Chapter Twelve

RUSS COULD tell the minute he stepped into the barn that Jordan needed to go to bed. Even from thirty feet away, he could see Jordan’s sallow complexion and puffy purple-ringed eyes.

“How’s she doing?” he asked as soon as he was close enough that he didn’t have to shout.

Jordan shrugged. “About the same… suffering.”

He looked ten times worse up close. His eyes were red with exhaustion, his normally perfect hair lank and sticking out at odd angles.

“Okay. Well, we can take it from here. Jon and Ernie will be here soon, along with a couple of Friday volunteers, and Phyl’s going to come down as soon as she’s finished in the kitchen. I filled her in this morning.”

A glance at the basket he’d lugged out last night showed only one muffin had been picked at, less than half of it gone, and he frowned.

Stifling his exasperation, he said, “Get yourself on up to the house. Have some breakfast, and get some sleep.”

With a slight bob of his head, Jordan collected the basket and the rest of his things and shuffled toward the house. Hopefully Phyl would take one look at him and go into hyper mother hen mode… stuff some food into him before tucking him in.

“How are we this morning, little lady?” he murmured to Marina as he stepped up to the stall. She stood in the far corner. Her muscles quivered every once in a while, a shiver running down her body, and her head hung low. Russ clicked his tongue and shook his head.

“Hang in there, sweetie. You ain’t never been mothered like ol’ Phyl’s gonna mother you. You just wait.”

Less than two hours later, Russ was returning Missy to the pasture after running her through her paces when he spotted a familiar blond-highlighted head pushing a wheelbarrow through the yard.

“What the hell?”

He set Missy free and closed the gate before charging after Jordan.

“What are you doing out here?” he barked as soon as he was close enough. “You should be in bed.”

Jordan turned dull eyes in his direction and shrugged. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“I don’t care if you sleep or not, but you need to lie down before you fall down,” he growled.

“I can’t,” Jordan argued. “All I see is her, Marina, suffering, when I close my eyes. I need a distraction, so I might as well work.”

Russ forced a breath out his nose and gritted his teeth. What he wanted to say was Jordan was being a damned fool, but Jordan was still all kinds of raw on several fronts, and he’d promised Phyl and Jordan he’d be nicer from now on. After another longer, slower inhale and exhale, Russ said, “Look, I get it. But you’re working on no sleep and, knowing you, probably less than half the calories you should.”

Jordan frowned, but Russ held up a placating hand. “Put that wheelbarrow away and come back here. You can get some of our less placid beauties prettied up for our guests tomorrow. Give as many of the horses that are ready for adoption a bath as you can, but start with the least friendly and work your way up, so whoever’s left are the sweetest tempered to hand over to the volunteers tomorrow. Is that enough of a distraction?”

It was a testament to how tired Jordan had to be that he didn’t even pull a face. Horse bathing wasn’t exactly the most skilled of their labors, but cleaning a fractious mountain of muscle, bone, teeth, and hooves wasn’t exactly child’s play either. He’d need to keep his mind on what he was doing or he’d regret it.

Russ spent the whole day checking in on both Marina and Jordan, in addition to all his other charges. Phyl wanted to spend all day with Marina, but someone had to field phone calls and deal with all the minutia of running a charity, so the others took turns watching her.

Tish called at three to say Marina had a bacterial infection and to start her on some of the antibiotics they already had for a couple of the other sick horses, and she’d be by with the rest after work. But as it happened, they needed her sooner than that.

Marina went into labor a little over an hour later. Jordan was right there with her and Phyl before Russ even got back from making the phone call to Tish.

The poor mare shivered and groaned with discomfort, her flanks dewy with sweat as Jordan leaned close and murmured to her. Marina let out a shuddering breath and moved closer to Jordan, seeking comfort in her distress, and Russ’s throat got a little tight for a second before he swallowed the constriction down.

“Tish is on her way.”

“Will she be able to save the foal?” Jordan asked, still running a soothing hand over Marina’s neck and shoulder.

Russ grimaced, but Phyl was the one who answered gently, “From what the sheriff’s office got from the previous owners, she’s not even three hundred days, Jordan. There’s nothing we can do for the foal.”

Jordan’s jaw tightened, and he turned back to Marina without saying anything more.

The next few hours were a solemn affair. No one really said much beyond Tish’s orders. Jordan stayed at Marina’s head, soothing her, while they waited for enough of the foal to breech the canal so they could get a rope around it and pull it the rest of the way out. They all agreed Marina was still too weak from malnourishment and all the complications that came with it to be left to do it on her own, despite the mare’s obvious distress at having so many people crowding into her space.

Jordan worked a minor miracle there. He kept her calm and cooperative while they removed the poor little thing from the stall, and Tish made sure Marina was cleaned up and treated for the infection, inside and out. Thankfully, as far as they could tell, the foal hadn’t had time to turn septic, but they’d still have to keep a close eye on Marina until the infection passed.

After he and Phyl saw Tish out to her car and waved her on her way, Russ returned to the barn to find Jordan still standing at Marina’s head.

“Come on, Jordan. We should let her get some rest. One of the volunteers, Michelle, I think, has offered to stay until about eight or nine tonight so we can get some food in us and a little sleep ourselves.” When Jordan didn’t even twitch, Russ stepped closer. “Jordan?”

He called again, but it wasn’t until he put a hand on his shoulder that Jordan started out of whatever trancelike state he’d been in.

“What?”

Glazed blue eyes stared up at him. “Food. Bed. Rest, for all of us. It’s been a long day.”

With one last pat to Marina’s neck, Jordan allowed Russ to drag him from the barn.

“Do you think she’ll mourn her baby?” Jordan slurred as he shuffled along beside Russ.

“I don’t think so,” Russ said kindly. “She didn’t really get a chance to see it, let alone bond with it. But we’ll take good care of her, and hopefully, when she’s feeling better, her spirits will pick up too.”

“Good.”

Russ had no warning. One second Jordan was walking beside him. The next he dropped to the dirt like a box of rocks.

“Shit!”

Russ crouched next to him and rolled him over. Bleary blue eyes blinked up at him.

“When was the last time you ate or drank anything?” he growled.

Jordan’s eyebrows drew together, but he just stared as if he wasn’t quite getting what Russ was saying.

“Goddammit. Jon! Ernie! You guys still in the house?” he shouted.

Ernie came trotting from the yard to his left.

“Help me get this fool up the stairs,” Russ grated.

As he and Ernie got their arms under Jordan’s and helped him to his feet, Jon came out onto the porch.

“Jon, will you grab some Gatorade for this idiot?”

He deposited Jordan on one of the rockers on the front porch. Thankfully by then, Jordan was a bit more alert, so Russ didn’t have to worry about it being more than just a little exhaustion and dehydration at work.

“Drink,” Russ ordered as he shoved the plastic bottle Jon brought into Jordan’s hand.

Luckily, Jordan wasn’t fool enough to do anything beyond what he was told. He chugged about a third of it before trying to hand it back, but Russ folded his arms and glared. “All of it,” he growled.

Jordan sighed, but he put the bottle back to his lips. Satisfied the idiot was going to cooperate, Russ thanked Jon and Ernie and shooed them on their way. The dimwit didn’t need an audience.

While Jordan was drinking, Phyl came out and hovered for a bit, but once she was satisfied Jordan was feeling better, she went back inside to find food for everyone else. They were all feeling low and tired, and Russ assured her he could handle one fool of a man.

Once he’d drained the dregs from the bottle, Jordan grimaced and waved the plastic at Russ with a scowl. But that was fine by Russ. Cantankerous he could handle just fine.

“Good,” he said, “Now do you need help going upstairs to your bed, or can you manage it on your own?”

Jordan rolled his eyes. His stubborn jaw, now shadowed with dirty blond stubble and whatever grime he’d run into that afternoon, twitched like he was itching to argue, but Russ just scowled right back at him.

“There’s enough sugar in that Gatorade to tide you over while you rest, so where you’re going isn’t up for debate. The only thing you get to decide is how you get there.”

Jordan defiantly held his gaze for a few more seconds before slumping back in the chair and throwing up his hands. “Fine. I’ll go take a nap if it’s so damned important to you.” He brushed Russ’s offered hand to the side and stood. “I don’t need to be carried. I can get there on my own.”

Making a grand gesture of it, Russ held the screen door for the little shit, and then he waited at the bottom of the stairs until Jordan had disappeared from sight.

“Someone needs to get that kid a Snickers bar. He’s a real diva when he’s hungry.” Russ chuckled to himself as he made his way to the kitchen to fill his own belly and help Phyl find some food for the volunteer that was staying.

Maybe he should order and set up another security camera, actually in one of the stalls, so they could keep an eye on their more worrisome charges from the comfort of the house. Except the cameras didn’t show everything, and sometimes nothing beat a real person watching, listening, and even smelling for problems.

After running a tray out to Michelle in the barn, Russ went upstairs to check on Jordan. Sleeping Beauty was passed out cold on his bed. He’d taken the time to hose off in the shower before collapsing in a disordered heap on the mattress, because his hair was still wet, and as far as Russ could tell, he was naked under the sheet he’d draped over his lap.

Russ lingered in the doorway longer than he should have. Jordan Thorndike of the Virginia Thorndikes was, without a doubt, a beautiful man—perfectly put together, from his artfully highlighted dark blond hair to his elegant, pedicured feet.

He’s a hard worker, smart, funny, and with a good heart too… at least when it comes to the horses, a traitorous voice inside Russ’s head whispered.

Yeah, and he’s a vain, spoiled rich kid who’s been pampered every day of his life and has no idea what the real world is like, he argued back. He’s also got more issues than Reader’s Digest.

Closing his eyes, Russ forced himself to turn around and leave. The image of Jordan naked and splayed out on rumpled sheets was burned into his brain, but the most he ever intended to do about it was pull it out for spanking material from time to time… or possibly every day until Jordan left for greener pastures.