Whitehorse (2 page)

"Don't move," the face said.

The man grabbed the door handle and wrenched open the door, leaned over Leah, and popped the seatbelt loose. His shirt was soaked and rain streamed from his hat, down the front of her sweater.

"Dr. Starr?" he asked with the slightest hint of Native American accent, gently touching her face. "Are you all right?"

"What happened?" she finally managed.

"The horse—"

"Oh God. I hit it, didn't I?" She shoved the man back and slid from the truck. Her legs buckled. She grabbed the truck door, vaguely aware that she was bogged to her ankles in mud and the rain was fast drenching her hair and clothes. The cold and wet slammed her back to reality as she looked up into Roy Moon's concerned eyes. "Is it dead?"

He shook his head and his jaw clenched. She had seen that look a hundred times in men's faces when they were too damned macho to allow their emotions to show over an animal. "Where is it?" she shouted through the rain.

Roy
pointed to the opposite side of the road where a group of men had collected, some with flashlights trained on the ground. She struggled up the embankment, ran toward the gathering, and elbowed the silent onlookers aside. With rain pounding her head and shoulders, she looked down on the injured horse—a gray Arabian mare on her side, lips drawn back in shock, her breath rising in steamy spurts from her contracted nostrils. No matter how many times she had witnessed a downed horse the last years, she still could not get over the sick feeling the sight gave her. But this was worse than she had first imagined. By the looks of the mare she was very much in foal.

"I think her leg is broke," someone said.

Dropping to her knees, Leah checked the mare's pulse and respiration, talking softly, comfortingly as the horse raised her head and made a sound like a groan in her throat.

"Mr. Whitehorse ain't gonna like this," a man said.

Roy
bent down beside Leah. "She was colicky. Ramon was walking her until you arrived. She spooked at the thunder and bolted. Went right through the fence before we could stop her."

Leah noted the cuts and abrasions on the mare's chest and forelegs—nothing that could not be remedied with a few stitches. Blood was nominal. Scarring would be minimal.

"She's in foal,"
Roy
said, his brown face distorting in despair. "This one was going to be special."

"When is she due?"

"Any time."

Leah sat down in the mud, legs crossed, elbows on her knees. She watched steam rise from the mare's trembling body and did her best to think. "We'll need to address the shock first. Then the leg. There are IVs in the back of my truck. We'll get her stabilized, then try to get her to my lab."

"Are you sure you're all right, Doc?"
Roy
asked. "You're shakin' awful bad."

Was she?

Blinking rain from her eyes, Leah stared down at her hands, which were trembling badly—too badly to attempt inserting a needle into the mare's vein.

A dually truck approached, its
diesel
engine roaring more loudly than the rain. It pulled off the road and onto the shoulder, its headlights blinding Leah so she was forced to shield her eyes with her hand.

"Here comes trouble," someone whispered.

"I'm outta here," said another.

The truck door opened.

Johnny Whitehorse stepped out, his long legs clad in tight denim. He wore a fringed buckskin jacket and a sweat-stained cowboy hat. He had allowed his black hair to grow long again—Leah remembered the first time he'd cut it those years ago, thinking he would better blend in with the white boys on the football team. The idea seemed as ridiculous now as it had then. A Mescalero Apache standing six foot three at sixteen years old, Johnny Whitehorse had stood as much chance of blending in with the Anglo crowd of
Ruidoso
High as the
Trump
Tower
would if it were set smack in the middle of the Mescalero reservation.

Roy
put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. "You sure you're up to this?" he asked softly.

"It was going to happen eventually," she snapped more curtly than she intended, then shakily smiled her apology. "Will you help me up? I'm not certain my legs will hold me."

Roy
offered his hand. She clung to it almost desperately as she attempted to stand, telling herself that her reasons for this ridiculous light-headedness had more to do with her near-disaster, not to mention her exhaustion, than it did with the fact that after twelve years she was about to come face to face with the only man she had ever really loved—and here she stood in the mud after running down one of his prized mares. Knowing Johnny's reputation for confrontation, she suspected this wasn't going to be pleasant.

Adjusting his hat over his brow, Johnny stepped down the embankment with the same ease of movement that had fascinated her those years ago. He walked to the horse, regarding the mare a silent moment before raising his gaze to Leah.

She held her breath.

Johnny's eyes narrowed. One corner of his mouth turned under ever so slightly as he regarded her up and down.

Roy
cleared his throat. "You remember Doc Starr, Johnny. Used to be Leah Foster."

"I know who the hell she is," Johnny drawled, looking back at the horse. "Can she be saved?" he asked in a monotone.

Leah opened and closed her mouth as her mind scattered over a thousand things she thought he
might
have said in that moment: Gee, long time no see; I've thought of you often; Glad you've come back to Ruidoso. Then again, Johnny had never been one to show
any
feeling other than anger. Her face burned and she was forced to remind herself that it was the fever making her feel as if she were flushed with heat. Not the fact that his brazen snub had in any way embarrassed her.

"I don't know," she finally replied in a tone as emotionally removed as his. "I'll need to examine her more closely for broken bones. The fact that she's in foal doesn't help. Ultimately you may have a choice to make. Her or the foal."

Looking at her again from beneath the brim of his hat, he said, "My choices have always left a lot to be desired."

Leah turned away. She struggled up the embankment and headed for her truck. "Self righteous, egotistical bastard," she muttered. "You haven't changed a bit."

Leah stepped into her kitchen at a quarter after five. The room was warm and dim and smelled of the chili Shamika had cooked for supper.

Shamika sat at the kitchen table, arms crossed over her stomach, head slightly tilted to one side as she regarded Leah through the shadows, her full brown lips pressed in agitation, her foot tapping the floor. "Lord, girl, look at you," she said. "You're a mess and dead on your feet."

Leaning back against the door, Leah covered her face with her hands. "I ran over one of Johnny's prized mares."

"I can think of better ways of getting reacquainted."

Leah feigned a smile. "I'm in no mood for anything remotely resembling humor, especially where Johnny Whitehorse is concerned."

"Did you kill her?"

"That remains to be seen. Fortunately, nothing was broken. A miracle in itself. There was a great deal of muscle injury. Could eventually lead to fibrotic myopathy. She's in foal and due at any time. If we can get her through the delivery I'd say she'll make it."

"Yes, but will you? Aside from looking like a drowned mouse, your forehead looks as if someone clubbed you with a bat."

She shrugged and cautiously touched the lump above her left eyebrow. It was going to hurt like hell later. "Tell me again why I do this, Shamika. I could have been a doctor, you know. I could have sat in my sterile office with my degrees plastered over the wall while people grew roots waiting for their appointments. My father would have approved. We might even be friends."

"It would take a whole lot more than your being an M.D. for you and Senator Foster to be friends." Shamika stood and walked to the stove, where a kettle simmered on a burner. She poured hot water into a cup of powdered chocolate and tiny dry marshmallows that looked like pebbles. She stirred it until it was frothy, then carried it to the table and pointed to a chair. "Sit, girl, and drink. I'll get you a dry sweater before you catch pneumonia—if you haven't already."

Leah waited until Shamika left the room before removing her muddy boots, then she dragged off her soggy jacket, and leaving it all in a heap by the door, moved to the table. She wrapped her hands around the cup as she sank into the chair and allowed the steam to prickle her cheeks and eyelids, and she thought of Johnny Whitehorse.

Nope, he had not changed a bit. Not since the first time she'd ever set eyes on him—back when his father trained her family's horses. Even then Johnny thumbed his nose at propriety. Shirtless, in fringed buckskin breeches, his black hair in braids, he rode her father's horses bareback around the ranch, and occasionally down Ruidoso's main street, flaunting his Mescalero heritage with an arrogance that belied his poverty. He had carved out a reputation for himself as a rebel, not only with the whites who looked on his antics as an insult and a threat, but also with those of his tribe who considered his actions an open invitation to further trouble with the white man. Had his grandfather not been the tribe's most revered medicine man, things might have gotten ugly.

Shamika returned and wrapped a sweater around Leah's shoulders. With her hands that were as rich brown as the chocolate Leah drank, Shamika massaged the back of Leah's neck, along the tops of her shoulders, and down her spine. Each touch was a glorious agony, and within minutes the tightness that would inevitably leave her feeling as if she had been pummeled by rocks had melted under her friend's adept touch.

"You're burning with fever," Shamika said. "You better get to bed."

"
Roy
's keeping an eye on the mare for the next few hours. You'll need to wake me by eight."

"Sure. Now get to bed. I'll make you some TheraFlu. That'll help the aches and pains long enough for you to get some sleep." Shamika tapped on her shoulder and said, "Go."

Leah finished off the chocolate and moved toward the door. Looking back, she watched Shamika turn up the burner under the kettle, then reach into the medicine cupboard for the box of flu medicine. "What would I ever do without you?" she asked, and Shamika shrugged.

"You got me," she replied.

"I mean it," Leah said. "If it wasn't for you I would probably be forced to beg help from my father—"

"Leah Starr don't beg help from nobody, hon. You'd find a way. You always do. You're the strongest woman I've ever known."

"Strong? I thought the word was
stubborn."

"That too."

"I'm not feeling too strong
or
stubborn right now."

"'Cause you're sick and tired. After a good night's sleep you'll feel different."

"Everything will be the same when I wake up. I'm just on the verge of bankruptcy. I'm two months behind on my rent, not to mention your salary. The ranchers around here think a woman can't possibly have brains enough to be a vet. My truck is bogged up to its axles in mud, and … I'm whining. God, I hate whiners."