Jake’s heart thumped against his chest as he sat atop his horse Tamara waiting their turn. It was a massive adrenalin rush every time the crowd at Stampede Stadium roared and rose to their feet when he and Tamara rushed out on the floor of the arena. Granted, it was a far cry from the bronco busting he had done when he was younger, but he was almost thirty. Plus, there was too much on the line now that he had taken over the ranch for him to put himself in that sort of danger. Though barrel racing was typically a women-only event in most places, his county was one of the few that held competitions for male participants, and he never missed an event.

After adjusting his white Stetson, Jake focused on the course as the mare charged out the gate. The pinto quarter horse was bred to race, and she had the heart of a champion. Tamara galloped forward and spun around the first barrel, changed leads and headed for the next making loops around each in a cloverleaf pattern. The crowd cheered for them as they rounded the first and second barrels and then charged toward the third. The mare knew the course well, having practiced it repeatedly for months. It was more her skill than his that made her a crowd favorite to win this event.

“Get it, girl,” he urged as Tamara rounded the third barrel and headed down the home stretch.

She seemed right on target at first, but then something went wrong. She should be turning, preparing to continue in the opposite direction, but instead, she was going straight. He pulled at Tamara's reins to right her, but it wasn’t working. She was faltering, falling, despite trying to maintain her footing.

Jake saw the fence, dangerously close, and felt a bit of panic set in. She was going to hit it sideways from the looks of things. He prepared to dislodge himself, to jump to safety before things got worse. Instead, he found he was too late freeing himself from the stirrups only made it easier for him to go sailing across the fence and toward the set of metal bleachers on the other side. He landed with a heavy thud, thankfully just beyond the metal rows of seating.

For a moment, he was stunned, the breath knocked out of him from the impact. He could hear voices coming closer and feel the bodies of people that began to surround him — some out of concern for his well-being and others just for ghoulish delight in the event there was a serious injury. Those were the two types of people who came to rodeos. Many really enjoy the events, but some were only there for the injuries. They were the same sort of people who went to the round car track for the crashes. “Back up. Let us through,” Jake heard a woman shouting.

Jake was slowly regaining his bearings. He turned to see a man and a woman in paramedic uniforms slipping through the people toward him. “Give us some room, people,” the male paramedic barked at them, no doubt far too familiar with the sorts in for cheap thrills.

Jake began slowly to stand. The female paramedic tried to keep him down for a moment until she could check him over, but he was having none of it.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. Let me through. I need to check on Tamara,” he said.

“Let me check you over first,” she replied.

“I told you, I’m fine!” he barked.

Jake pushed his way through the crowd, dimly aware of their applause as he had gotten up to his feet, their way of expressing relief that he wasn’t seriously injured. It wasn’t that he was ungrateful for the concern shown, but he had more important things on his mind. Making his way toward the arena, someone handed him his white Stetson. Then he noticed Tamara being led off toward her trailer by Luke and Tucker his ranch hands. She was limping. A bad sign that something serious was wrong.

“How bad is it?” Jake asked, catching up to them as they continued toward the truck and trailer.

“I don’t know. You can see how the mare is limping, but at least she got up and is putting weight on it, so hopefully not too bad. Tucker has already put in a call to the vet to meet us at the ranch,” Luke said.

Jake stopped in his tracks and asked, “What about the vet here? There is always one here at the stadium during a rodeo. I don’t want to wait.”

“He had to leave. There was an injury to another horse earlier. It had to be put down, so he is dealing with that,” Luke explained shaking his head.

“Shit. Was it Simmons? How long is it going to take for him to get a look at her?” Jake walked on.

“It’s not Simmons. They apparently brought in some vet from somewhere else. Simmons up and left town!”

“What do you mean, he up and left town?” Jake scowled.

“I don’t know, man. He was old. You know how he was getting. I think he took ill and sold his practice to go live in the city nearer family. It was pretty sudden from what I hear.”

“Damned right it was sudden! He was just out at the ranch last week checking on the livestock and said nothing about it. Now he’s gone, and we have to wait on some vet from out of town?”

“No. No. There is a new vet already here. She just arrived yesterday and moved into the place she bought off Simmons. The rodeo had already set up this deal with the out of town vet, so she isn’t here, but she’s the one meeting us at the farm,” Luke explained.

“Well, hopefully, she’s a good one.” Jake grimaced and shook his head when he got close enough to look Tamara up and down. “I guess we’ll soon find out how good this new vet is,” he said.

Jake wasn’t happy with the news about Simmons. The elderly vet had been around since he was a boy. Doc Simmons had tended the animals on his father’s ranch for as long as he could remember and now that he had inherited it, he had continued to do so. It was going to be weird not seeing him pull up in the second-hand ambulance he had converted to a makeshift mobile vet clinic several years ago, replacing the previous one that had been an ice cream truck in another life.

“You want me to drive?” Tucker asked once he had Tamara safely shored up into the horse trailer. Jake glanced down at himself. He hadn’t considered how he must look after taking such a fall if you wanted to call what happened a fall.

“Yeah, I can’t be bothered. What a shit day this is turning out to be.”

They rode in relative silence back toward the ranch while Jake peered out the window scowling the entire trip. They wasted no time once they arrived getting the mare out of the trailer and into the largest stall where she would have plenty room to move around. The swelling in her leg was already visible. It made Jake feel ill just thinking about her being in pain.

“How long until this vet gets here?” he asked Tucker.

“Should be any time now. She was still settling in, but said she’d throw together a kit and would get out here right away.”

Jake nodded forlornly and looked back at Tamara. He noticed a spot of blood on her rear flank and felt a bit of panic begin to set in. Walking over to it, he reached out to get a better look, so he could see where it might be coming from. Had she fallen or scraped herself on the fence during the race?

“Jake, don’t worry that’s not hers,” Tucker told him.

“Huh?” Jake replied, not understanding for a moment.

“It’s yours. Maybe you might want to go in and clean up a bit before the vet gets here. You know, shower off the mud and slap a Band-Aid or two on those cuts. Maybe even some peroxide is in order.”

Jake shrugged and replied, “I’ll live.”

“I’m sure you will. Just a suggestion.”

“Shit,” Jake grumbled. “Call me when she gets here. Damn it, where is my phone?” He fumbled about at his pockets for a moment before Tucker stopped him, and pulled Jake’s cell phone from the glove compartment of the truck.

“You gave it to me to put away before the race. Remember? How hard did you hit your head,” Tucker asked?

“Not as hard as I’m going to hit yours,” Jake replied.

Tucker laughed and moved aside for him to pass. Jake made his way hastily across the center of the barn and out the large double-doors. He covered the distance between the working part of the farm and his house in a matter of minutes. Now that the adrenaline from the accident and his concern for Tamara was subsiding a bit, he could feel his aches and pains.

Examining himself in the bathroom mirror, he discovered that he did look a bit rough. There were several small cuts on his forehead and one on his neck. The latter was smeared, most likely from where he had reached up to rub his neck, as he often did while looking over Tamara. He must have transferred it to her hindquarters when examining her.

“Shit,” he mumbled to himself.

Turning around, he twisted the shower knob and let the water heat up to a nice steam before stripping down and stepping inside. The aches from his fall were beginning to hit him hard now, but the hot water countered it a bit. It would be nice to just stand in the shower and let the hot water massage away the pain for a few moments, but he wanted to get back to Tamara before the vet arrived.

Shutting off the water, he hurriedly dried himself and slapped a couple of Band-Aids on the larger cuts and scrapes. Putting on a fresh pair of jeans and boots, he fished about for a clean shirt in the unfolded clothes that littered his bed. He had never been much of a housekeeper and was just as likely to sleep beneath the fresh laundry as on it if not for the cleaning woman that sorted it out once a week.

She’d be back from vacation next week, and he would have to pay her double to clean up the mess he’d made. Otherwise, he’d feel guilty asking her to do the work. Many people who had achieved his status in life wouldn’t be worried about the help, but that wasn’t his way. He had grown up on hard times and been to places where people had less than nothing, not even security. Memories flooded his head, unwanted memories of places he’d never care to see again.

“Not now,” he said aloud, a verbal trigger he’d adopted after his time in the service. It was designed to refocus him, to center him into the here and now instead of some dark place, he didn’t care to go. Sometimes, it worked. Today it did the trick. He slipped the least wrinkled shirt he could find over his head, noting that he’d have to do some ironing before Melanie returned, as he had used up all the shirts that were wearable without thermal intervention. Perhaps he could just wear the ones he had washed and left in the dryer.

He’d deal with the laundry situation later. For now, he wanted to get back down to the barn and check on Tamara. Hopefully, the new vet wasn’t an idiot. He didn’t relish putting his prize horse and the rest of his livestock in the hands of someone who didn’t know one end of them from the other and it was a small, remote place. It wasn’t as if he had much choice in veterinary services beyond paying one from another county to come in, which was fine if it was not an emergency, but he needed a solid vet if he had to get someone in quickly.

The buzz of his cell phone nearby jostled him from his thoughts. Retrieving it, he saw that it was Tucker and answered the call.

“Yeah?”

“Jake, the vet’s here.”

“Be right down,” he replied.

Jake shoved the phone into his pocket and headed for the front door, making his way back across the field toward the stables. He took note of the run down old vet van that had been traveling here for years, a nineties-era Tioga Montara camper that had been converted into a mobile clinic. Apparently, some things never changed.

“Jake, this is Doctor Vanessa Hart,” Tucker told him as he stepped in.

“Good to meet you. Jake Morrow,” he said, addressing the woman standing in front of him. She looked incredibly young to be a vet. Perhaps it was just good genes or maybe that he was used to looking at the crusty old vet that had been coming here for so long.

“Nice to meet you,” she replied politely. “Shall we get a look at your girl then?”

Jake found himself instantly drawn to her. Vanessa was gorgeous with her long black hair in a ponytail and bright blue eyes. It was a tomboyish look on a lot of women, but she made it look ravishing. He especially liked the way she personalized Tamara, not referring to her as simply “the horse” or even by her name, but acknowledging their bond by calling her “his girl.”

“Yes, please,” Jake said.

He reminded himself that the new vet wasn’t there to be eye candy but to take care of his horse. He could ogle her all he wanted, but it wasn’t going to get Tamara better. Walking with her over to the stall, he led the pinto out into the open, groaning as he saw that his mare seemed to be limping even worse now than she had been earlier. Please don’t make me put her down, he pleaded silently.

The days were long gone when a lame horse was completely doomed if their injury was too severe and the pain for them was too much. Euthanasia was sometimes the kinder option, at least for the horse. In the military, Jake had seen grown men suffer, men who couldn’t speak for themselves at the time. They didn’t have the luxury of an option like euthanasia. If more people could see what he had seen, they might reconsider leaving that option on the table for humans and not just animals.

“Tell me what happened,” the doctor asked as she reached down and gently urged Tamara to lift her hoof for her to examine.

“Barrel racing. She lost her balance on a turn,” Jake said.

“Did that cause the injury or did she lose her balance because she was already injured?” Jake’s eyes narrowed as he took in the full implication of the question. There were a lot of men out there that would ride a wounded horse, ignoring what pain it might cause the animal. He wasn’t one of those men.

“She was fine before the race,” he replied coolly.

“Are you sure?” She persisted.

Jake could see her looking up at him now; one eyebrow lifted as if to scrutinize his response a little further. Was she really insinuating that he might have injured his horse further by allowing it to race with an already compromised leg? Any warm fuzzy feelings Jake might have had in response to her good looks vanished in his outrage.

“I’m sure,” Jake snapped.

Jake’s response was terse. He didn’t appreciate the implications of her question, but he needed her to take care of his mare. Regardless of what this woman might think, Tamara always came first. Just a few moments earlier, he had been contemplating what the new vet might look like with her hair down, perhaps in a nice little summer dress of some sort that showed a bit more skin. It was just as well, as he had no time for women. There was a lot on his plate that would only complicate any attempt at a relationship.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply that you would have ridden your horse if you had known it was so severe. Some people just might not notice there is a serious issue until it is too late to prevent further injury.”

“I am certain that she was fine beforehand. I take excellent care of my horses.”

“I’m sure you do,” she replied.

He watched as she went back to her examination, obviously content to ignore his disdain rather than attempting any further apologies. After a few moments of deliberation, the doc put the hoof down and stroked Tamara’s coat with her hand before looking up at him.

“Well?” he prodded impatiently.

“She tore a ligament. It’s nothing that won’t heal, but I’ll need to stop by and keep an eye on her over the next few days to make sure she isn’t placing too much weight on it or aggravating it in any way.” The doctor glanced back down at the mare. “I don’t see any skin tears, so there shouldn’t be any worry of infection, just some discomfort for her while it heals. I’ll give her an injection to help with that now and when I stop by to check in on her. That should keep her comfortable.”

“Good,” Jake replied. “I’ll let you tend to her then. Tucker will see you out when you are done.”

Jake turned and walked away without another word. She didn’t call him back. He wasn’t even sure why he had been so short with her other than it hadn’t set well with him that somehow he’d been cruel enough to allow a thing like this to happen to an animal in his care. Who did Doctor Vanessa Hart think she was? Her skills as a vet remained to be seen, but her sense of diplomacy was shit.