Chapter 5

Alex

Pete found me in one of the storage sheds cleaning out and organizing a bunch of nuts and bolts that were hanging around for some of the equipment on the ranch. Work that didn’t need to be done and that I had only picked up to pass the time until I knew that she was gone. From the look in my older brother’s eye, I knew he could tell right away that I had been avoiding seeing Madison.

“I had a little conversation with your girl,” he said as he clapped me on the back.

“Not my girl,” I said, shaking my head. “Not mine and not a girl anymore. She’s grown the hell up since the last time I saw her.” I tried not to think about that bead of sweat slipping down between her breasts and how I had wanted to bury my face between them, inhaling the scent of her and tasting the saltiness of her skin like she had just stepped from the ocean.

“Well, Dr. Graston then.”

I came up short at that comment. Somehow in all of that conversation with her, it hadn’t quite dawned on me that Maddy was a doctor. It made me swell with pride at the thought. She might not have wanted a thing to do with me, something I thought I could remedy with time, but it didn’t mean I couldn’t be proud of the woman’s accomplishments. She had come a long way, and I was glad to see all that she had achieved.

“So tell me what the two of you talked about.”

Pete pulled the piece of paper out of his pocket. “She confirmed the pregnancies we have, and she found one that I guess you thought might be possible. Pineapple.”

I slammed the coffee can full of bolts down on the shelf. “Damn. I was hoping it wouldn’t be the case.” But it was a good thing Maddy had discovered it. Pineapple was scheduled to go to Texas in the next few months, but if she was carrying a foal belonging to one of our stallions, then we were going to have to work something out with her soon-to-be owners.

“We’ll have to talk to the people who were going to buy her,” Pete said.

“Yeah. I’ll have a word with Jake since he’s been doing a lot of her training. I think he’s got a pretty good rapport with them. He can talk to them about what they want to do since technically she was about to go to them, but I do think we have some say in it since the stallion is one of ours. Did Madison say what she thought would be the best course of action?”

“She acknowledged that we might want to terminate and advised that if we chose to do so, we do it as soon as possible. She had already detected a heartbeat, so Pineapple is maybe a little further along than we had expected. The risks are what you might think given her age. Low birth weight. Pineapple’s size combined with who the sire is and his size could lead to some complications, but it’s hard to tell. You know all that.”

I nodded. I was aware, and I hated to think that Pineapple could be at risk, but the stallion was a valuable one and had produced many good race horses over the years for us. However, recently he had been a little more hesitant to produce for some reason. We needed to get that checked out to see if his motility was reduced, but until then it seemed a little stupid to give up the chance to have another of his offspring.

“I’ll talk to Jake. Thanks for letting me know.”

Pete headed back to his office, and I went to see Pineapple, now a little concerned about the yearling. Upon arriving at her stall, I found her enjoying some hay and seeming just as upbeat and perky as usual.

“Hey Pineapple,” I said as I gave her a scratch on the head. About that time Jake appeared and came to join me.

“Pete said you had something to tell me?”

“Yup. This one is expecting.”

“It was Nevada Rebel, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “Had to be.”

He leaned against the stall door and looked at the horse. “What’s going to happen? Will that couple want to buy the foal as well?”

“I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself there. We’ve got to get her through this first. And before that, we have to decide if she’ll keep it. One of us should probably talk to Madison about it and see what she thinks is the best for Pineapple.”

“Think you should do it? The twins caught me earlier and told me she was the new vet. Of all the things to happen.”

“Yeah. Well, I don’t particularly want to be the one to discuss it with her,” I knew it was a lie the moment the words left my lips but hoped that my brother wouldn’t notice. “I’ll do it though. I’ll see what she thinks, and we’ll proceed from there.”

“Good for her for catching it,” Jake said. “She wouldn’t have been in our regular lot to have checked at all.”

“I know.

It really had been something for Maddy to catch the pregnancy. What I had was only a hunch and not really much to go on, only the thought that the filly might have been grazing in the pasture the afternoon that Nevada Rebel found his way there and had a little party of his own with the mares. It was going to save us a hell of a lot of trouble to know what we did now, rather than three months from now when we shipped her off to Texas. Now she would likely be staying with us for the year until she foaled in the late spring. Assuming that all went well, we would have a foal that belonged to Nevada Rebel, and we would be glad of that come a few years from now when the horse could run in one of the derbies.

“I need to go into town anyway, so I’ll stop by the vet’s office and have a word with her.”

Jake jabbed me in the ribs. “Bet that’s not all you’ll have.”

I shot him a look that made him clear out, and I headed for my truck, knowing full well that I definitely wanted more than a word with Maddy.

The closed sign was already hanging on the office door when I arrived at the clinic. The sign she had painted her name on a few days before was hanging in the place where Doc Halloran’s name used to be, and I smiled as I looked at ‘Madison Graston, DVM.' She had a lot to be proud of.

But now I stood there and didn’t know where to turn. I didn’t have her cell number, and I could have called the office, but if she wasn’t in I didn’t know what good it would do me. I had no idea if she was staying at her dad’s place or if she had found another place somewhere in town. I really hadn’t thought this out well at all.

I didn’t have to though. Just about that time I saw Madison rounding the corner, canvas grocery bags in hand, feeling in her pocket for her keys. She stopped as she saw me and then waved a few free fingers from between the handles of the canvas totes.

“Let me help you,” I said as I moved toward her and extended my hands, taking the bags from her.

“Thanks,” she said, a little uneasily if I was reading her tone correctly. “Is everything okay? Did you need something?”

I shook my head. “No, I just wanted to thank you for checking on Pineapple and letting us know about her condition.”

She smiled then, a little less nervously. “All in a day’s work.”

“Where are you headed?” I asked, looking around and not seeing a vehicle other than my truck parked near the office.

“Oh…” she pointed up above the office with the keys in her hand. “The office came with the upstairs apartment. Doc had been planning to rent it out, but never got around to it and only used it for storage. The place was remodeled very nicely though, and I’m happy with it. Decided to go ahead and buy it when I took on the practice.”

“Smart. Well, let me help you upstairs with these then.”

Maddy paused for just a moment and then unlocked the door that led to the stairwell to her apartment. It was a slim space, but as we climbed the stairs and stepped out into the open floor plan, I could see what she meant. The place was very nice, and Doc had spared no expense in getting the floors done.

“Is this the original wood?”

Maddy nodded with a smile. “Nice, isn’t it?”

It was indeed. There was a wall of exposed brick on one side, while the plaster on the other probably offered a lot of reflection of the early morning sunlight. Not that Maddy got to spend much time here during that part of the day, with her job taking her out to the surrounding ranches before dawn sometimes.

“You can just put those on the table if you don’t mind. Thanks for carrying them up.”

“Well, you looked like you had your hands full.”

We both stood there awkwardly for a moment as the silence of the apartment settled around us. Maddy tucked one of her fiery red curls behind the perfect shell of an ear, and it reminded me so much of the girl I had known that I wanted to scoop her up and kiss her there, just behind her ear where the lobe met the soft skin of her face. It had always made her squeal, and the thought of it was arousing.

Before I could make any kind of a move, a charcoal gray cat jumped down from the fridge and bounded toward us, intent on checking me out and giving my boots a good sniff.

“Oh, I should have changed into something a little cleaner than my work boots before coming here.”

She shook her head. “No, don’t worry about it. I’m sure I carry worse up here on my shoes. That’s what the wood floors are for.” She regarded me quietly for a moment. “So, was there anything else you needed?”

I scratched the back of my head. I hated that when I was around her, I felt a kind of shyness creep back, like a memory from the past. I wasn’t a shy man. On the contrary, I could kick up a real ruckus when I wanted to. But something about this woman made me forget where I was. As much control as I was used to having, there was something about being in her presence that made me feel like I was completely powerless, in a way that usually made me uncomfortable. The thought of being powerless around Maddy though? Giving her permission to do whatever she wanted? That thought was enough to make me shiver. I wondered what grown up Maddy would do now that we had some privacy. When we were teenagers, we were always scrambling around trying to find a place where we could be alone and make out for a few moments without being caught. Her parents’ place had been out—too small. My mother watched us like a hawk, and we rarely had a moment to ourselves there. So it was almost always out in the back pasture, in my truck.

“I did want to ask you your thoughts on what the best course of action would be to take with the filly. And I guess I could help you put your groceries away since your being kind enough to answer my question.”

Without waiting for her to give me permission I grabbed one of the bags and started pulling items out, picking out the produce first and putting it in the fridge.

“I hope you’re not particular about where things go,” I said as I put a head of lettuce in the crisper.

She frowned slightly, but shook her head and allowed me to continue.

“Well, I’ve been giving it some thought this afternoon. You guys still own the filly, right?”

I nodded affirmatively.

“Okay, so that’s not as big of an issue as it might have been if you’d already sold her. Do you think the buyers will still want her and if not, will that matter to you greatly?”

I thought about the money that a horse like Pineapple would bring. We relied on the money we made selling our thoroughbreds and Pineapple came from good stock.

“It wouldn’t be the end of the world if they backed out of the deal, no. I’m sure that if things went okay with her foaling that we could find another buyer, that’s if this one fell through, or we could keep her. It’s not a big deal either way. The money isn’t that much of a concern.”

I could see her bristle at those words and I regretted bringing the topic up in that way. Of course for Maddy money was a big deal. It was a big deal for her father. Still, I was sure. He was still paying to lease his land from us after all these years.

“And,” I continued, “considering that the foal is from Nevada Rebel, we would like to keep it. He has been slow to produce any offspring in the past couple of years, and he is in pretty high demand. He was a great race horse for us, and I would love to see another foal from him.”

Maddy was standing on her tiptoes, putting a box of granola in the cabinet. “Well, if that’s the case then I say she should go ahead and carry to term. You’ll be able to watch her closely and call me if there are any issues. I’m close enough that I can attend to her regularly, but chances are she’ll have a normal, healthy pregnancy. There probably isn’t anything to worry about. Unless the foal is too big for her, considering her age. I think it’ll be fine though.”

I nodded and smiled. “Okay then, I’ll take your word for it…doctor.”

Maddy rolled her eyes and laughed at that. “Weird, huh?”

I gave a shrug. “It’s just something to get used to, that’s all. Unexpected, but not all that surprising when I think about it. You always did love animals.”

“I sure did,” she said as she leaned over to scoop up her cat and I silently cursed the face that the feline was now between us. Now wasn’t the time, but I so desperately wanted to pull this woman close and kiss her, to feel her breasts pressed against me and grind into her pelvis.

“There was just one more thing, and I hope you’ll agree to it.”

She gave me a little side eye. “Go on.”

I leaned against her countertop as I spoke, trying to look more casual than I felt. “As a thank you, and to put some of the animosity behind us, I was hoping that you’d join me for dinner at the ranch. At my place.”

She seemed to be calculating her answer before she spoke. “There’s really no need to thank me. It would have been caught eventually.”

“I know, but I appreciate your expertise and I wanted to…I don’t know. Open the door to the possibility of a friendship between us. I know you said that we don’t have to socialize or anything like that and I won’t press it if you really don’t want to. But Maddy…we were friends for a really long time. Before we ever dated. We chased each other all over the place and probably knew each other better than anyone else. You’re back and time has passed. I’m not asking you to brush everything that happened under the rug. It’s just dinner. What do you say?”

After a second she nodded, then narrowed her eyes and grinned suspiciously. “But…can you even cook?”

My mouth dropped open in mock offense. “I’ve picked up a few skills along the way. Being a single man all these years I’ve had to learn a few tricks.” A few I wanted to show her.

She laughed at that. “Okay then.”

“Friday night?”

Maddy nodded. “Can’t wait to see what kind of tricks you’ve got up your sleeve.”