Return of Dr Irresistible

Get the horse and the show back on their feet.

The throng of people gathered around, children in the audience pressed against the raised outside of the ring, getting as close as they could... The weight of all their emotions pressed into her.

It had to be their emotions she was feeling. She’d mastered her own emotions several years ago, and maintained proper distance from anything hairy, she reminded herself. And she’d regain control of them as soon as she got Gordy out of there and Reece the hell away from her.

First things first. ‘We have to get him out of here.’ She needed out of there too.

A single nod and Reece reached for the horse’s mouth while she kept him standing. Large, strong hands curled around the snout and lower jaw and he firmly pried the miniature horse’s jaws apart, all the while speaking to him gently, making comforting sounds that did nothing to comfort her—but which seemed to do the trick with Gordy.

Or the combination of comfort and brute strength did the trick. Gordy released her bleeding arm and immediately Reece slid his arms under the horse’s neck and through his legs to support his chest and hind quarters. Then he did what she’d never seen anyone do before: He picked the horse up.

‘Which way?’ Strained voice to go with strained muscles, and the look of nausea was still on his face. How had Reece gotten so strong? She thought doctors studied all the time and played golf... Even as small as Gordy was, he was still a horse and weighed a good one hundred and eighty pounds. But Reece carried the miniature horse out of the ring. By himself.

Right. Not the time to think about that. Gordy was hurt. She was hurt. The show had stopped. Children were probably very scared and upset. ‘This way.’ She cleared a path and led Reece and his load out the back of the tent, the way she’d come, off toward the stables.

He could carry Gordy to the stable and then go away, let her have her mind back. The stable was Bohannon property, she would just order him out and take care of her horse.

Someone else would step in, get the show moving again, and she didn’t care who that task fell to. As long as the vet came soon.

The stable wasn’t far, but by the time they reached it, Reece was breathing hard. Maybe harder than she was while desperately trying not to feel nothing—not the pain in her arm, and really not the anger and betrayal bubbling up from that dark place she stuffed all her Reece emotions.

Once in Gordy’s stall with the fresh hay she’d put down earlier, Jolie directed, ‘Lay him in the straw.’ That was something she could think to say. One step at a time, that’s as far ahead as she could make her mind work. It took more effort than it might have otherwise done if she hadn’t been bitten and her arm didn’t ache to the point she was considering that maybe the bone had fractured...

The rest of her mental capacity was filled to the brim with the echoes of voices reminding her of Gordy’s history, the way Mack would undoubtedly react, and all the animals she’d lost over the years. Of everything she’d lost...

Ignoring those voices took effort.

Nothing was going to happen to Gordy. He was practically a sibling. Her first mount when she’d been little more than a toddler herself.

Jolie forced herself to still. Reece gently laid the injured but considerably calmer animal in the bedding. ‘I think he remembers you,’ she murmured. Gordy remembered Reece, even if he looked loads different—even if he’d bitten her. He remembered Reece enough to go docilely into the straw.

Still not a good enough reason to keep Reece in the stable. She couldn’t focus with him there. ‘Thank you. Go watch the rest of the show.’ She got in between him and the horse, focusing with all her might on first-aid training for horses.

Reece stood behind her, looking down over her shoulder. ‘Let me look at your arm.’

‘It will wait.’ Gordy might have thrashed himself into a bad intestinal situation...so the next step should be...

Reece’s hands closed around her waist, dragging her attention away from what she should be doing. He lifted her to her feet and secured her left arm with his horse-lifting grip locked around her wrist. Fire and ice, his touch was like peppermint, an utterly inexplicable combination of heat and chill that momentarily cut through the fear of losing Gordy and made her think...so many different things. Primarily it reminded her of one thing: He needed to leave. But Gordy needed to stand up more, and she’d failed at lifting him to his feet twice already.

‘My arm can wait,’ she repeated. And it could wait outside his grasp. She twisted her wrist free, ignored the deep ache the motion caused, and pointed to Gordy. ‘He needs to be on his feet.’

‘He can rest a moment. You’re hurt.’

He sounded so sincere, genuinely concerned... Which was crap, of course. ‘He needs to be on his feet,’ she repeated, ‘resting a moment is the last thing he needs.’ Don’t look him in the eyes. Don’t look him in the eyes.

‘Jolie...’

‘Reece...’ she replied, and looked him in the eyes. Right. No time to waste. She started moving again, toward the stall door so she could get to the supplies and away from him. Something in his touch, in the fact that he had helped them, and the concern in his eyes made her feel weak, muddied her thinking. Roused emotions she couldn’t afford right now.

She knew what needed to happen for Gordy, not him. ‘You can stay here until I get him in a sling. He needs to be in a sling. And don’t think you get to tell me what to do just because you went all strongman and carried my horse to the stable. You don’t get to dictate anything in here. The circus might be yours to destroy, but Gordy is a Bohannon, so I’ll take your help with him, and then you can get the hell out of my stable.’

Not calm. Not calm at all. What had happened to her calm? Her arm. Pain and fear did this to her. That and the weirdness of seeing Reece. But it would all go away again soon enough. Losing Gordy on top of everything else would be a pain she couldn’t ignore. Sling. She needed one of the horse slings.

Flipping open the lid of the trunk where various first-aid implements were kept, Jolie dug through, using her injured arm even if every second the ache grew worse. The only sling she knew they had was for the big horses...

‘Tell me what you’re doing.’ Reece said, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth fighting with her.

Good. She didn’t have time to fight.

Reece moved to the side of the trunk. ‘I’ll help you if you tell me what you need.’

More Good. Be helpful. The sooner Gordy was on his feet, the sooner Reece could go away. ‘I didn’t see him fall,’ she said. ‘I don’t know how much he could have jarred his insides when he went down, but I saw him thrashing to get up and that could have twisted his bowel. I don’t want him fighting colic while his body needs to be focused on healing his leg. We need a sling. And some way to hang it. I’ll work on the sling, you see if you can find a couple of pieces of lumber that will stretch across the top of the stall.’

He left immediately. Of course he knew the way. The circus might be somewhere new every week, but it was always set up in the same layout. And that layout hadn’t changed in the last ten years. She’d changed. He’d changed—God, had he ever—but the circus was the same.

A few minutes later Reece came back with two especially thick posts thrown over one shoulder and found her crouched in Gordy’s stall, stringing together belts and harnesses.

‘Lay them across the top. This isn’t a proper sling, but it should work until the vet gets here.’ She stretched the leather across Gordy’s chest, noting the labored breathing, and fought down another wave of panic. Once she had it in place over the shoulder she could access, she looked at Reece. ‘Think you can pick him up again? I need to get this around the other side and I need him on his feet, so I need you just supporting that place where his leg is compromised. Then I’ll climb the stall and get it all hitched to the lumber.’

He scowled at her. What did that mean? A longer look at her arm told her why he looked so sour, but to his credit he squatted beside Gordy and got him up again, just as she’d asked. Which didn’t make up for anything. He would probably pitch some kind of fit when this was over. He was a showman after all. Doctor. Showman. Jerkface.

She’d been upset with him for years, but had thought she’d finally let go of it a few years ago. The strength of her anger at seeing him now surprised her.

Not that she could spare time for reflection. To hell with Reece. She’d help Gordy—they’d help him. He’d survive. Get him up. Get the vet to cast his leg. Take care of him. Not a detailed plan, but it was as good as she had right now. And when Gordy’s leg was in a cast, she’d figure out what the next step was. And then the next. She had a job, and right now Gordy was it.

‘Hurry...’ Reece said through clamped lips, doing his best to keep his head away from Gordy’s mouth, should he get bitey again, but he managed to get the little stallion on his hooves and support his chest.

Jolie ducked around the other side and in a few seconds had threaded the makeshift harness through, clipped the ends together and thrown the long tail up and over the wood.

Good thing they were all pretty much acrobats...and that she was good at jumping. Her small stature made her the perfect size for tossing and flying, but made reaching objects in tall cabinets or shelves difficult. Made hauling herself to the stall top require a hop first.

She grabbed the top of the stall with both hands. Pain shot up her left arm and she let go again. It took a few seconds for the buzzing to subside so she could try again.

‘Jolie?’

‘I’m okay. It’s...probably not broken.’

He swore under his breath. Like he cared that much. Like someone who’d cut those he’d supposedly loved out of his life for a decade could care at all, let alone enough to swear.

A burst of anger at the bitter memory gave her the strength she needed to pull herself up on the second attempt. She maneuvered herself between the lumber Reece had slatted across the top of the stall, balanced and reached for the leather dangling over the lumber.

As she worked, she looked down and saw Reece scowling up at her again. ‘What?’

‘Hurry,’ he said.

‘You carried him all the way in there, is supporting one end such a chore now?’ She looked down, noticed red on Gordy’s white fur and howled, ‘Is he bleeding?’

‘Dammit, Jolie, that’s your blood.’