CHAPTER FOUR

      IT WAS THE sight of a horse trailer that brought Austin out of the house, Shep and Harry, the three-legged beagle, Calvin’s dog, scuttling to keep pace.

      Garrett and Tate gave him passing nods but didn’t speak. They were intent on unloading the new arrival.

      Austin, curious, unable to resist making the acquaintance of yet another four-legged hay burner, hung around, watching. Garrett opened the trailer and pulled down the ramp.

      The small horse lay in the narrow bed of the trailer, delicate legs turned under, barely strong enough, it seemed to Austin, to hold up its head. A black-and-white paint, under all the scruff and dried mud and thistle burrs, the poor critter had been hard done by, that was clear. Its ribs jutted out from its side, each one as clearly differentiated from the next as the rungs on a ladder.

      Austin spat out a swear word and started forward just as Libby and Paige drove up in two different vehicles—Libby was driving a jazzy red ’Vette, while Paige was in her dull subcompact.

      As if by tacit agreement, Tate and Garrett stepped back out of the way so Austin could climb into the trailer. Squatting beside the animal, he ran a slow hand along the length of her neck. The hide felt gritty against Austin’s palm, and damp with sweat.

      “Meet Molly,” Tate said, his voice gruff. Briefly, he sketched in the outlines of the call Libby had gotten from her friends at the animal shelter in town, told how he and Garrett had gone straight to the sparse pasture where the mare had apparently been abandoned—they weren’t sure how long ago.

      Never taking his eyes off Molly, Austin listened to the account, swore again, once he’d heard it all and processed it. The mare’s halter was so old and so tight that it was partially embedded in the hide on one side of her head—evidently, somebody had put it on her and then just left it. Her slatted sides heaved with the effort to breathe, and the look of sorrowing hope in her eyes as she gazed at Austin sent his heart into a slow, backward roll.

      “You’re going to be all right now, Molly,” he promised the mare.

      She nickered, the sound barely audible, then nuzzled him in the shoulder.

      The backs of Austin’s eyes stung. He stood and got out of the way, feeling worse than useless, so Garrett and Tate could get the mare to her feet, a process that involved considerable kindly cajoling and some lifting, too. Molly stumbled a few times crossing the barnyard, and they had to stop twice so she could rest, but finally she made it into her new stall.

      Some of the other horses whinnied in greeting, watching with interest as the mare took her place among them.

      Molly had spent her strength, and she immediately folded into the thick bed of wood shavings covering the stall floor.

      “Farley’s on his way,” Garrett said, standing behind Austin in the breezeway, laying a hand on his shoulder.

      Farley Pomeroy was the local large-animal vet; he’d been taking care of McKettrick livestock for some forty-odd years. When their dad, Jim, was ten or twelve, he’d fallen off the hay truck one summer day and splintered the bone in his right forearm so badly that he required surgery. It had been Doc Pomeroy, who happened to be on the ranch at the time, ministering to a sick calf, who treated Jim for shock and rigged up a splint and a sling for the fifty-mile trip to the hospital.

      Austin nodded to let Garrett know he’d heard. If ever a horse had needed Farley’s expert attention, it was this one.

      Tate came out of Molly’s stall, took off his hat.

      Austin realized then that Libby and Paige were standing nearby.

      “You’ll wait for Farley?” Tate asked, meeting Austin’s gaze.

      Once again, Austin nodded. “I’ll wait.”

      He was aware of it when Tate and Garrett and Libby left the barn, aware too, even without looking, that Paige had stayed behind.

      Austin opened the stall door and stepped through it, dropping to one knee beside the little mare.

      He didn’t ask her to do it, but Paige found a bucket, filled it from a nearby faucet, and brought it into the stall. Set it down within Molly’s reach. Austin murmured a thanks without looking back at Paige and steadied the bucket with both hands, so the animal could drink.

      “Slow, now,” he told Molly. “Real slow.”

      When she’d emptied the bucket, Paige took it and went back for more water.

      Molly drank thirstily, then rolled onto her side, thrusting her legs out from under her and making both Austin and Paige move quickly to get out of the way.

      Shep peered into the stall from the breezeway, Harry at his side.

      The dogs made such a picture standing there that Austin gave a ragged chuckle and shook his head. Molly didn’t seem frightened of them, but he stroked her neck just to reassure her, told her she was among friends now, and there was no need to worry.

      “Shall I take them into the house?” Paige asked.

      “Might be better if they weren’t underfoot when Doc gets here,” Austin answered, not looking at her. “Thanks.”

      She left the stall and then the barn, and while Harry was cooperative, it took some doing to get Shep to go along with the plan. He wanted to stick around and help out with the horse-tending, it seemed.

      Insisting to himself that it didn’t matter one way or the other, Austin wondered if Paige would come back out to wait with him or stay inside the house.

      She returned within five minutes, handed him an icy bottle of water.

      He thanked her again, unscrewed the top and drank deeply. His back didn’t hurt, but he knew he’d be asking for it if he continued to crouch, so he stood, stretched his legs, finished off the water.

      Paige looked almost like a ranch wife, standing there in that horse stall, her arms folded and her face worried. Maybe it was the jeans.

      “How can things like this happen?” she muttered, staring at poor Molly.

      Austin knew Paige didn’t expect an answer; she was thinking out loud, that was all. He wanted to put an arm around her shoulders right about then and just hold her against his side for a little while, but he wrote it off as a bad idea and kept his distance—insofar as that was possible in an eight-by-eight-foot stall.

      A silence fell between the two of them, but it was a comfortable one. Austin moved out into the breezeway, and he and Paige stood side by side in front of the half door of the stall, both of them focused on the mare.

      Soon, Doc Pomeroy’s old rig rattled up outside, backfired, then did some clanking and clattering as the engine shut down.

      Austin and Paige exchanged glances, not quite smiles but almost, and turned to watch as the old man trundled into the barn, carrying his battered bag in one gnarled hand. Probably pushing eighty, Doc still had powerful shoulders, a fine head of white hair and the stamina of a much younger man.

      “Come on in here, Clifton,” he said, half turning to address the figure hesitating in the wide, sunlit doorway. “I might need a hand.”

      Clifton Pomeroy, Doc’s only son, hadn’t shown his face in or around Blue River in a long time. Not since Jim and Sally McKettrick’s funeral, in fact.

      As kids, Cliff and Jim McKettrick had been the best of friends. Later on, they’d been business partners. When Jim had shut down the oil wells on the Silver Spur, though, Cliff had objected strenuously, since he’d been making a lot of money brokering