Curvy Girl and the Handsome Dad Cowboy (Blackwater Falls: Cowboys #2)

Chapter 1 - Tucker

"Morning, Bug," I say, heading straight for the coffee maker because nothing else is going to happen until I've had at least half a cup.

"Morning, Daddy." She doesn't look up from the picture she's coloring.

Another horse, because what else would it be, and her tongue is poking out the corner of her mouth the way it always does when she's concentrating hard on something. "Butterscotch didn't eat his breakfast yesterday."

My hand freezes halfway to the mug. "What?"

"Butterscotch." Now she looks up, and her hazel eyes, the same shade as mine, the only thing she got from me besides the stubborn streak, are worried. "I went to see him after school and his food was still there. All of it."

I pour the coffee, trying to think through the fog in my brain.

Butterscotch is Emma's favorite horse, a fifteen-year-old quarter horse gelding with a temperament so gentle I'd trust him with a newborn.

He's never missed a meal in the three years since Frank passed and left him to us along with everything else.

"Did you tell Boone?"

"He said maybe Butterscotch just wasn't hungry." Emma goes back to her coloring, but the strokes are harder now, more aggressive. "But horses are always hungry. You said so."

I did say that. Last month, when she asked why we had to feed them so much, I told her horses are basically stomachs with legs attached. Made her laugh so hard she snorted milk out her nose.

Not laughing now.

"I'll check on him after I get you on the bus," I say, sitting down across from her with my coffee.

The chair creaks under my weight. Everything in this house creaks, groans, or threatens to fall apart, just like everything else on this ranch, and I take that first beautiful sip of coffee that makes the world slightly less blurry.

Emma's still attacking that picture, turning the horse's mane into angry brown scribbles.

"Emma."

She doesn't look up.

"Bug."

The crayon stills. When she finally meets my eyes, there are tears threatening in hers, and my heart does that thing it always does when she's upset. It drops straight through my chest and into my boots.

"What if he's really sick?" Her voice is so small. "What if he dies like Mr. Delaney?"

Jesus Christ.

I set down my coffee and reach across the table, covering her small hand with mine. "Frank was ninety-three years old, sweetheart. Butterscotch is only fifteen. That's not even old for a horse."

"But what if—"

"No what-ifs." I squeeze her hand gently. "I promise I'll check on him right after the bus comes, and if something's wrong, we'll call the vet. Okay?"

She sniffles, then nods, then picks up the crayon again. This time the strokes are softer. She's drawing a little girl next to the horse now, with pigtails and pink boots.

"Can I come with you?" she asks. "To check on him?"

"You've got school."

"But—"

"Emma Hayes." I use her full name, which means business, and she slumps in her chair with a dramatic sigh that would make her mother proud.

I can’t think about her. Not this early. Not ever. She abandoned us.

"Fine," Emma mutters, but she's smiling a little now, because she knows she almost had me. "But you have to tell me everything when I get home. Everything."

"Deal."

She goes back to her drawing, humming again, and I drink my coffee and watch her and try not to think about how fast seven years went by, how she's going to be eight in two months, how every day she looks more like Jenna and acts more like me, and how I'm terrified I'm screwing this up.

The toast pops up. Actually burnt this time, because I forgot I was making it, and Emma giggles.

"You're bad at breakfast, Daddy."

"I'm bad at mornings in general, Bug."

"I know." She grins at me, dimples flashing, and I think not for the first time that she's the bravest person I know and she has no idea.

The bus comes at 7:15, right on time, and Emma kisses my cheek and runs down the driveway with her backpack bouncing against her shoulders, her pigtails flying behind her. I watch until the bus pulls away, until I can't see her face in the window anymore, and then I head straight for the stables.

The morning is cold and clear, the kind of Montana autumn morning that makes your lungs ache in a good way. The sun's just starting to climb over the eastern ridge, painting everything gold and orange, and if I wasn't so worried about Butterscotch I might actually stop and appreciate it.

But I am worried, because Emma's right. Horses are always hungry, and Butterscotch has never turned down a meal in his life.

The stable is warm and dim, smelling like hay and leather and horse, and I find Butterscotch in his stall with his head hanging low, not even bothering to look up when I approach.

"Hey, boy," I say softly, unlatching the door and stepping inside. "What's going on with you?"

He doesn't move. Doesn't even flick an ear.

I run my hands over him, checking for heat or swelling, feeling for anything out of the ordinary. His coat is dull, which isn't like him, and when I press gently on his abdomen he shifts away with a soft grunt.

*Shit.*

I pull out my phone and call Boone, because if anyone knows horses, it's him.

He answers on the second ring. "Yeah?"

"Butterscotch still isn't eating. Emma was right."

There's a pause, then a sigh. "I'll be there in five."

He's there in three, because Boone doesn't mess around when it comes to horses. We go over Butterscotch together: checking his gums, his temperature, his gut sounds, and everything Boone finds makes his face grimmer.

"Could be colic," he says finally, straightening up. "Could be something worse."

"We need a vet."

"Yeah." He pulls out his phone, scrolls through something, then shows me the screen. "New one just opened a practice in town last month. Dr. Williams. Got good reviews from the Patterson ranch."

The Pattersons are old-school ranchers who don't trust anyone under sixty, so if they're recommending this vet, that's saying something.

"Call them," I say, and Boone nods and steps out of the stall, already dialing.

I stay with Butterscotch, one hand on his neck, feeling his shallow breathing, thinking about how I'm going to explain this to Emma if something goes really wrong.

Boone comes back a few minutes later. "She can be here by ten. Said to keep him warm and calm, no food or water until she's evaluated him."

I check my watch. It's barely eight. Two hours.

"I'll stay with him," I say.

"Tucker, we've got fence repair on the south pasture—"

"I'll stay with him."

Boone looks at me for a long moment, then nods. "I'll send Colt and Mason to handle it. You want coffee?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

He leaves, and I sink down onto an overturned bucket, and I wait.

Dr. Williams arrives at 9:47 AM in a beat-up Ford truck that's seen better days, pulling a horse trailer behind it that I assume carries her equipment.

I'm standing outside the stable when she parks, because Boone came by twenty minutes ago to tell me she was on her way, and I wanted to meet her out here instead of making her wander around looking for the right building.

The truck door opens and a woman climbs out.

She’s white, curvy, long dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, wearing jeans and boots and a canvas jacket with "Dr. M.

Williams, DVM" embroidered on the chest. She's got glasses on, black-framed and slightly crooked, and when she turns to look at me there's something sharp in her expression, something that says she's ready for a fight.

Great.

"Mr. Hayes?" she calls, walking toward me with a large bag in one hand.

"Tucker," I say, meeting her halfway. "Thanks for coming out so fast."

"Of course." She shifts the bag to her other hand and offers me the free one. "Marley Williams."

Her handshake is firm, professional, and brief.

Up close she's prettier than I expected.

Dimples when she gives me a tight smile, brown eyes behind those glasses that are currently scanning me like I'm a specimen she's evaluating, and I realize with a jolt that I'm noticing these things, which I haven't done in years.

"The horse is this way," I say, turning toward the stable.

She falls into step beside me. "Your friend—Boone?—said it might be colic. How long has the horse been symptomatic?"

"Noticed yesterday he wasn't eating. Still hasn't touched his food this morning."

"Any signs of distress? Rolling, pawing, sweating?"

"No rolling. A little restless, but mostly he's just... quiet. Which isn't like him."

"How old?"

"Fifteen."

"Any previous health issues?"

"Not since we've had him. Got him from Frank Delaney three years ago when he passed."

She nods, and we reach the stable. I hold the door open for her and she passes through, her bag bumping against her hip, and I catch a whiff of something clean and professional. Soap, maybe, or whatever shampoo veterinarians use when they're about to stick their arm up a horse's ass.

"Which stall?" she asks.

"Third on the right. Butterscotch."

She raises an eyebrow at that. Probably thinking the name is ridiculous but doesn't comment. Just heads down the aisle, and I follow her because I'm not leaving Butterscotch alone with a stranger, even if that stranger is a vet.

The horse is standing in the same position I left him in, head low, not moving.

"Hey there, buddy," Dr. Williams says softly, and her whole demeanor changes. Softer, gentler, like she's talking to a scared child. "I'm just going to take a look at you, okay?"

She sets down her bag and approaches slowly, letting Butterscotch smell her hand before she touches him. He doesn't react much, which worries me more, but she doesn't seem fazed. Just starts her examination: hands moving over his body, checking his pulse, his breathing, his temperature.

I lean against the stall door and watch, trying not to think about how competent she looks, how her hands are gentle but sure, how she's murmuring to Butterscotch the whole time in that soft voice that makes even me want to relax.

"His gut sounds are reduced," she says after a minute, pulling out a stethoscope and pressing it to his abdomen. "Not absent but definitely reduced. Temperature is slightly elevated. Gums are tacky."

"Is it colic?"

"Possibly." She straightens up, pushing her glasses up her nose with one finger. "I'm going to do a rectal exam to check for impaction. Do you have somewhere you need to be, or can you stay to help hold him?"

"I can stay."

"Good." She pulls out a long plastic glove from her bag. The kind that goes all the way up to your shoulder, and I realize what's about to happen.

Butterscotch realizes it too, because he shifts nervously, and Dr. Williams gives him a reassuring pat.

"Easy, sweet boy," she murmurs. "I know this isn't fun."

I move to Butterscotch's head, taking his halter gently, holding him steady. Dr. Williams positions herself at his back end, and I look away because watching a vet do a rectal exam at nine in the morning is not how I wanted to start my day.

"Talk to him," she says. "Keep him calm."

So, I do. I tell Butterscotch about Emma, about how worried she was this morning, about how she drew him a picture and wore her pink boots even though it's not a pink-boots kind of day.

I tell him about the ranch, about the new investor who's going to help us save this place, about Wade falling in love so fast it made all our heads spin.

I'm rambling, basically, but it seems to work. Butterscotch stays mostly still, and Dr. Williams works quickly.

"Significant impaction in the large colon," she says after a minute, pulling her arm free and stripping off the glove. "That's what's causing his discomfort and lack of appetite. Not severe enough for surgery yet, but we need to treat it aggressively."

"What do we do?"

"Mineral oil, IV fluids, pain management, and monitoring.

" She's already pulling supplies from her bag—a large bottle of clear liquid, IV equipment, syringes.

"I'm going to tube him first, get some oil into his system to help break up the impaction.

Then we'll set up fluids and give him something for the pain. "

"How long until he's better?"

"If we caught it early enough? Twenty-four to forty-eight hours. But I'll need to come back tomorrow to check on him, and you'll need to monitor him closely tonight. If he starts rolling or showing signs of severe distress, you call me immediately, understand?"

"Yeah."

"Good." She pulls out a long tube and a bucket, and I realize she's about to pass a tube down Butterscotch's nose into his stomach.

This day just keeps getting better.