Page 30 of Omega's Forbidden Heat
She gets the phone call the next morning. Luckily, it is not Sara but one of the other girls from the stable because she couldn’t bear to hear what she knows would be displeasure in Sara’s voice. She jumps in the car straightaway, forgetting all about the class she has starting in 30 minutes over in the city and driving straight to the stables, her hands shaking on the steering wheel and her lip nearly raw from chewing by the time she screeches into the parking lot. Not bothering to lock the car, she makes straight for the stable, finding him there lying on his side, his head resting in the straw. He’s panting. She can see the rise and fall of his chest and she can’t open the stable door quickly enough, swearing as she does.
Crashing down by his side, she rests her hand on his soft neck, shocked by how hot he feels and the dampness of sweat coating his mane.
“Hey boy,” his eyes blink and swivel towards her. “Hey, you’re not feeling so good?”
There are footsteps on the cobbled path outside and she grimaces, her body tensing. The footsteps grow nearer and stop outside Maddock’s stable.
“I heard he was sick,” Sara says with annoyance. “I hope he’s not going to give it to any of the other horses.”
One of the other horses probably gave it to him, she thinks, but she doesn’t say it out loud. She doesn’t want to start another row.
“I will get the vet up here straight way to find out what’s wrong with him,” Amy says, stroking Maddock’s nose and the hair between his eyes. His eyelids droop shut and she swallows down a swell of panic. She doesn’t want Sara to see that, she doesn’t want her telling her friends about the pathetic Omega.
“Yes, well, hurry up about it. I don’t want it getting out among the other owners that we have a sick horse here.” Amy can feel Sara glare at the back of her neck but she refuses to turn to look at her, instead keeping her attention focused on Maddock and soon the woman leaves, her footsteps dying away down the pathway.
Amy lets out a sigh of relief and calls the vet on her mobile, then messages Finn — he got home from the club much later than her last night and had been asleep when she left this morning. The vet arrives 45 minutes later and Finn soon after.
She’s standing outside the stable, leaning over the bottom half of the door as the vet paces around Maddox, when Finn comes to stand next to her, hands in his pocket. She can tell straight away that he’s in a foul mood and she wishes she’d never told him.
“How’s he doing?” he asks.
She chews her bottom lip. “Vet thinks it’s probably a virus — there’s something going around, apparently. But she’s checking him out and then she’ll take some blood.”
He nods, examining the vet. “And how you doing?”
She exhales. “You know, worried about him.”
He strokes his palm up and down her back. “He’ll be alright, Squirt.”
“I hope so.” She peers at him. “How’s your head this morning?” She wonders if that is the reason he looks so grumpy.
“Fine. How’s yours?”
“I told you I wasn’t drinking.”
“Want to tell me anything else about last night?” He catches her eye and gives her a heavy look.
She raises her eyebrows. “No.”
“What about you and Jack?”
Heat creeps towards her cheeks and she looks away. It’s not something she wants to talk about right now. Not with everything that just transpired between her and Jack last night — the dancing, the squeeze of her hand — has left her so confused. “What do you mean, me and Jack?”
“Was he trying to hit on you?”
“Finn!”
“Looked like it from where I was standing.”
“We were just dancing. To that song, remember?”.
“But then where did you both disappear to?”
“I just gave him a lift home.”
His eyebrow shoot up his forehead.
“Honestly, Finn! That isn’t an innuendo for anything. I gave him a lift, that’s all.”
