The Prodigal Texan

Miranda stood for a moment with her eyes shut tight, thinking about her messy ponytail and lack of makeup, the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra under the old T-shirt and the way the seat of the baggy, penguin pajama pants hung down below her butt. Then she opened her eyes and turned around to face him like the adult she was supposed to be.

“Cruz says you finally got something to eat.”

“He keeps a well-stocked refrigerator. Not like mine—I don’t know if I’ve ever used more than one shelf at a time.”

“Cruz is a good cook,” Nan said from the doorway. “Get him to make you his chicken molé sometime. Delicious.” She looked at a point somewhere between Miranda and Cruz. “I’m going to take a nap, then come out about ten to keep an eye on Flora during the night. Call me if something happens before then.”

As soon as Nan left the barn, Cruz stirred. “I didn’t have much to eat this afternoon, myself. Think I’ll go get a bite, then come back to the delivery deck. Is that okay with you, Miranda?”

“That’s—” Cruz was gone before she could finish her answer. Disconcerted, she glanced toward Jud, standing his ground at the front of the barn.

“Sorry to intrude,” he said. “Cruz offered a tour if I walked over. I didn’t know you’d be here.”

Miranda backed toward Flora’s stall. “No, it’s okay. I think I can tolerate five minutes in your company.

I’ll handle the tour…if you’re still interested.”

Jud hesitated, then nodded. “Sure.” He pursued her down the aisle. “How long has Martinez worked here?”

“A little over two years, since Joe Haynes died.”

“I remember old Joe. I got the rough side of his tongue more times than I could count.”

“He was a good man. And a good foreman for Hayseed Farm, since before I was born. Nan wouldn’t have survived those first years after my dad died without Joe.”

“Martinez measures up to the job?”

“He’s conscientious and works hard. What he doesn’t know, he learns fast.”

“He keeps pretty much to himself?”

She frowned at the question. “We’re friends, the three of us. We usually eat dinner together, catch up on the day. Why all the questions?”

“Nosy, I guess.” He looked down as Dusty sniffed at his boots, then pursued a thorough investigation up both pants legs. When she reached his knees, he held out his hand and let her sniff his palm. “Nice dog.”

Miranda nodded. “The best. She goes everywhere I do.”

“Except weddings?”

She turned away from him to avoid returning his smile. “Weddings and funerals.” And wasn’t that a stupid thing to say? “Sorry. I didn’t mean—”

He shook his head. “No problem.”

Embarrassed yet again, she peered through the grate in Flora’s stall door. “How ya’ doin’, mama? That baby comin’ tonight?”

Jud stepped up beside her, his presence like a wall of high-wattage lightbulbs on her right side. Her face heated up and her breath got short, but she was damned if she’d creep away from him just for a little oxygen.

“Cute mare,” he said quietly, propping his shoulder against the wall. “Is there a reason to be worried? As I recall, most horses drop their foals without help or complications.”

“She’s eighteen, which is old to be having babies. We lost her foal last time, and almost lost Flora. We don’t want that to happen again.” In the stall, the mare flattened her ears, shook her head violently and kicked a hind leg toward her swollen belly.

“So why’d you breed her?”

Worry had already shortened Miranda’s temper. “So much for letting go of the past. You still think I’m dumb as dirt, don’t you?”

He straightened up from the wall. “What the—”

Miranda jerked her attention back to the horse. She caught her breath as Flora dropped to her knees, then rolled to lie on her side. After a motionless minute, the mare struggled to her feet and started pacing again.

“Another process horses seem to handle without help is mating.” Miranda didn’t bother to look at Jud as she spoke. “We came home one afternoon last winter to find Bailey, our stallion, in the same field with Flora. Somebody had left a gate open, then Bailey tore down a couple of fences…and here we are.”

She turned away and reached for the stall door latch, but in the next instant Jud gripped her shoulder with a strong hand and pulled her back around. Standing at her side, Dusty growled low in her throat.

Jud ignored the dog. “Let’s get this out of the way right now. If I ever said you were dumb—and I might well have because I was full of myself back then—you have my sincere apology.”

He watched as surprise dawned on Miranda’s face. She gazed up at him, and he wondered if she was trying to read his mind. In the years since high school, he’d forgotten how intense she could be. But how could he have forgotten those mysterious topaz eyes?

Or had he just never noticed?

Inside the stall beside them, Flora gave a moaning neigh, lay down in the straw again and groaned.

He loosened his hands and Miranda turned to face the stall. “You can do it, mama. Just relax.” She wrapped her fingers in the grate, clinging with a force that turned her skin white. “Push, mama. Push!”

Jud had never been good at waiting. “I should go….”

She spared him a second of thought. “Before you do, find the phone in the feed room across the aisle, right by the door. Punch two for Mom, three for Cruz. Get them down here.”

In less than five minutes, Nan Wright came running, and Martinez showed up within ten. By then, Jud would have fought anyone who tried to kick him out. The four of them stood in silence outside the stall, watching the mare labor. Miranda’s dog paced in the barn aisle behind them.

Finally, the bluish white amniotic sac appeared beneath Flora’s tail. Martinez swore. “That’s a rear hoof. The foal’s coming out backward.”

“We have to turn the baby. Get Doc Shaw on his cell phone.” Miranda dropped her jacket where she stood and opened the stall door. First, she knelt at Flora’s head, stroking the heavy forelock back from the mare’s eyes, smoothing her hands over the sweat-lathered neck and murmuring encouragement.

Then, carefully, she moved to the horse’s rear end. Cruz went for the phone.

Nan stood in the open doorway. “Miranda was there when Flora was born,” she said when Jud looked at her. “The mare trusts her more than anyone else.”

Carrying the phone, Martinez came to stand beside Jud. “I’ve got Doc Shaw,” he said. “He’s on his way.”

“What do I do?” Miranda looked up, and her gaze caught Jud’s for a second before shifting to Cruz. “He has to coach me.” Face sheened with sweat, eyes wide, she looked desperate. Terrified.

Flora strained, then relaxed. Miranda took hold of the hooves just visible through the amnion and pushed them back into the mare. “It’s tight,” she said through gritted teeth. “Mom…”

Nan knelt beside her and the two of them worked through the next contraction. Then again, and again. Martinez conveyed instructions from the veterinarian in a low, tense tone. Despite the December chill outside, the humid air in the barn made breathing a chore.

Jud watched for what seemed like eternity as Nan and Miranda pressed and pushed against the mare’s belly, trying to manipulate the body within. Though he’d grown up with horses, spent years riding rodeo broncs, he’d never witnessed a breech birth, never seen anyone turn a baby in the womb. He had no idea whether to expect success—or tragedy.

Headlights flashed in the darkness outside the front of the barn. A car door slammed and then an older man with a surprisingly full head of dark brown hair came striding down the barn aisle. “How’s it going?”