Page 18 of The Front Runner
“Yup.”
“Jesus. Did you have to tranquilize Billie to get him over here?”
“Don’t be a dick. She’s been sick over this foal. She hates you, but she wants him to survive more.”
Feeling properly chastised, I hide behind my cup of coffee for a moment before changing the subject. “He needs a name. It’s important he has a name.”
“Why?” Her voice is quizzical as she steps in and holds the stethoscope over the nameless colt’s ribs.
“Because he’s going to make it. A name ties him to this world. It gives him an identity. Means we recognize his existence.”
I see the searching look she gives me. It’s quick, but it’s there. Full of curiosity.
Every time I ran away as I child, I’d end up with the local villagers who lived nearby. I’d hide out in their homes and listen to their stories, their teachings, their connectedness. That immense sense of community—it all stuck with me. Rather than growing up to be a man who was afraid to fall into my parents’ footsteps, I decided it was my goal to prove that I wouldn’t. I’d have a wife, I’d have a family, I’d have it all, and I would treat them like gold.
She rolls her lips together but doesn’t look up from where she’s staring down at the foal. Her mouth moves silently as she counts his heart beats.
“Then name him. He needs all the help he can get,” she says as she steps away. “I’ll be back later to check on him again. I need to go open the clinic. Can you make sure he’s nursing throughout the day? I’m going to do a blood draw when I come back. I’m probably going to bring Billie—she needs to see that everything is good. So can you either keep your mouth shut or make yourself scarce?”
I nod, trying to hide my amusement over her thinking she can dictate my behavior or whereabouts on my property. My gaze follows her decisive movements as she packs up her kit and heads out. I shouldn’t check her out the way I am, admiring the roundness of her ass in the pair of dark wash Levi’s she’s wearing. But goddamn, she fills them out so well.
Her hand taps the frame of the stall door as she leans back in, tongue darting out over her bottom lip. “And, uh, thanks for the blanket last night.”
“Next time I’m joining you.” I wink and she just rolls her eyes.
I should try harder to keep things professional and not let my curiosity about Dr. Mira Thorne take over my brain. I shouldn’t think with the wrong head.
But the more time I spend with her, the more of a challenge that feels like. I like a challenge… but keeping my hands off Mira isn’t one I’m sure I want to take on. The woman is not my biggest fan, this much I know.
But then, I’ve got three dates to make herwantmy hands on her body.
7
Mira
Nice Stefan is trippingme the fuck out. I’ve spent almost every appointment today trying to figure out what to do with my opinion of him.
I stare out the big floor-to-ceiling windows of the clinic as I wait for the x-rays I took to develop. Taking in the rolling hills around Gold Rush Ranch, I mull over the past thirty-six hours. I had Stefan neatly classified into a file where I put people I feel mostly indifferent about. He’d done some shitty things, but I’d also been witness to him being a decent human being. He was morally neutral. One experience sort of cancelling out the other.
Past tense.
Now?
I don’t know. Watching him these last couple of days threw a wrench into all my preconceived notions. Was he a cocky prick? Yes. But was he also charming and sensitive? Also yes.
Should I be mad at him for forcing my hand on the dates? Ugh. Probably. But I’m not. And I don’t really want to analyze why that is. I especially don’t want to think about the possibility that he’s using me to get at my friends.
I thought I’d be worried about leaving the foal there with him, but I’m not at all. He slept beside it, for crying out loud. I watched the way he ran his deft fingers over the colt’s face—the expression of wonder on his own had been like a punch to the chest.
No, I’m not worried about the foal at all. I feel it in my bones that Stefan is going to name him and love him the way he deserves. It had been the look in his eye, the gentleness in his touch. He was nothing if not determined.
For one mindless moment, I wondered how it would feel to have Stefan run his hands over me that way. It wassucha bad idea. It would backfire spectacularly, especially with my friends. But it almost made me want it more. Under different circumstances, he’d be a fun one-time thing.
The door swings open, shaking me from my reverie.
“How’s the baby?” Hank grins at me as his broad frame fills the front door, his cheeks and ears red with the bite of the cool air outside, and I marvel at how the barn manager still looks like he has a tan in the middle of winter. I guess years spent in the sun get you a perma-tan. People pay good money to look like that.
I smile at the older man who swooped in to help Vaughn run the farm when an alleged cheating scandal broke. The man who’s been a mainstay in Billie’s life since her teen years, and a close friend of Dermot Harding, the founder of Gold Rush Ranch.
