest.

Instead of the bluish-white membrane of the amnion, a ballooned, red membrane extended from her.

“The membrane didn’t break,” he said to Gus, trying not to sound panicked.

“The what?”

“She’s red-bagging—it’s premature placental separation. The membrane separates from the uterus, depriving the foal of the oxygen supply. Because the foal is still inside, within the membrane, it can’t breathe. It could suffocate.”

Ryan didn’t bother taking the time to roll his sleeves. He used the strength of his hands to rip through the bag, plunged through the gush of blood and heat, groped past the hooves and latched on to the head of the foal.

“C’mon, baby, hang in there.” Ryan’s heart slammed against his ribs as he wrapped his hands around the back of the foal’s skull. At least the baby was positioned right, with its head between its front hooves, poised like a swimmer about to dive into the world.

He used his legs for traction against the floor of the stall and pulled the foal free of Liza’s quivering body. He ripped at the shroud-like membrane still covering the foal and tore it open. He peeled back the membrane with his fingers and wiped the unmoving foal’s nostrils clear of mucus. The nostrils flared, and the foal took a few breaths. Only then did he realize he’d been holding his own. He let it out as the foal closed its lips around his hand and sucked.

“Holy Mary,” Gus said in an awed tone.

“We’ve got a live wire.” Ryan eased his hand away from the foal’s lips.

He knew better than to cut the navel cord. Liza would break the cord when she got up, or it would snap as the foal struggled to her feet. But he stayed close, knowing that these precious first moments were the time to imprint on the foal. If Liza let him, the foal would accept him and the closeness those first minutes developed would make it much easier on him, any caretakers and, in the long run, the little donkey.

The little foal turned to him and nuzzled, wiping a trail of slime and wetness along his jeans. A trail of slime and wetness that made him a very happy guy. He’d been accepted.

Liza rose to her feet, breaking the umbilical cord. Gus reached a towel toward the foal, and Liza nipped at him.

“I’m your friend,” Gus sputtered as he recoiled against the wall.

The new mother ignored him and began licking her foal dry.

“That licking action is very important,” Ryan said to a near-spellbound Gus. “Especially if this is Liza’s first foal, which I suspect it is. The licking stimulates her mothering instinct, gets her milk flowing, and perhaps most important of all, prevents the foal from getting chilled.”

He stood and flipped the switch to the overhead heater. And said a silent thanks that he’d held his ground in the face of his contractor’s city-boy scorn.

“My wife’s pregnant,” Gus said.

The admission explained the man’s anxiety.

“First child?”

Gus nodded, looking down at the blood covering the straw on the stall floor.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Ryan said, shaking his head. “I’m not available for a repeat performance.”

The attempt at a light moment was lost on Gus. He leaned back against the wall and raked a hand over his face. “It just made me think. You know, with birthing—there’s so much that can go wrong.”

“And so much that goes right,” Ryan countered.

And then his words hit him.

So much that could go right
.

He’d focused on what had gone wrong between him and Cara, and it had taken a homeless donkey to get through his skull that
he
hadn’t focused on what could go right.

Worse, he hadn’t even given Cara a chance to explain. Fueled by old patterns, patterns he hated, he’d launched into her without thinking, hadn’t considered her pain or what she’d suffered. He hadn’t trusted—hadn’t trusted at all. And he’d probably scorched the path to any future he might’ve had with her. A future he’d dreamed about since the day he’d met her, a future he’d set to blazes in a few short, hotheaded minutes.

Ryan watched as Liza ran her tongue tirelessly over her baby, fully focused on the new life she’d brought into the world. And he knew what he had to do.

“Where you staying tonight?”

“There’s a motel about an hour from here,” Gus said.

“Would you consider staying here? Watching over the donkeys? Keeping an eye on these two? I’ve got a couple of rooms fixed up for the caretaker.”

“Beats the heck out of Motel 6.”

“There’s a diner in town; you can run a tab on me.”

The foal nuzzled along Liza’s belly and started nursing.

“Now there’s a mighty sweet sight,” Laird said as he walked into the stall and tossed his vet bag on the straw-covered floor.

“Thank God you’re here.” Ryan rose and started to reach a hand out to shake Laird’s, but seeing the blood still smeared up to his elbows, he drew back.

“Looks like you have it handled,” Laird said as he checked out Liza and her foal. “I’ll have to treat the little one’s navel with iodine.” He reached into his bag. “And she’ll need a tetanus antitoxin shot immediately.” He glanced up at Ryan. “But from the looks of how you’ve handled things, you probably know that.”

“Nope. I got lucky. I helped my dad once, with a mare. She red-bagged, or I never would’ve known what to do.”

“You saved both their lives, I’d say.” Laird looked to Gus. “Has she been a mother before?”

“Don’t know,” Gus said. “She just came in two months ago. It’s hard to starve a donkey, but Liza here was skin and bones. We weren’t sure she’d keep the foal.”

A muscle twitched in Laird’s jaw. “I’ll never understand the minds of some people,” he said, not hiding his disgust. “Instead of connecting to the awe of life, they ignore it and harm everything in their path.”

Ryan looked away. Laird couldn’t know the pain those words knifed into his gut.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Ryan knocked at Cara’s front door. In the minute it took her to answer, he fought to counter the spikes of adrenaline surging in him.

She opened the door, and her eyes went wide.

“Are you okay?” She pointed to his head.

“That depends,” Ryan answered. “Mostly on you.”

She pointed again, but didn’t touch him. “You have blood on your neck.”

He rubbed at his skin. He’d scrubbed his arms past the elbows, changed his shirt and jeans, but evidently had missed a few spots. He’d never been one for mirrors, and he’d been in too much of a rush to talk to her to take time to shower properly.

“The donkeys arrived early. I helped one of them foal.”

She took a step back, staring.

“It was an emergency, and Laird wasn’t around. The foal’s okay. Cute, in fact. Really cute.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “Just when I’m sure that there’s nothing you could say to make me ever want to speak to you again, you come up with something like this.”

To his relief she stepped aside and allowed him to enter her living room. He felt like he’d passed the first gate of
Castlevania
but hadn’t yet come close to facing the shadow powers. Cara crossed to her desk, keeping a good distance between them.

“You were amazing at the meeting,” he said. “What you did. What you said.”

The words came out of his mouth, yet he heard them as if someone else were speaking, and in no way did they express the power of the feelings racing circles in him.

She picked up a pile of papers from her desk. He fought for more words, but they wouldn’t come. She turned, clutching the papers to her chest like a shield.

“I thought you said you’d rather face a fast ball than go to a meeting,” she said.

He couldn’t read her expression, but the wavering flame of hope in his heart sprang to life.

“That part’s still true.”

She dropped the papers into a box beside her. The room was piled with half-packed boxes. Two suitcases stood by the door.

“You going somewhere?” He immediately kicked himself for asking such an obvious, stupid question. But his brain wasn’t functioning. He thought of a dozen things to say, but none would form into words that he trusted.

She leafed through another pile of papers, then shoved them into a box that was already brimming.

“New York.”

He was too late, like in one of those stupid movies where you sit through all the twists and turns and the people split up anyway.

He always hated
Casablanca
. That Ilsa would leave Rick and moviegoers thought it was a good thing never made any sense to him.

He held out the travel mug of coffee he’d brought. “This is for you. I broke down and read the directions.”

She looked up, and he saw the tears brimming in her eyes. His heart lurched and breathed flames on the flicker of hope he’d fought not to relinquish. He wanted to take her in his arms, but knew it wouldn’t be the right move. He didn’t know what the right move would be.

She took the mug from him.

“Thank you.”

She stepped back, searching his face. He didn’t know what expression would help crack her armor, would salve the wounds caused by his anger. But whatever she saw in his face sent a wavering smile across hers.

“You must’ve been desperate if you read the directions,” she said. Her hands shook as she removed the lid and sipped. She shut her eyes and tears spilled from behind her lashes. “It’s delicious.”

He took the mug from her hand and set it next to the TV.

“Cara.” He turned her to face him. “You can’t take this all on your shoulders. My... my
projections
played a part in all this, maybe the bigger part. And my lack of trust. I wanted you to be a simple country woman—to be uncomplicated. I didn’t give you a chance to be anything else. I fell into the trap of my own fantasies, and I dragged you in right along with me.”

She swallowed and parted her lips. God, he wanted to just kiss her and make everything that hung between them vanish. He pulled her into his arms, and when she didn’t resist, he cradled her against his chest.

“I was a Stone Age jackass,” he whispered to the top of her head.

She sniffled against his chest. “Don’t give the donkeys a bad name.”

“You’re right, the animals don’t deserve such comparisons—I was a Stone Age jerk.”

He stroked her hair, wishing he could stroke her heart.

“Jackie told Alex you were planning to tell me next week. You couldn’t have known Henry would out you like that.”

“So much for secrets,” she said with a sniff.

“I should’ve been the kind of guy you could have trusted enough to confide in. Instead I was a bull-headed fool.”

She pulled away and tipped her face to him. “I thought you were a Stone Age jerk.”

Defiance flashed in her eyes. Defiance was easier to stomach than her sadness. She raised a hand and pushed her hair back from her face.

“I was a fool to think that timing mattered,” she said. “The world of billionaires isn’t really what anyone wants to hear about. They think they do, but when it comes down to it, the kind of money my family has doesn’t build bridges. Or make friends.”

“Well,
I
want to hear about it.” He rubbed her shoulder. “About this one particular billionaire.”

She stepped back, but he kept his hand on her. Some part of him would die if the connection between them was severed.

Her brows drew together, and she looked down at the floor. “When Jackie told me about the paternity suit, I was afraid to face you. Every time I imagined telling you, I saw the horrid similarities. Deception is the silent partner of lies—someone once told me that.”

He winced at hearing her repeat the words he’d flung at her. “You’d never do a thing like she did.”

“But what I did”—she looked up and held him in a firm gaze—“I know deceiving everyone was wrong, but I was dying in my life.
Dying
. And afraid.” She hugged her arms around her ribs and shook her head. “I had to start over. I never imagined it’d end up like this.”

He tracked his hand down her arm and squeezed. “Nothing’s ended, Cara.”

Spots of color burned in her cheeks. “You saw their faces. Belva... and Perk and the others. I can only imagine what Molly feels.”

He cupped her jaw, gently, and kept her eyes meeting his. “You woke a lot of people up to their prejudices. And to their fantasies and shortcomings. Me included.”

She bit at her lower lip.

“It was about time for me to dust off my trust engines,” he added.

She nodded.

He put both hands on her shoulders. “And there are some fantasies worth testing.” He released one hand and ran it down the back of her spine. “Some that stand the test of even a Stone Age jerk’s follies.”