His Girl From Nowhere

“And yet when you ask me for data, you make scoffing sounds before I’ve said ten words.”

“Fair enough. So convince me.” He let the wheelbarrow’s supports touch the ground and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting.

“Great.” She shook her head and started back down the path without a word, the horse again moving with her.

This woman was impossible. He grabbed the handles and followed her. It was really hard to carry on an intelligent conversation while hauling a load of manure.

She held up the tip of her rope and pointed off to the left. “Dump it over there behind that wooden barricade, if you don’t mind. You can leave the wheelbarrow there. Thanks.”

By the time he’d done as she asked, she’d released Demon Seed—a better name than Brutus, in his opinion—into a large fenced grassy area.

Mike arrived just in time to see four other horses making a beeline for the newcomer, tails flowing out behind them as they galloped toward the fence. There was a kind of strange powwow between the animals, accompanied by various sounds, then one of the horses wheeled around and raced away from the group. The others soon followed suit. None of them looked particularly tame.

“Those are your therapy horses?”

“Yes. Brutus is the only one not used in the program.”

“How do you keep them under control?”

She glanced out at the field. “They know when it’s time to work and when it’s time to play. I can assure you that they take their jobs as seriously as any other kind of service animal.”

Was she talking about seeing-eye dogs? “But not Brutus.”

“No. Not Brutus. I told you, he’s a special case. The other horses are teaching him what it means to be a...” She shrugged. “Well, a horse. Sometimes horses—and people—have to relearn what it means to be normal.”

That was one thing on which they could both agree. He hadn’t quite made it there yet. “So tell me about your program.”

She waited for a minute then smiled. “You say you want to know about it, but every time I start to talk you shut yourself off.”

“Sorry?”

Her fingers touched his left forearm, sending a jolt through him. “You cross your arms. Meaning you’re not going to accept what I have to say.”

He unfolded his limbs, mostly to dislodge her fingers. “Not true.”

“No?”

Okay, so she was right. But he wasn’t sure how to get past it. He could stand there with his arms hanging straight down, but it wouldn’t mean a thing. He’d still be skeptical, and he couldn’t think of anything she could do that would change the way he felt. Marcy had told him one thing and then gone and done another. How did he know Patricia wouldn’t bend the truth to suit her own purposes? “I guess we’re at an impasse, then.”

“Not quite. I think I might have a solution.”

He couldn’t think of one to save his life. “I’m listening.” This time he kept his arms loose at his sides, his innards knotting up instead.

“You have to experience what it’s like to be one of my patients.”

He thumbed through his mental schedule. “If you’ll give me a specific time, I’ll see if I can make it out to observe—”

“Oh, no. I don’t mean you can watch. I want you to ‘do.”’ She leaned a curvy hip against the rail of the wooden fence next to her.

“Do?” The muscles of his chest tightened, and he realized he’d crossed his arms again. This time he let them stay put.

“I want you to go through therapy as if you were one of my patients.”

“I don’t understand.” Actually, he did understand. He just didn’t want to. Already the gears in his head were beginning to whine like one of the bone saws he used in surgery.

Her smile grew, a genuine flashing of straight white teeth, her ponytail whisking back and forth as she shook her head. “You don’t have to understand, Dr. Dunning. Not yet. You just have to show up.”

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_18f6d58d-88a4-5df7-b9a5-bac5f5b1c8ef)

SHOW ME YOURS, and I’ll show you mine.

Trisha mounted and gathered the reins in her left hand, giving Brutus a quick pat on the neck with the other hand for standing still.

The good doctor had taken up her challenge two days ago and upped the ante in a way that was juvenile and yet, oh, so effective. He’d expected her to balk. Had counted on it, if she wasn’t mistaken. She’d made a quip about how safe her horses were, that her patients hadn’t shed a drop of blood yet—a good thing, she’d said laughingly, since she couldn’t stand the sight of blood.

He’d gotten this speculative gleam in his eye as soon as the words had passed between her lips, then had issued his ultimatum. And assured her that his profession did indeed involve blood.

Was she game?

Game? Really?

She’d been forced to stab a man—had almost killed him. So the doctor’s jibe had stuck in her craw. As if she had been some sissy, shying away from a paper cut or a bloody nose. It was so much more than that.

So she’d tilted her chin, taken her aversion to blood and guts and forced it to the back of her mind, drawing the heavy drapes closed on reality and agreeing to his request. He would sit through three sessions of therapy—as in literally sitting on Crow, her gentle giant—once he’d observed three sessions with a patient. She, in turn, had to sit in the glassed-in room above the surgical suite and watch him saw through a person’s skull. That wasn’t exactly the way he’d put it, but it was basically the same thing.

Dr. Dunning had definitely gotten the better end of that deal. Only she could tell that he didn’t see it that way. His fear of Brutus had been almost palpable.

I was trying not to scare him.

That thought had never crossed her mind as she’d stood in that stall, her own knees quivering with terror when he’d silently motioned her out of there. He’d been as scared as she had.

Did that mean their mutual fears canceled each other out?

Hardly.

But if he could push through his, then she needed to try to push through hers. As it was, she’d seized his words, telling him that meant he had to “see hers’ first—in other words, he was going to see how she operated. Whether or not he’d show up for her session with Bethany Williams this afternoon was still to be seen. She was counting on him really wanting to do what was right for his patient. And since Clara’s team of doctors had done almost all they could for her through surgery and the normal course of physical therapy, her mom wanted to expand their horizons. Try some other options.

Trisha had only been in Dusty Hills six months, so getting the endorsement of a local neurosurgeon seemed a good way to get her name out...to put her on the path toward making it in this small town. If he could just see Clara on a therapy horse, he’d see how much it could help her. The five-year-old had definitely responded to the way Trisha had stroked her tiny fingers over Crow’s inky-black coat. Trisha just needed Dr. Dunning to sign off on treatment, both for the sake of health insurance and her own liability insurance. Which reminded her, she’d have to list the good doctor as one of her patients for a little while so he’d be covered. Just in case.

She sighed and fanned her legs, making a clucking sound as she asked Brutus to break into a slow jog. She’d already warmed him up with some circles on the longe line, so he responded to the request quickly. “Someday soon I’m going to ask you to lope, big boy. Just to show you it’s safe.”

Her horse had endured the wrong end of a whip in his past life, the long pale scars—devoid of hair—visible on his haunches. He still shied away from sudden movements near his head—especially if those movements were made by a man—and Trisha couldn’t blame him. He was as much in need of therapy as any of her other patients. So when she’d told Dr. Dunning he was a special case, she hadn’t been kidding. But the horse had come a long way over the past several months. So had she.

In his own way, Brutus was helping her recover as much as she was helping him. Guiding the gelding to the center of the indoor arena to go through a large sweeping figure eight, they changed direction from clockwise to counterclockwise, and she smiled when one of his ears swiveled back to face her, listening for any verbal cues she might give. “Good boy.”

Although Brutus had shown his nerves at Dr. Dunning’s presence in no uncertain terms, things could have been a whole lot worse, according to what she’d been told by the rescue organization. Trisha might have maintained her poker face a little better than her horse had, but she hadn’t been unaffected. Oh, no. Especially not once she’d realized the man had not been a killer sent to deliver a personalized anniversary message, courtesy of her ex-husband. Her fear had morphed into something else entirely when he’d flipped her onto her back, his firm warm chest pressing against her breasts, his breath mingling with hers. Her thoughts had taken off in other directions. Dangerous directions.

She’d wanted to wheel away from him just like her horse had. Only she hadn’t been able to, and not just because he’d had her pinned to the ground with his body, hands imprisoning hers.