Chapter 3 #2
“I don’t know, she started having contractions, but the baby hasn’t come out.”
The mini horse bleated a distressed neigh, stamping in fear.
He crouched beside the mare, stroking her neck to settle her. Tiny Dancer’s flanks quivered, breath kicking hard. This was bad. This was incredibly bad.
Colter felt Sutton come up beside him and for one split breath he was grateful she was there.
He had animals in crisis, a brand-new intern, and no Irma. Suddenly, he was not thinking about dating rules, or melons, or single mothers. He was thinking about saving a life.
Neigh. Neigh.
The poor thing was clearly in pain.
He looked at Sutton, who was dressed in her Sunday best—all soft cashmere and a skirt that flirted just above her knees—hardly the uniform of someone about to scrub in and help a miniature pony deliver a foal.
“You ever deliver a baby?” he asked and then remembered that she was a mom. “Forget I asked that. You said you were ready to jump in. Well, grab your parachute.”
Sutton had never owned a parachute, didn’t know what one felt like, and definitely had not planned on being thrown out of a perfectly good airplane today.
“I’m more of a free fall kind of person.”
Colter smirked, letting a slow grin stretch across his face. The look should have sent every warning bell screaming, yet her pulse raced for an entirely different reason.
“Free fall, huh? Perfect. Then consider this your warm-up.” He gestured toward the pony, then leaned close, voice low and teasing. “Just follow my lead and try not to scream before we make it to the barn.”
Her skin warmed under that voice. Damn him.
“Then can I scream?”
He didn’t answer, just led them through the clinic, out the back door and toward a barn.
When they were in the birthing stall, the pony was lying on her side.
Sutton did not scream but she was pretty close to passing out.
The smell of hay, sweat, and panic clung to the air.
Reading about birthing in vet tech school was one thing.
Being in the barn with a crying mom, a distressed pony, and—possibly—a stillborn baby made it hard to breathe.
“Glove up,” Colter said. “And you might want to put on a plastic apron. This is about to get messy.”
Her hands shook as she snapped on the gloves. “Messy is my specialty.”
“Ever deliver a breech baby?”
“No. I’ve watched YouTube videos though.”
His head snapped toward her, disbelief wrinkling his forehead.
He looked at her like she was crazy. And maybe she was.
She had spent the past two years preparing for this moment.
Waiting for the day she would meet Lynlee’s biological dad, well, her sperm donor.
And their first two meetings included tampons and a placenta.
“Front feet first, or back?” Colter asked the pony as if she were going to answer. “Back. Great. Just what I needed today.”
“Back feet first. That’s bad, right?”
“Not the end of the world, but tricky. You gotta be gentle, patient, and keep your hands inside as long as possible.”
“You make it sound so easy.” She already felt sweat beading at her neck.
“Easy? Ha. You’ll get to feel every muscle and tendon in this pony’s hindquarters. Intimate, isn’t it?”
Sutton felt the blood rush from her face. Intimate was one word for it. Horrifying bodily immersion was another.
“Relax. I’ve done this a hundred times. You just follow my lead, and we’ll get this little rebel out without any casualties.”
Her chest squeezed tight as he bent down to stroke the pony’s neck.
“I’ve got you, sweetheart,” he said, and Sutton felt her heart melt in the most maddening way.
Her spine locked. She could not melt. Not now. Not because a man showed tenderness toward a laboring mare.
She was met with an inconvenient frustration, that Colter Callahan was possibly a genuinely decent man.
Which was a problem. She had built her defenses around the idea that he was cocky, flirtatious, and an all-around playboy—something she could justify keeping her daughter far away from.
Villains were easy to avoid. Jerks were simple to hate.
But this side of him was far more dangerous.
She thought about that word, dangerous, on the drive to pick up Lynlee, still smelling faintly of something she refused to identify.
Her hands were steady on the wheel, which felt like a minor miracle considering they'd been shaking inside those gloves for most of the afternoon.
But she'd kept it together. Well, until the colt was delivered—then she teared up a little, but held it together.
She always kept it together—it was one of her superpowers. That was the whole point of her—to keep it together, gather information, make decisions when she actually had something to decide.
But watching that colt take his first breath had been one of the most amazing and terrifying thing she’d ever been a part of.
Except, it stirred up memories of another time she was terrified—being alone in the hospital room giving birth to her own baby.
No family. No friends. Just Sutton and a decision big enough to scare even the most capable of women.
Sutton had become a woman that day. She said goodbye to the life that was easy and carefree, and traded it in for one that was challenging and stressful.
But she’d choose the challenge over comfort every day of the week if it meant being the mom to one incredible kid.