Chapter 5
IT HAD BEEN almost seven weeks since Mackenzie arrived in Ohio with Gizmo, and there were two things she knew with relative certainty. First, the horse couldn’t have had better care. Second, January was the worst possible month to visit Ohio.
She tugged the neckline of her jacket higher and blinked rapidly, the wind freezing her eyes and burning her chapped lips as she rounded the corner of the building and sped up in her effort to reach the heated barn.
Inside, Kenzie went straight to Gizmo, pulled her hands out of her pockets and slipped the big guy a couple of sugar cubes.
She slowly rubbed his face, jaw to muzzle and back, and murmured to him as the vet, Dr. Trey Harris, removed the vet wrap and nonstick pads that covered the surgical sites.
The pins had come out and the horse was bearing weight regularly, yet for all that, his foot still looked like something from a horror flick.
The incisions were healing fine, but there were still angry welts where the surgical pins had been inserted in both his fetlock and pastern, and all around the last of the sutures the skin was raw and red.
The swelling had abated, though. Enough so she could see Gizmo’s improvement.
Still, the idea of the pain he’d endured—still endured—made her throat tight.
“When—” The one word came out scratchy, so she forced herself to slow down and breathe before facing the vet. “When can the big guy go home?”
Dr. Harris glanced up at her and one corner of his mouth curled up in a slow, lazy smile. “You getting tired of staring at my pretty face?”
Laughing, Kenzie shook her head. “You’re easy on the eyes but you’re not a cheap date, Dr. Harris.” She sighed dramatically. “I just don’t see a long-term future for us.”
The vet, easily her father’s age or older, chuckled, never ceasing his ministrations to the leg and ankle he’d essentially rebuilt the day Gizmo, and she, had arrived. He didn’t answer her, though.
So she pressed. “I was hoping to move his care to the ranch before the end of the month. Is that reasonable?”
“What kind of care do you have in place for him at home?”
“The barn is clean and dry but certainly not a sterile environment. However, I can have a cement pad laid for him and rubber nonslip floor tiles installed. And once I have a return date, I’ll arrange a sling and will incorporate whatever physical therapies you recommend.
I can have my vet fly in to check on him, and Ty’s sister-in-law is a large-animal vet, too.
Then there’s you.” She batted her eyes at him.
“I don’t suppose you’d make a couple, maybe three. ..or four, house calls, would you?”
“I’m available.” He fluttered his lashes at her and made fish lips. “But like you said earlier, I’m an expensive prospect.”
“Only the best for this guy.” She patted Gizmo’s neck.
Dr. Harris sobered. “I’m serious. It would be pretty costly to buy my time in such large chunks because I’d have to bill you for the hours away from the clinic.”
“Sure, but leaving him here long-term can’t be much, if any, cheaper. Along with vet bills, I have to consider feed, board, grooming and his handler’s fees, as well as my own room, board and rental car. It all adds up fast. Flying you in to visit him would, by all accounts, be more reasonable.”
“True. I just want you to understand there will be additional costs to having me examine him on site, and those visits will occur subject to my availability.”
“If the horse needs it, trust that I’ll do it.”
“Fair enough.” He paused when he hit a sensitive spot and the horse twitched and then pawed the air as passively as a 1,200-pound animal could. “So whose barn should we make arrangements to deliver him to?
Kenzie jerked upright, stiff as a board. “The Covington barn. Why?”
“Just wondered whose home he was going to since your dad and Covington are equal partners now.”
Her brow furrowed. “Who said my dad was an equal partner?”
“That would be—” he gestured toward her “—your dad.”
“If there’s a partner in this, it isn’t Jack Malone.” Her shoulders sagged a fraction. “It’s me.”
“You don’t seem happy about that.”
“It’s complicated.” She didn’t offer any more because there wasn’t more to say. That and she didn’t want to start any rumors. When Dr. Harris opened his mouth, she cut him off with a sharp shake of her head. “Let’s leave it at ‘complicated.’ How soon can I get him home?”
The vet worked his fingers down Gizmo’s leg, along the cannon bone that had been fractured in the accident.
“I’m admittedly pleased with how clean he’s healed.
” Standing, he brushed off his hands and then shoved them into his coat pockets, considering her.
“Let me finish up here, get a new set of X-rays and we’ll talk dates.
I’m guessing you’ll hang around until I’m through? ”
Don’t I always? “Sure.” The metal cribbing rail on the stall delivered a shock of cold when her jacket sleeves slipped up as she leaned forward to rest her arms on the door.
Sure, Colorado was cold, but it wasn’t as cold as this.
There was snow in Colorado, but that meant ski season opened, not that the snowbirds fled south.
South.
She was far more snow bunny than bird, but she’d be heading south with Gizmo.
That meant she’d be facing off with Ty sooner rather than later.
Her stomach did this weird gymnastics routine.
If the vet up here had heard about the “partnership” she’d asserted where Gizmo was concerned, it was safe to assume Ty had heard the same.
Though that was pure speculation, seeing as she hadn’t talked to him.
Not yet. Kenzie had limited all correspondence to email exchanges with Reagan.
Her logic had been simple: by limiting her emails to Reagan, and only Reagan, Kenzie didn’t have to worry about what she’d said to whom and when she’d said it.
There were fewer chances she’d have to stretch the truth in different directions to better support the tales she’d already told.
Except with her dad. She’d tried to clear that up.
Man, she’d tried. But every time she brought up the horse’s progress, her dad always launched into some grand speech about how proud of her he was and how she was doing the right thing by both families, helping the Covingtons pay medical bills they’d never have been able to afford all while praising her for “this great new partnership that’s getting the Covington boy’s superior genetics program integrated into our herd.
” How was she supposed to tell him the whole thing was a sham she’d cooked up in a split second because she hadn’t wanted to be separated from her prime competitor who was, by the way, her lover? That was bound to go over well.
And how was she supposed to tell him she was spending Malone money on a horse their family had no rights to?
Most of all, how was she supposed to tell her dad she’d lied to him, to everyone, and that she was nothing at all like Michael?
She was never meant for this, to be son and daughter, sole heir and youngest child.
“I can’t,” she whispered, the two-word admission carried away by the howling winds outside.
“I’ll make arrangements to have the horse cleared for travel in roughly two weeks, provided you agree to follow my instructions for his recovery and therapy.”
Shoving her hands into her pockets, she forced her spiraling thoughts to step aside, giving her whole attention to the doctor. “Two weeks?”
“At the outside, yes.” The vet glanced at Gizmo’s front foot.
“Swim therapy would really help him strengthen that joint and encourage faster strengthening of the muscles and tendons that support his front end.” Dr. Harris pulled his toque off and scrubbed one hand through his short hair.
The effect left him looking like he’d uncovered an irritated hedgehog.
Kenzie grinned. “I’ll have a pool installed.”
“Of course you will,” the vet said with an answering smile. “And stop laughing at my hair.”
“Can’t,” she admitted, her grin widening. “You’ve been hiding a hedgehog under your hat the entire time. It’s as if suddenly you’re not the man I thought you were.”
He gave her a mock dirty look. “My wife says the same thing.”
Kenzie couldn’t control her laughter. “Smart woman,” she said between peals.
“Get out of my barn, kid,” the older man groused good-naturedly. “I’ve got to get this guy ready to go.”
She sobered enough to add, “I’ll make sure your aftercare plan is followed to a T.”
He nodded. “Go ahead and book his flight for the first of February. I’ll have him ready by then. You ready to take this on?”
Her thoughts scattered like dandelion fuzz in the face of a hopeful child’s breath.
She could get the horse home, arrange to have his therapy taken care of and see Gizmo emerge as strong as he would ever be.
But the horse wasn’t the only factor. The Covingtons would expect answers.
Her dad would expect results from a partnership that didn’t exist.
And Ty? She shouldn’t have anything to worry about. She’d done what she had to do in order to ensure his wishes were carried out. Facing him would be hard, admitting she’d lied to save Gizmo even harder. But she’d do it without apologizing.
She shifted her gaze to the horse, reaching out to straighten his forelock. “I guess there isn’t any other option, is there?”
And that was the hell of it.
There wasn’t.