Chapter 17
seventeen
Briar couldn’t calm down. She’d dealt with a lot of stressful situations in her life, but not very many of this caliber since moving to Colorado.
Tarr worked some magic with ropes and muscle, and he managed to get the door tied closed. Without the wind howling inside, the barn started to warm, the furnace pumping hard to get it back to its regular temperature.
Briar had gone stall by stall and put blankets over each horse, murmuring comforting things to them that she didn’t quite feel herself.
“Briar?” Tarr called, and she lifted her head from where she sat on a stool in the corner of Gemini’s stall.
“I’m with Gemini,” she said, trying not to raise her voice too much and spook the horse.
Tarr’s heavy footsteps came closer, and then he gently opened the door.
“We’re all right,” she told him instantly, heading off the question she knew he would ask. “Kristie was out at Mission’s, and they’re both on their way.”
“Oh, good.” Tarr swept one of his big cowboy hands over Gemini’s shoulder. “How you doing, buddy?”
“He’s not putting much weight on that back foot,” she said. “But he lets me touch it.”
Tarr ran his hands along Gemini’s back, then down his flank. The horse snuffled a little, clearly warning Tarr not to do too much more.
“Yeah, I’m just gonna let Kristie look at it, bud. Don’t worry.” He faced Briar then, and she offered him a weak smile.
“All the other horses and stalls were secure. I covered them with blankets since it was getting cold, and we can remove those any time.”
“They like them.” He let out a hissing breath as he slid down the wall near her stool and sat in the straw in the corner. “It’ll warm up fast in here.”
“How’d you get the door closed?” she asked.
“Kind of like a pulley system,” he said.
Briar nodded as if she understood, but she’d had a very busy day—waking up before usual and making a trip to town to get everything she needed for Tarr’s birthday.
Then rushing through her chores and cooking lunch only added to the list of things she’d done.
She’d slept for an hour that afternoon while Tarr finished Jumanji—something he teased her about, but something that told her how comfortable she was with him.
She reached over and brushed her fingers along his hairline. He looked at her wearing an expression of weariness that she felt deep in her bones.
“He’s going to be okay,” she said. “It’s not a life-threatening injury.”
“No?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Tarr threaded his fingers through hers, and Briar loved the way it made her feel—claimed, less alone.
“What are you doing for Christmas, sweetheart?” he asked.
“I think you already know the answer to that.” Briar leaned her head back against the wall and let her eyes drift closed. “I’ll just be here at the farm.”
“Tucker’s cousin Mike has invited us for dinner—well, it’s really lunch—on Christmas Day. They’re eating at one-thirty. And with Tuck going to Oklahoma and all, I thought it might be nice to go out there.”
“Isn’t he the CEO of some big company?” Briar asked.
“Yeah,” Tarr said. “But his wife’s got a little hobby farm south of Ivory Peaks, and his sister is out there too. She married one of the cowhands from the farm, and she’s due with her first baby any time.” He blew out his breath. “Their parents are there too.”
“Not Tuck’s parents,” she said.
“No, it’s his aunt and uncle,” Tarr said. “His parents are in Coral Canyon, and his sister and her husband are going to visit them. His other brother, Deacon, might be there. I haven’t heard. It’ll be a lot like going to the Hammonds’ for Thanksgiving—a good time with good food and nice people.”
“Are you asking me to go with you?” Briar asked.
“Was that not obvious?” Tarr chuckled. “Yeah, Briar-Thorn, I’m asking you to go with me.”
Briar-Thorn. For some reason, that prickly nickname burrowed straight into her heart and warmed her from the inside out.
“If you don’t want to, we can have our own private Christmas celebration here at the farm, but then that would be me and you cooking, sweetheart.”
“I’m not a bad cook,” she said. “And neither are you.”
“Mm, true. It just feels like so much work.”
“You don’t want to go home to Texas?”
“I can’t,” he said. “Who’s going to take care of the farm if Tuck’s in Oklahoma?” He looked up at her. “It’s me and you again, sweetheart, but we could get the chores done for the day, head out for lunch, and be back in time for the evening feeding.”
“Yes, we could,” she said. “I mean, why not? The Hammonds act like everyone’s family, don’t they?”
Tarr chuckled again. “They sure do, sweetheart.”
“Hello?”
Briar lifted her head and then scrambled to her feet at the sound of Kristie’s voice.
“We’re in here,” she called, and then hurried to the door to unlatch the gate.
“Thank you so much for coming.” The lights in the barn blazed brightly against the dark night, almost fooling Briar into thinking it wasn’t an hour past her bedtime.
“Our barn door got blown loose, and it broke Gemini’s gate down there on the end. He got out. He was in the barn when we found him, but he’s favoring his back leg.”
“Let’s take a look.” Kristie gave her a quick smile and then got down to business.
Tarr came out of the stall and extended his hand toward a cowboy Briar had only met once or twice. “Howdy, Mission.”
“Howdy, Tarr,” he said, his voice even and his gaze watchful. “What do we need to do with that door?”
Tarr glanced over to Briar. “Do you remember meeting Briar?” He reached for her and tugged her forward. “She’s our vet tech here. Briar, this is the foreman at the Hammond Family Farm, Mission Redbay.”
“Sure,” she said. “I think we’ve met a couple of times.”
“At the State Fair,” Mission said, and he smiled as he shook her hand. “I think you’d just been injured….” He flicked a look over to Tarr.
“Yeah, I had a run-in with some coyotes this past summer,” Briar said.
“That’s right.” Mission shook his head. “You guys haven’t had any trouble with them since, have you?”
“Nope,” Tarr said. “We made the fence taller and deeper and haven’t had any problems.”
Mission nodded, and Tarr indicated the door. “Let’s go see what we need to do with this, and then Ashton and I can come in the morning to get it all fixed up.”
They left to do that, and Briar hovered in the doorway of the stall where Kristie now sat on the stool she’d been resting on, examining Gemini’s back hoof. She applied a bandage, sighed, and ran her hand up the horse’s leg as she let him settle back onto it.
“It’s nothing serious.” She looked over to Briar before she started repacking her vet kit. “He has a small laceration on the inside of his hoof. I got it back together, and he’ll just need to be watched.”
“Should I put him in the walking circle tomorrow?” Briar asked.
“Yeah, see how he does,” Kristie said. “It’s really minor. It probably would have just healed up on its own. I put a couple of steri-strips there—you’ll be able to see them—and covered it with a small bandage.”
Briar nodded. “Thank you so much, Kristie.”
“Of course. I’m happy to come.” She closed her bag and gave Gemini a good pat along his shoulder.
“I gave him a little numbing agent in the area and some painkiller.” She held out her hand, and Briar did the same so Kristie could drop a couple of pills into her palm.
“He can have these in the morning, if he’s acting like he’s in pain. ”
“He can eat and drink and everything?” Briar asked.
Kristie nodded. “Yep. Sure thing.”
Briar tucked the pills into her pocket and followed Kristie out into the aisle. “Is the wind bad out on the west side of town?” Briar asked as she watched Mission and Tarr examine the broken and cracked part of the interior wall of the barn.
“Not as bad as here,” Kristie said. “But Mission talks to a lot of other foremen and farmers, and Keith Whettstein lives on the north side of town, and he said it’s bad at Blackhorse Bay.”
Briar nodded and hugged herself. “Well, I hope you guys won’t have any trouble getting back.”
“We shouldn’t,” Kristie said. “And we’re closer to my house now, so we could stay there if we needed to.”
Briar nodded. “You’ll bill Tuck?”
“Oh, I’ll bill Tuck.” Kristie gave her a smile and then went to join the cowboys.
Briar followed her, but she hung back and just listened to Tarr and Mission brainstorm what needed to be done with the barn door. They finished up a few minutes later, and she left the barn with Tarr and drove him back to the mansion.
“Well, that was an eventful evening,” she said as she pulled up in front of the house.
“Yeah, I’m exhausted,” he said. “Can we go out an hour later tomorrow?”
Briar looked over to him. “Have you met goats? You want me to delay their release by an hour? They’ll eat me alive by the time I show up at the Goatel.”
Tarr laughed, and Briar joined him, a new release of joy eliminating some of the fear she’d been harboring for so long.
“You do your chores whenever you want, cowboy. I’m going to be out in the Goatel at eight-thirty as usual.”
“Well, I’ll see you at some point,” Tarr said. “Because I’ve got to bring Wiggins back.”
“You sure do,” she said. “The gift is just for one night of doggy snuggles.” She grinned at him, but they both looked out the windshield as the wind rocked her SUV.
“All right, I’m gonna make a run for it,” Tarr said, and he leaned over the console and swept a kiss across her cheek. “Text me when you get back to the cabin so I know you made it and didn’t get blown into a ditch.”
“Okay, cowboy,” she whispered, and then Tarr launched himself out of her car and ran for the front door of the mansion.