Chapter 10
Wilder
His voice sounded small when he responded with a tight, “Hey.”
I didn’t like it.
Didn’t like how lost it made him sound, even from just that single word alone. How his usual sunlit energy was strained and stretched too thin, trying to hide behind the carefully measured tone he was using.
Asher was supposed to be glee and reckless charm personified—not whatever this was.
Worrying himself sick over something he couldn’t control was pointless.
He couldn’t fix a damn thing from where he was, hundreds of miles away.
And even if he had been here, he wouldn’t be doing anything different than I was right now.
I would’ve dragged him along to this hospital, sat him down next to me in one of these ungodly stiff waiting room chairs and watched his knee bounce a mile a minute, fingers twitching in his lap, while we waited for another vet tech to come pushing through those back doors and update us on whatever latest test they’d run.
Right now, he was supposed to be off spending time with his family—on a well-deserved vacation I had no business interrupting. He’d earned it tenfold with the amount of work he’d put in day in and day out these past few months, let alone the entire goddamn year I’d had him.
Four hundred and twenty-nine days. That was it.
In that short amount of time, he’d done more than most veterans did in their entire first five seasons on the ranch without bitching or complaining about anything outside of the rare hassling comments made toward his fellow ranch hands while they messed around with each other.
Impressive was the bare minimum when it came to the kind of compliment I could give Asher Torres, yet nothing else really seemed to fit otherwise.
I adjusted the grip on my phone, keeping my voice steady as I said, “She’s okay, Asher.”
He was silent on the other end. Nothing but the sound of his soft breathing coming through on the other side of the line.
By now, I knew him pretty well. At least, I liked to think I did.
Asher wasn’t one for the kind of nice platitude most folks gave to kids his age; didn’t really care for soft words or a gentle ‘it’ll be okay, don’t worry’ that might ease anyone else less who was less in tune with the world around them.
None of that would help. That simply wasn’t how he processed things. He needed facts, the cold hard trust. Straight and unfiltered, even if it was ugly.
So, that’s what I gave him.
“Vet thinks she got into something before we put her away for the night. Ate something she wasn’t supposed to and it really upset her system.
There’s a good possibility she had a seizure, so they’re running a few tests to check her bloodwork.
EEG will have to be performed if her bloodwork comes back abnormal. ”
Watching Elena’s expression pinch as she’d delivered the news to me had gutted me.
She’d been the specialist here for as long as I’d been a ranch hand and was never one to beat around the bush when it came to my animals.
I appreciated that about her, much like I appreciated Teddy’s gentle approach, too.
Two sides of the same coin and both valuable beyond belief in this industry.
But having to be told how close of a call we’d come to losing one of our fillies after finally getting her back to where she was before all the abuse was the last thing I’d been hoping to hear. She’d already come to us in bad shape as it was and only came around because of a special hand.
Whatever had happened to her to make her so sick to begin with was troubling me more and more the longer I sat here wrapped up in my own thoughts.
“I’ve got Sully going through the feed right now,” I continued. “To make sure the manufacturer didn’t fuck up and send us a rotten batch we didn’t catch before putting out. They’ve got her on an IV for fluids for now. Once results start coming in, they’ll get a treatment plan set up for her.”
He remained quiet.
I knew it would be hard for him to hear, and even harder for me to actually tell him. Which was why I’d had Laken break the news to him to begin with.
I figured it would be better coming from someone closer to him than me, anyway, since I tended not to have the best track record when it came to breaking bad news gently; figuring it was more merciful to rip the band-aid off than torture someone with the slow peel.
Though, as my mama would say, sometimes there were more gracious ways to go about showing mercy.
Asher loved that damn horse like she was his own; had taken excellent care of her since I’d quietly let him take over all of her duties and redirected the other ranch hands to handling the care of our other intakes.
This being his first time away from the ranch since being hired and her getting so sick would tear me up, too.
“Asher,” I tried again. “I’m not leaving here without her.”
That was a promise I intended to keep.
While the news was grim, Elena wasn’t talking end-of-life care yet or even worse, humane euthanasia. If things were that bad, she would’ve told me the second we’d gotten our filly off the trailer. So far, they were running tests to find out what the hell happened in the first place.
After another long moment, I finally heard it: a slow, shaky breath pushed past Asher’s lips.
And damn if that didn’t settle something deep in my chest. The tension melted from my shoulders, my body instinctively rolling them back a few times, trying to loosen the knots I hadn’t even realized had settled there.
I hadn’t noticed how much I’d been holding on to any of that until now.
“What do you think happened?” Asher asked, his voice soft.
Honestly, I wasn’t sure.
Only a few tests had come back that had ruled out the usual things: previously unknown infections, accidental pesticide exposure, or some virus that had spread from one of our newer rescues. None of it had shown up on the initial blood panel.
So far, Elena and her team were coming up blank.
“I have a hunch she got into something when we let her out into the pasture earlier in the day. Once I’m back at the ranch, I’m going to take a walk around the whole thing, see if I can find whatever it was she got into.
” Purely speculation, but you never knew.
Horses liked to get into trouble when they were bored.
Without Asher around to run her in the back paddock like usual, it wouldn’t surprise me if she was trying to find other ways to entertain herself.
He grunted softly. “Not much out there other than dead grass, boss.”
My lip twitched into a small smile.
There he was.
Slowly coming back to m—to himself. I hated hearing him spiral no matter how silent he was about it.
“Lots of things can grow out near the fences. On the off chance someone came wandering across the property line looking for trouble and dropped something, I want to know what it was so I can let the vet test it. But that’s highly unlikely, since a few of the other horses weren’t feeling well, either. ”
“True.” He sighed. “I hope it wasn’t intentional.”
“I can’t imagine it was, I don’t usually have enemies.”
“Usually?” His voice lifted in curiosity, a soft edge of amusement clinging to the rest of his sentence. “That sounds like there was a time when you did.”
My smile widened slightly. “Perhaps I’ve lived a colorful life.”
He laughed again, real and warm sounding. No touch of anxiety anywhere.
I missed hearing his voice. Only a few days had rolled by since he’d gone and left for Baton Rouge and already I had to stop myself from looking over my shoulder, his name tingling the tip of my tongue, ready to be called.
Maybe that was my fault for getting used to having him around me so often.
I’d been trying not to make a habit of hanging around his usual haunts, to keep my hovering to a minimum no matter how often I found myself unconsciously wandering toward the back paddock or last set of stalls.
Bad habits were hard to kick. Even worse when it was becoming more obvious as the weeks went on how none of those urges had died down at all since he first came to me.
If anything, they’d only gotten worse. I had hoped once winter hit, I’d finally have the time to focus that energy into something more productive but yet again, I’d proven myself a damn fool.
“If that’s the case, I’d love to hear the stories. I can’t imagine someone straight-laced like you would get into any sort of trouble.”
I frowned.
Straight-laced?
For some reason, that hit my pride a little harder than it probably should have.
I was never some wild child, sure, never had been in all my years on this Earth, but I still knew how to have fun.
My younger years were normal. Heading into town after wrapping up the day, winding down with a drink or two at the bar, maybe heading home for the night with someone if I was feeling up for stumbling back to the ranch right before the start of morning chores the next day.
I wasn’t straight-laced. Not some stiff, rule-following, boring rancher who didn’t know the meaning of letting loose and having a little fun.
I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth.
Lord...
Why the hell was I letting a nineteen-year-old’s comment get under my skin like this?
Why did I care what he thought?
I had no reason to impress him. No reason to feel the urge to correct him because I shouldn’t be wanting him to find me interesting to begin with.
He was off-limits. Period.
“Uh-oh,” he said.
I frowned. “What?”
“You got offended.” His tone was a little sing-song-y. Teasing me in that signature Asher way of his. Gone from this conversation not even five minutes ago, but now back in full force.
I felt my face grow hot. “I didn’t.”
“Mhmm... You know, you only get that quiet when you’re either thinking about something really hard, or when I’ve said something that annoyed you.”
I held back a sigh.
Some days, it really impressed me the way Asher could read me so easily. Other days, it scared the hell out of me.
Because what the hell was a nineteen-year-old kid doing wasting his youth mucking stalls and pushing out hay bales when he could be flying through college with the kind of smarts he had, getting some high-paying job at some fancy law firm in the city, or doing whatever else it was that intellectuals like him dreamed of?
Instead, he was here with me at my family’s ranch, being a goddamn horse whisperer.
I rubbed a hand over my face.
Lately, those were the kind of thoughts keeping me up at night, making me toss and turn until the sky outside my bedroom window shifted from black to a faded yellow from the rising sun.
I had no idea what I was going to do when he eventually realized he was meant for things greater than Boone Ranch.
What it would mean for me to force myself to let him go just like I did when that cab had pulled up to whisk him away to the airport for his flight back to Baton Rouge.
For one fleeting second, I’d hesitated. Had every intention of calling him back to tell him we needed him to stay—that I did—and apologize for getting his hopes up about leaving to see his family before quietly slipping his bag from his shoulder and taking him back up to the bunkhouse where he belonged.
My feelings were selfish, I knew. As much as I hated to admit to myself, it had been hard letting him go. And that was after he’d promised me up and down he’d be back once New Year’s rolled around.
What was going to happen when he left for good?
When he finally looked me in the eyes and told me he saw his life going in a different direction, one that didn’t include Boone Ranch?
I swallowed back the rising bile in my throat.
Oh, it would kill me.
“So, which one is it?” Asher asked.
I blinked, snapping back to the present. “What?
“Are you thinking about something or did I annoy you?”
I sighed softly, leaning back in my chair until the back of my head hit the wall. I slowly closed my eyes, red bleeding past my lids from the harsh fluorescents overhead. “You never annoy me.”
If anything, Asher had done the opposite: wormed his way into my heart without either of us realizing it until it was far too late to turn back.
“Okay, now I know you’re lying.”
“I’m not,” I replied, my voice firm. “You haven’t, and never have, annoyed me, Asher.”
Silence stretched between us for a beat. Just long enough to have me wondering if I’d somehow crossed a line by being so honest.
“I think you’re only being nice to me because my horse is in the hospital.”
“Your horse, hm,” I drawled.
Instantly, he sputtered, scrambling to correct himself.
“I—I didn’t mean it like that.” His voice pitched higher, full of flustered panic that had no right being as damn cute as it was. “I meant... fuck. Did you know my brother might be getting engaged?”
I nearly snorted. A very obvious subject change but I’d let it slide for now. I did wake him up at four in the morning barely a few days into his vacation. “Oh? That’s exciting. This is good news, right?”
“Yeah. Absolutely. I like his boyfriend. We just met officially, but he’s always been a solid guy from the times we talked on the phone before I left for Texas.”
“That’s good to hear. I hope the rest of your vacation goes well.” Hanging up felt like a punishment, except the longer I talked to him, the more I was fighting with myself to tell him to come back. “Have fun, all right?”
There was a small, almost unnoticeable hesitation before he said, “You’ll keep me in the loop right? With Pelly?”
I felt it then. That stupidly familiar and unavoidable warmth pressing against my ribs, blooming before I could so much as try to keep it down. I was too charmed by him. Too fond and in too deep with my feelings to ever pretend I had it in me to deny him a damn thing.
“Of course I will. I’ll let you know as soon as the other tests come back.”
He let out a relieved sigh. “Okay great. I’m going to go back to bed now.”
“I’ll text you when I’m heading home with her.”
“Thank you, Wilder.” There was a smile in his voice. “I hope you get some sleep, too.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wouldn’t be doing any of that until he was back in Texas. Until he was safely tucked back into that damn bunkhouse and back on my ranch where he belonged.
Where I wanted him to belong.
It wasn’t true—not by a long shot, but that lie was the version my heart wanted to believe, even if it was somewhat delusional.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced out a quick, “Sure. Take care.”
For him, I’d at least try.
Even when I knew it was pointless.