Don't Mess With Texans

He decided to give the stallion his first shot right there in the corridor. A tranquilizer, intramuscular injection. Susannah gripped the stud’s sculpted nose with one hand, held the halter tight with her other. If he reared, she’d go flying. Tag slapped Pookie’s neck smartly, the impact supposedly disguising the following prick, then inserted the needle. Pookie let out a grunt of surprise. But no fireworks. Tag had treated poodles that struggled more. “Good boy.”

Then a quick exam while he waited for the preanesthetic to kick in. Pulse, taken at the submaxillary artery along his lower jaw, was thirty-six. “Good...” Tag placed his stethoscope on the left side of the stallion’s chest just behind the elbow to check the heartbeat, then over the lungs for the respiratory rate. Ten breaths a minute, average for a horse at ease. He glanced at Susannah. “Any idea if he’s had a tetanus booster lately?”

“It’s up-to-date.”

She looked dead certain of that, so he left her stroking the stud and crooning endearments while he went in to check the stall. He spread more hay from the new bale in the corner, though the bedding was clean and deep enough already. Nerves. “Okay, you can bring him in now.”

Filled with a seventeen-hand stallion, the stall seemed the size of a shoebox. “Can you put him up against the wall there, head toward the door?”

She could, handling him as deftly as a trucker backed an eighteen-wheeler alongside fuel pumps, one small sure hand flattened to the monster’s ribs as she shoved him over. Pookie allowed himself to be parked, his left side nearly touching the wall, then turned his head to look at her with a snort of surprise while Tag swung the gate around. This was a hinged device Higgins had built years ago, a wide padded rail that hemmed the horse in against the wall. “Duck under, Susannah.” She ducked and he swung the rail all the way parallel to the horse, then dropped the front fitting into its reinforced slot. Let out a breath of relief. Not that the stud couldn’t still kick his way free if he took the notion.

She grabbed a lapel of the leather jacket Tag had thrown on over his lab coat. “You’re gonna put him to sleep, aren’t you? I don’t want—”

“It’s okay, Susannah.” He caught her wrist. Unlike her stallion pal, her pulse skittered wildly and her skin was clammy-cold. “He’ll be sleeping like a baby in a minute. Won’t feel a thing.” You could do a stud with a local, but he’d just as soon this brute was safely in dreamland when he stole the family jewels.

“The gate lets him drop straight down, nice and easy. We don’t want him falling sideways.” He rubbed a thumb across her silky skin, then had to consciously pull away to stop. “Why don’t you sit on that bale while I get organized?

“You wouldn’t know what he weighs, would you?” he added over his shoulder as he spread out a sterile sheet, then laid out his surgical pack, the various antiseptic scrubs, several pairs of gloves.

“‘Bout twelve hundred an’ fifty-five,” she drawled.

Tag blinked at the precision. How many owners knew to the pound? He glanced back and saw she’d pushed up her sleeve to consult a man’s wristwatch, one of those ugly black, multifunction sportsman’s timepieces that dwarfed her slender wrist. Her long legs were crossed and one lizardskin boot jiggled nonstop. “Won’t be long now,” he assured her, deciding to leave the special gelding tool out of sight till he’d banished her from the stall. “He’s a thoroughbred?” He didn’t know much about horses, but big and rangily graceful as this one was...

“Yeah.”

“How old?” He drew the bottle of short-acting barbiturate from his bag and shook it. “Twelve?” Pookie’s teeth weren’t those of a young horse.

“Fourteen.”

Based on the weight she’d given, Tag calculated the dose and filled the syringe. He detached the 18-gauge needle and held it between gloved fingers. “Has he ever been raced?” A lot of clapped-out racers ended up as hunters or riding hacks, the lucky ones that didn’t go to the dogs.

“Um...few times.” She sprang to her feet and went to the horse’s head. “We gonna do this or not?”

“Right now.” Joining her at the stud’s forequarters, he swabbed the jugular furrow with alcohol, then pressed down on that vein, nearer the heart. The vessel swelled with impeded blood. He smacked it with the back of his hand, then inserted the needle. No objections from Pookie, who was looking mellower by the minute. “He’s going to go down almost at once when this hits his bloodstream. Keep your hands and feet out of his way.” He attached the syringe, checked that the needle was still in place, then slowly depressed the plunger. “We’ll lay him down, then I want you to wait outside. Won’t take long at all.”

“Nope, I stay here.”

“But—”

“I want to watch.”

Great. He’d be happier fumbling his way through this without an audience, but one look at the angle of her chin, and he knew better than to argue. “Okay. Here we go.” He withdrew the needle. Pookie’s ears pricked, then wobbled. He let out a whuffling breath and swayed on his feet. The gate creaked ominously. “Hands out of the way, Susannah.”

While the stud folded slowly, majestically, front legs first, she crooned wordless sympathy and cupped his muzzle, supporting his massive head as it drooped. Tag bent to watch his back legs, folding nicely, all in order, good...good... That high, whimpering sound scared him for a second, then he realized it was the woman, not the horse. Pookie grunted and settled into the straw with a sleepy grunt.

“Oh, Jeez Louise!” She collapsed bonelessly beside his head.

“He’s fine, Susannah. Don’t worry.” Tag glanced at his watch, then swung the gate out of the way. “Now we’ve got to roll him onto his side.”

They had to brace their feet against the side wall, straighten their legs and put their backs into it. Once Pookie lay limp as a beached whale, Susannah returned to the stallion’s front end. While Tag changed his gloves, she stripped off her jacket. She levered the horse’s head onto her knees—“Lord. he’s heavy! ”—slid the jacket beneath, then settled him again. “Oh, Pookums...”

It wasn’t that warm in here, but Tag couldn’t stop now to give her his own coat to wear. And the stud’s lower eye was protected from the straw, something he should have thought of himself. “Watch his eyes and ears for me, Susannah. If you see any signs he’s waking...” There wasn’t a chance of that, but it would keep her occupied and out of his way.

Still, after a minute’s wordless crooning, she demanded, “What are you doin’ now?”

“Scrubbing him down.” Betadine, alcohol wipe, then Betadine spray. While that dried he checked the stud’s pulse at the back fetlock—slowing, but still well within acceptable range. Then his breathing—shallow, steady and slow. No worries there. Time to rock and roll. Tag reached for his scalpel, then glanced up—to see her small, greenish-white face staring at him from the far end of his patient.

With her pupils dilated, her eyes looked black, not blue. The irises were ringed entirely in white—and locked on the razor-sharp blade in his hand. He’d been an idiot to let her stay. “So here we go,” he murmured in the same soothing voice he saved for scared animals.

“Yeah...” She swallowed audibly. “Y’know, I think... maybe this is—” She vanished from view beyond the stallion’s bulk. Straw rustled.

“Is what?” But she didn’t continue and Tag’s focus narrowed to the task at hand. Steady, steady, easy there, gently... Time was of the essence now. Half his attention was focused on the dark skin under his gloved fingers, half envisioned the vital structures he knew lay beneath it. Nice and easy now...

He didn’t think of the woman again till he reached for the emasculator. If she hadn’t liked the scalpel, she’d like the look of this tool even less. “Won’t be long at all,” he murmured comfortingly, sparing her a glance.

Beyond the dark rise of the stallion’s shoulder, then the descending curve of his neck, he saw an upturned hand, like a starfish flung down in the straw. A swath of red-gold crinkled silk spilled over a mound of dried grass, then vanished from sight. “Susannah?” He couldn’t see more from this angle without standing. Her fingers curled limp and unmoving. “Susannah?”

There came a faint sigh and a murmur. Her hand flexed slightly, then relaxed. Out as cold as her four-legged friend.

And speaking of which, the clock was ticking. Tag had seen enough people faint in vet school not to worry about her. She hadn’t fallen far, and she’d fallen on straw. And if she was this squeamish she’d be happier out of it. Teach me to let amateurs in the op room! He grabbed the special stainless-steel pliers and went back to work.

Eight minutes later when he set the instrument aside, she still hadn’t stirred. Tag did his final cleanup, a last inch-byinch inspection, a quick stick of long-acting antibiotic to the rump, then nodded. A good job, if he said so himself. Even fussbudget Higgins would have had to agree.

“Susannah?” He hid his tools from view, then stood, stretched and had to smile. Oh, Susannah! She was as irresistible as a basket of golden retriever pups. She’d toppled straight back into the straw, one arm flung overhead, the other resting below her small breasts. She breathed deeply, easily, soft lips barely parted. Faint had flowed straight into sleep, it looked like. Drove all night, he remembered. He knelt beside her and clamped his fingers on his knees to keep from smoothing her hair.

It was like a run of rough water on a mountain stream, riffling and rumpling and cascading down sunstruck rocks, an eddy of smooth gold here, a swirl of copper and sunshine there. It almost begged a man to thread it through his fingers, use it to tip back her head for a—

“Bad idea,” she muttered without opening her eyes. “Oh, real bad!” She scowled, wrenched her head to one side, her lashes shivering.

Damn, was she psychic on top of all else? Tag hadn’t blushed since seventh grade, the time that little redheaded substitute teacher caught him peeking down her—“What is?” he said guiltily.

“Don’t!” She opened her eyes, stared blankly at a world of straw for a second, then swung her gaze up to his. “Don’t do it. I changed my mind!” She latched onto his jacket lapels, hauling him down and herself to a half-sit, their faces mere inches apart.

“You mean...?” His stomach did a slow, nasty somersault, and it wasn’t just her breasts nearly grazing his chest or the tip of her tongue glossing delectable lips. “Susannah, you mean don’t do your stud?”

She nodded violently. He slipped an arm under her shoulders before she choked him. “Uh, Susannah...it’s a bit late for that now.” All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, babe... “The Pook’ll be neighing tenor from now on.”

“Ohhh...” She squeezed her eyes tight and simply lay there, letting him support her weight for a long moment. “Oh.” She drew a shuddering breath and opened her eyes. “Right.”

He blinked, then realized. She meant “right,” not “rot.” She gave him a wavering smile and shrugged as he lifted her upright. “Oh, well, it was just a thought...”

Tag was having second thoughts, too. Malpractice suits against vets weren’t as rare as they once had been. Trusting idiot, he hadn’t even made her fill out the forms beforehand as he should have. If she wanted to claim otherwise, he had no legal proof that she’d requested this procedure and not a tonsillectomy. Higgins would have called him twelve kinds of lust-struck idiot for this oversight, thinking with his—

“Never mind.” She braced her arms behind her and he let her go. She glanced around. “How is he?”

“Couldn’t be better.” One dark ear twitched at their voices, then flopped again. He’d finished in the nick of time. Tag brought his gaze warily back to her face. Her color was returning to normal, well, maybe a bit pinker than normal, but whatever she was thinking he was pretty sure it wasn’t lawsuits. He pulled a wisp of straw from her hair and she gave him a shaky smile. It would be all right, thank God. She might be a waffler, but she wasn’t a blamer. “You’re from Georgia?”

Her foxy brows drew together. “Texas.” A two-and-a-half syllable word, the way she said it. “Te-exas,” pronounced with pride and mild reproof, as if he’d asked an angel for her address. Left hand of God, of course, silly. Where did you think?