jaw clenched. She had seen that look a hundred times in men's faces when they were too damned macho to allow their emotions to show over an animal. "Where is it?" she shouted through the rain.
Roy pointed to the opposite side of the road where a group of men had collected, some with flashlights trained on the ground. She struggled up the embankment, ran toward the gathering, and elbowed the silent onlookers aside. With rain pounding her head and shoulders, she looked down on the injured horse—a gray Arabian mare on her side, lips drawn back in shock, her breath rising in steamy spurts from her contracted nostrils. No matter how many times she had witnessed a downed horse the last years, she still could not get over the sick feeling the sight gave her. But this was worse than she had first imagined. By the looks of the mare she was very much in foal.
"I think her leg is broke," someone said.
Dropping to her knees, Leah checked the mare's pulse and respiration, talking softly, comfortingly as the horse raised her head and made a sound like a groan in her throat.
"Mr. Whitehorse ain't gonna like this," a man said.
Roy bent down beside Leah. "She was colicky. Ramon was walking her until you arrived. She spooked at the thunder and bolted. Went right through the fence before we could stop her."
Leah noted the cuts and abrasions on the mare's chest and forelegs—nothing that could not be remedied with a few stitches. Blood was nominal. Scarring would be minimal.
"She's in foal," Roy said, his brown face distorting in despair. "This one was going to be special."
"When is she due?"
"Any time."
Leah sat down in the mud, legs crossed, elbows on her knees. She watched steam rise from the mare's trembling body and did her best to think. "We'll need to address the shock first. Then the leg. There are IVs in the back of my truck. We'll get her stabilized, then try to get her to my lab."
"Are you sure you're all right, Doc?" Roy asked. "You're shakin' awful bad."
Was she?
Blinking rain from her eyes, Leah stared down at her hands, which were trembling badly—too badly to attempt inserting a needle into the mare's vein.
A dually truck approached, its diesel engine roaring more loudly than the rain. It pulled off the road and onto the shoulder, its headlights blinding Leah so she was forced to shield her eyes with her hand.
"Here comes trouble," someone whispered.
"I'm outta here," said another.
The truck door opened.
Johnny Whitehorse stepped out, his long legs clad in tight denim. He wore a fringed buckskin jacket and a sweat-stained cowboy hat. He had allowed his black hair to grow long again—Leah remembered the first time he'd cut it those years ago, thinking he would better blend in with the white boys on the football team. The idea seemed as ridiculous now as it had then. A Mescalero Apache standing six foot three at sixteen years old, Johnny Whitehorse had stood as much chance of blending in with the Anglo crowd of Ruidoso High as the Trump Tower would if it were set smack in the middle of the Mescalero reservation.
Roy put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. "You sure you're up to this?" he asked softly.
"It was going to happen eventually," she snapped more curtly than she intended, then shakily smiled her apology. "Will you help me up? I'm not certain my legs will hold me."
Roy offered his hand. She clung to it almost desperately as she attempted to stand, telling herself that her reasons for this ridiculous light-headedness had more to do with her near-disaster, not to mention her exhaustion, than it did with the fact that after twelve years she was about to come face to face with the only man she had ever really loved—and here she stood in the mud after running down one of his prized mares. Knowing Johnny's reputation for confrontation, she suspected this wasn't going to be pleasant.
Adjusting his hat over his brow, Johnny stepped down the embankment with the same ease of movement that had fascinated her those years ago. He walked to the horse, regarding the mare a silent moment before raising his gaze to Leah.
She held her breath.
Johnny's eyes narrowed. One corner of his mouth turned under ever so slightly as he regarded her up and down.
Roy cleared his throat. "You remember Doc Starr, Johnny. Used to be Leah Foster."