Becoming a veterinarian wasn’t a choice, but more of a passion. I love working with animals, reading them in a way other people can’t.

I love watching them thrive; the first case I’d ever gotten in school was a dog that had been beaten and left on the side of the road. I’d nursed him back to health; assisted as he underwent surgeries, helped him in recovery, got the word out about his adoption status. And eventually, he found a family who took him home and loved him to bits.

It was one of the best moments of my career, and I’ve had numerous other ones like it in the years since.

But, like any job, there are the cases that are just plain horrible. That have no happy ending.

And getting a call in the middle of the night with the word emergency used, typically signals the not-so-happy kind of case.

In minutes, I am up and out of bed, flying into my clothes and grabbing an outdoor pack I set up the day I got here. It holds flashlights, medicine, wraps, and anything else I might need to tend to a sick horse in the wild or at night.

My tires eat at the beach highway, the lights illuminating the midnight of the sand, the black sea. Carova looms in the night, the houses standing like lighthouses that have since gone dark.

Within minutes I’m on the main dunes, shredding them and trying to get to the house that called in the emergency. The call had come at one a.m., when a couple had heard a horse shrieking from the ground below. Slowing down and turning off anything that could possibly make noise, I listened.

And heard a tired whimper from somewhere up ahead.

“Oh thank God, you’re here. We were worried that no one would actually come.”

An older man and woman stand on their porch in their robes, her eyes worried and frantic.

“Of course, ma’am. I’m going to get her the help she needs. And more is on the way.” I’d dispatched for the two other veterinaries and their staff to get to the animal hospital, and for a team with a pickup to come out here after me. While I could treat a horse in the field, I couldn’t transport one if it needed surgery. And technically, we weren’t even supposed to be touching them. But I couldn’t stand by while one died. That’s where I drew the line.

“What’s wrong with her?” The man asks.

I kneel down, soothing the horse and letting her smell my hands before I put them on her. She’s whimpering lightly, too tired and in pain now to make any louder noises. I feel her face, her neck, and move down over her body. My hands stop when they get to her abdomen, which is rigid and bumpy. I press a little on her stomach and she rears up.

“It’s torsion, her gut has twisted. She’s in a lot of pain, and her heart rate is increasing rapidly. I need to get her to the center, she needs surgery immediately,” I answer the couple’s question.

“What is going on out here?”

When I pulled in, I hadn’t realized that Blake’s house was only two down from the couple that had called in the emergency. She’s now standing on her porch, in nothing but a long cotton robe and a tank top that I can see peaking out. My mind goes blank for a minute thinking about what’s underneath there.

“Oh, Blake … sorry to wake you, one of the horses is sick and we called it in. She was crying so loudly, I’m surprised you slept through it.” The older woman talks to Blake from across their porches, but I’m still staring like an idiot.

The mare whimpers again and I turn my attention back to her, all the while feeling the stare of Blake’s baby blues on my back.

“I’m going to give her a sedative to calm her and ease some of her pain, so don’t be alarmed.” I pull a needle and a vial of sedative from my pack and load it up. Finding a vein in her neck, I stick the needle and inject the medicine, doing it in one fluid motion. I had a teacher in vet school tell me that if you doubted yourself for even a second, you would never be able to practice good medicine or help an animal fully.

A minute or two after the injection, she visibly relaxes. And a minute or two after that, the reinforcements show up. A carrier van swings onto the streets, illuminating the scene in front of me with its headlights. I turn, now that the horse is a bit more stable, and lock eyes with Blake.

Something about the way she’s looking at me has me rooted to the spot, and also wanting to climb up her stairs and take her inside.

“Hey, man thanks for sedating her for us. How are her vitals?”

I talk to the vet technicians who came in the van, three of them tending to the horse as I tell them what surgery needs to be done and about the initial findings I deduced. Blake and her neighbors stand on their porches and watch us until the techs and I get the horse into a harness and loaded into the van.

When they’re finally done, pulling away in the night with the headlights illuminating the sand roads, her neighbors thank me and go back inside.

I turn to see Blake still standing there, her robe blowing in the wind. Something comes over me like a sickness, clouding my vision and making my lungs work double time. I move swiftly, coming for her two stairs at a time until I grab her up and into my arms.

As if expecting this all, she watches me stalk toward her, blue eyes flashing with uncertainty. I don’t hesitate, don’t ask. For a brief second, as I thread my fingers through her cornsilk hair, I think she’s going to stop me.

But she doesn’t.

In the next instant, my lips are on hers, and all the ghosts of our past leak out, melding between the kiss that could scorch a thousand earths. It’s as hot as the sand on a ninety-degree day, and as rough but serene as the ocean during a hurricane.

Blake’s hand must find the door, because I’m pushing her inside, her back cascading with the surface of a wall in her entryway.

Something about standing over the horse’s whimpering form, holding a life in my hands and having her watch over that … brings every single thing flying back at me. This time I saved that life, and I had to do what I should have done ten years ago.

Go after her. Fight for her.

The kiss is long and drugging, a mix between exploration and familiarity. For every caress, she has an answer. For every stroke of my tongue on hers, she answers my call.

I get lost somewhere between breaths, as if she’s pumping my heart for me. It’s completely up to her if I shatter or if I soar. My body hums with the feel of her against me, my mind nothing but white noise. The kiss could last hours, it could last seconds. I’m not sure, because with Blake under my fingertips, time ceases to exist.

A hand on my chest pushes me back, and when I finally open my eyes, her decision is made.

Her expression is shuttered, the sensual surrender of her figure that existed mere seconds away gone forever.

“You shouldn’t have touched that horse.” I can’t read her voice.

“She was going to die.” My hands are still on her waist, boxing her in.

“It wasn’t your decision to make. You don’t get to choose whether someone lives or dies. Whether someone needs to be saved or not.”

Now I know we’re not talking about the horses anymore. Blake has no idea what she wants; to let me in or shut me out, and it’s messing her up inside so severely that she’s lashing out at me. But that only makes my blood boil more. I wasn’t responsible for what happened ten years ago, and I’m not responsible now. I’m done letting her blame me.

"These creatures are wild. Boundless. But someone fenced them in a long time ago and they only know how to survive on what little has been left for them. They're you, Blake. And it breaks my goddamn heart. What happened to the girl with fire in her eyes? Who laughed in the face of danger and could set the demons dancing with one snap of her finger. You've set up all of these mile high walls, fortresses that no one can possibly scale. You trapped yourself in, hiding away from the world."

I nudge my fingers up under her chin so that she has to look at me, until my eyes pull the honest truth out of her whether I want it or not.

"You happened to me. You built these walls, stole my wild. The day you killed my brother was the day you killed my dreams. Every single one of them."