Chapter 11
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” - Mark Twain
Avery
It was well after eleven. Uncle Tristan was there. Bryce was there. Hannah was there. I was there–at least in body. But the vet still wasn’t there and I was freaking out pretty good.
“Bryce,” Uncle Tristan said, “This mare is ready to deliver. But there’s an issue. From the way she’s acting, I’m pretty sure we have a breech on our hands. Now I’m going to need your help in pulling the foal from her without injuring it, or her. It’s going to be tricky. Are you up for it?”
“I can help, Uncle Tristan. I’ve seen it done before,” I piped up, as Hannah put her hand on my shoulder.
“Avery, you’re white as a sheet and you’ve gnawed every one of your damn fingernails down to the quick over the past couple of hours. I want you and Hannah to go up to your cottage, and boil at least five kettles full of water on your stovetop. Hannah, take one of those five gallon stainless steel buckets with you to carry the water back down here, okay? Make sure you disinfect it first with several kettles of boiling water before you fill it with the water we’ll need, got it?”
“Yes Daddy,” Hannah answered, nodding her head.
“And Avery, grab some clean sheets from the supply barn and cut them into strips. About three inches wide, and twenty-four inches long. As many as you can before bringing the boiled water down, okay?”
I nodded, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember having seen anyone do this in the past. But who was I to question Uncle Tristan? He’d had way more experience than me with this kind of stuff. Mom and Daddy had always tried to shelter us from the breeding and foaling aspect of the horses. For different reasons I was sure.
Hannah and I set about doing the tasks we’d been assigned. It actually kept us so busy we didn’t have time to worry or fret about Tula which was a good thing under the circumstances. I knew breech births with horses could be extremely dangerous for both the mare and the foal.
An hour later, with water and sheet strips in tow, we made our way down the concrete steps of the hillside to the stable. The first thing I saw was Bryce, sitting on a stack of straw bales, smoking a cigarette which was so against the rules. I was ready to blast him when it finally dawned on me. Something had changed. But was it good news or bad?
“Oh my God!” I shrieked, dropping the huge garbage bag full of sheet strips at my feet, “Tula?”
He immediately stood, and dropped the cigarette, grinding it out with his boot. He closed the distance between us, our eyes collided. He smiled and I immediately felt comforted.
“She’s fine, babe. She’s the proud mother of a healthy boy colt.”
I had to smile and finally allowed a giggle to escape me. “Bryce…a colt is always male. It’s a horse thing, you know?”
“Really? Well if it’d been a girl, what would I have called it?” He really wanted to know.
“A filly,” I replied. “How did it go?” Hannah had already gone inside the stables.
“It was touch and go–I won’t lie.”
“And so Uncle Tristan sent us off to do a fool’s errand, didn’t he?” I knew the answer. Boiling water and sheet strips? Puhleeze!
“Hey,” he said, his fingers cupping my chin. “It wasn’t as if I knew any better. I kept asking your uncle what was keeping you two.”
My mouth didn’t have a chance to smile before his lips were on mine. Claiming me. Both of us allowing the happiness that the situation with Tula had indeed turned out okay to envelope our bodies and minds. My lips responded to his; my arms reached up and encircled his strong neck as if it was the most natural thing in the world to me. It was pure instinct. It felt totally real and right.
Our tongues tangled, his hands moved downward and braced my hips, pulling me up against him. I could feel his hardness and at the risk of sounding like a total virgin, it melted my panties, I swear to God!
I was no virgin, I got that, but damn, I sure as hell felt like one. Not withstanding my relationship with Trent, I was totally unprepared for the carnal urges Bryce Slater evoked within me. It was foreign; it was private; it was seriously sexy times a million.
But it also seemed dangerous. Not that he was dangerous, because I didn’t believe that for a second. As much as he tried to portray a bad boy with attitude, I knew there was so much more to Bryce Slater than he allowed anyone to see. I was beginning to see the cracks in his facade, and I liked what glimmered through them.
“Come to my cabin,” he whispered hoarsely against my lips with his. “Stay with me tonight, Avery.” My spine tingled with the urge to literally jump up into his arms and wrap my legs around him, while I held back the words threatening to spill from my lips. Something totally corny I was sure.
Take me, Bryce. Claim my body. Own my heart. Devour my soul.
Yeah, it would have been something like that. I had that kind of romantic sappiness in me which quite frankly hadn’t served me well with Trent.
“Well?” he murmured, planting soft fleeting and almost playful kisses on my mouth.
I moaned. “We’ll see,” I said, pulling away from him before I totally allowed him to take me there, right outside of the horse barn, not more than fifty feet from my uncle and cousin, who were more than likely wondering where the hell I was at the moment. “I need to go check on Tula and the colt. You probably should go wash up,” I continued, “You smell…horsey.”
Before I could depart, he pulled my hand towards him, and placed it to his lips. “I hope you’ll come by, Avery. I really do. No strings. No expectations. Just you and me.”
And then I watched as he turned and loped up the steps towards the cottages. It was August, but I shivered. There was just something about him…something that up until this point had been a red flag for me, but I couldn’t quite articulate it in my mind. Was I uptight like Trent had always teased? Too focused the way he accused? Or did the chemistry between us represent a first in my life?
I wanted to feel every part of him; I wanted our bodies to meld together for a perfect fit like I somehow already knew they would. I wanted to take a risk with a guy like Bryce. I wanted to be reckless and playful and throw caution to the wind to see where I landed. And maybe to see if I measured up to the girls that Bryce Slater seemed to draw in. He was the magnet, they were the steel fragments that gravitated to him.
He didn’t seek.
He was sought.
But not this time. He had sought me; invited me in, made the first move. That had to be a rare occurrence for him. And for a brief few seconds, I questioned if that was, in fact, the draw for him.
Was I simply a challenge? Another notch on his bedpost?
Yeah, I knew that sounded melodramatic and over the top, but that’s the way I looked at things. It’s what made me me as my older sister, Preston, liked to phrase it.
She got me.
Hannah got me. I was a cautious person by nature. It was rare that I threw caution to the wind, but sometimes that was a curse instead of a blessing.
Times like right now.
I could hear my sister right now. You over-think things, Avery. Sometimes you just need to roll with it and see what happens.
And so that was when my mind was made up that just this once, I was going to roll with it and let life happen without my over-thinking it.
And I was hoping tonight Bryce Slater would get me…in more ways than one.