Chapter 6

Eli lived barely two miles outside town, but the drive from Boone’s place to the Murphy property felt interminable.

A frightened horse in unfamiliar territory was one thing. A frightened horse on the loose where he’d all but abandoned Beth to her own devices was something else entirely.

An all too familiar scene played out in his head—a late-night storm, Fury’s gate opened by folks who’d hoped to steal her, and Tess chasing after her beloved mare in the middle of it all.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he hissed as he put the pedal to the metal. He didn’t even turn the truck off when he skidded to a stop just outside the barn, just threw it in park and ran.

He saw her feet first—a sneaker and an air cast—jutting out from the opened stall door. He didn’t have time to process, only to keep running until he hit a wall or he was trampled by a spooked mare.

The wall came first, and he was barely able to stop before barreling into it. And then there she was. No. There they were. Midnight lay resting on the ground while Beth reclined on a blanket she must have found in the tack room, her head propped on Midnight’s side.

“What’s up, Doc?” Beth asked with a soft laugh.

She had the nerve to laugh when he was likely having a heart attack?

Somewhere in his head, Eli knew it was panic and not a vital organ, but he was far beyond searching the recesses of his brain for the logical answer. He doubled over and pressed his hands to his knees, only now realizing he needed air. Lots of air. He gulped as much oxygen as his lungs could handle until he no longer felt like he might black out.

When he finally lifted his head, the two females hadn’t so much as moved. Beth even had the nerve to look groggy, as if she’d just woken up from a nap.

“Were you sleeping?” he asked, incredulous.

Beth blinked and stretched her arms.

Midnight blew out a breath through her nose, but other than that, the mare barely stirred.

Eli’s head, though, swam.

“I might have been starting to doze, but I’m up now.” She yawned. “Are you feeling better? Did you see that man about a horse? And what’s with the sprinting? I thought those boots were made for walkin’. Or better yet, ridin’.” She grinned.

Eli flew to the barn in a full-blown panic, and Beth yawned. She yawned and casually asked about his day and had the audacity to tease him as if she napped on strange horses in strange barns on a stranger’s property all the damned time.

“I don’t understand.” He rose to his full height and scratched the back of his head. “You’re not an animal person, which—now that I’m saying that out loud—makes me wonder why the hell I hired you to work at a veterinary clinic. But that’s beside the point. What the hell are you doing in Midnight’s stall? Dozing?”

Beth bolted upright, eyes wide. “Midnight!” She spun to give the mare an affectionate pat on the nose. “So that’s her name!”

Eli braced a palm against the wall. “How did you know she was a she? And that she wouldn’t bite you? And…and…you’re the only one in here? No one else opened her stall?” He started pacing. Again.

Beth climbed awkwardly to her feet, and he stepped into the stall to reach out a hand, albeit seconds too late.

Too late. What if he’d found a different scene at the barn? What if Midnight had been more like Cirrus when the stallion had first arrived—skittish and prone to kicking up his hind legs in defense? Hadn’t Boone described her as such? Yet here she was, reclining in her new stall, letting Beth recline on her.

“Did I do something wrong?” Beth asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Also, how did you even know I was here?”

Her blond hair was dry now, and it hung in loose waves against her shoulders. He suddenly remembered her hand on his thigh, and his pulse raced with an unfamiliar longing for the second time that day.

Eli swallowed. “The stall doors have sensors.”

“You mean like an alarm?” she asked, moving close to the door to inspect it.

Instinct made him take a step back as he nodded.

She pressed the pad of her thumb over the almost imperceptible device affixed to the top corner of the door.

Eli imagined that thumb doing the same thing to his leg.

Jesus, what was wrong with him? She was Delaney’s sister. And his employee. His reckless employee.

“What, do people steal horses right off the ranch?” Beth continued with a disbelieving laugh.

He nodded again. “During a goddamn storm under the cover of rain and thunder, not expecting a docile mare to lose her shit at a little bit of weather—or her defiant rider to chase after them.”

Beth’s head tilted up, and her wide green eyes met his. She asked nothing, but somehow she knew the rest of the story ended with him losing Fury…and Tess.

“Why not lock her door? Or the barn itself?” she asked.

Eli blew out a shaky breath. “In case of a barn fire. Animals have great instincts when it comes to escaping danger, but if they’re locked in…”

Beth’s hand flew over her opened mouth, and she gasped. “Oh my god. That’s terrifying. So you have these animals on your property, and there’s nothing you can do to keep them safe other than a silent alarm on their doors?”

Eli nodded. “I don’t think such a thing as safe really exists. But we do the best we can.”

But sometimes his best wasn’t good enough, and that was the part Eli still couldn’t get past.

“Is she hurt?” Beth asked. “Midnight? She seems to be favoring her left front leg.”

Maybe Beth wasn’t an animal person, but she was perceptive.

“Yeah. She broke her left radius,” Eli told her. “Which is basically her elbow. She’s recuperated from the surgery, but she’s out of practice walking on it.” He scratched the back of his head. “I’m also guessing she’s a little scared to do it. I’m going to rehab her and find her a new home.”

Sooner rather than later, he hoped. He wasn’t sure how long he could look at Fury’s twin before it erased all the progress he might have made in the past three years.

“Will she take a rider again?” Beth’s brow furrowed with worry Eli hadn’t expected.

“That’s the plan,” he explained. “She was bred as a show horse, but her owners didn’t have much use for her once she got injured. Best Boone or I can probably do is get her to a good home that cares more about her company than what she can actually do.”

As if knowing she was the current topic of conversation, Midnight carefully rose from where she reclined. She nudged Beth’s shoulder with her nose, and Beth laughed. Then, because the door was still open, the mare took another small step forward so she stood face-to-face with Eli.

He felt her warm breath on his cheek. He briefly squeezed his eyes shut before daring to glance at the white star between her eyes, the one that made her look so much like Fury.

He opened his eyes again, cautiously, waiting for his stomach to protest like it had earlier that day. But his body didn’t react. Not to Midnight at least. But he found a warm hand suddenly clasped in his and realized he’d either grabbed Beth’s hand without thinking or she’d grabbed his.

“I’m sorry, Eli,” she said softly. “I hope I didn’t overstep. You just looked like you needed it.”

That was when it hit him. He hadn’t raced to the barn because he was worried only about the horse. He’d blown out of Boone and Casey’s apartment without so much as a goodbye because he’d also been worried about her. Beth. A woman he’d only met that day. But for too many reasons to count, his worry could not go any further than this.

He gently freed his hand from hers.

He should have thanked her. He should have asked her how the hell she could read him so well. Instead, he told her a partial truth.

“I guess you’re more of an animal person than you knew. And you’ll be just as good with their respective humans. That—I guess—is why I hired you.” He clenched and unclenched the fist of the hand she’d been holding. “Sorry about that comment earlier about not understanding why I agreed to the whole working in the clinic situation. You’re obviously a natural at this, and I’m obviously a dick.”

The corner of her mouth twitched into a smile, but Eli swore he read a note of disappointment before it did. The same disappointment that he had already buried somewhere he hoped was deep enough not to find.

“Thank you,” Beth replied. She held out her hand to shake but seemingly thought better of it and dropped it back to her side. “Though I have a request…something I’d like to add to my position at the clinic.”

She wanted to do more work? After him being a bit of an ass about her qualifications, he certainly wasn’t going to argue with that.

He shrugged. “Sure. Why not?”

Beth squared her shoulders and crossed her arms. “I want to learn to ride a horse…with Midnight.”

“She still not talking to you?” Boone asked.

The two men stood at the threshold of the exam room hallway where it met the clinic waiting room.

Eli crossed his arms and nodded as he watched Beth smile at Trudy Davis and her ancient beagle, Frederick, as she checked them in.

“It’s been a week,” Eli told his brother. “She’s all smiles for the clients. Maybe a little standoffish to the animals, but me? I’m just the doctor. ‘The doctor will see you now,’ or ‘The doctor has your prescription ready,’ or even her handing me the phone and saying, ‘Of course, the doctor would love to talk to you about the new medications you think every veterinary clinic needs,’ regardless of me standing right next to the front desk, violently shaking my head no.”

Boone covered his mouth, but not before Eli heard him snort.

Beth’s head shot up as she glanced in their direction, and Eli yanked his brother into an empty exam room, slamming the door behind them.

Boone raised his brows. “Big brother, what did you do?”

Eli shoved his hands into the pockets of his white coat. “You mean other than giving her free room and board plus a job she’s wildly unqualified for?” Okay, the second part was a lie, and even Boone could see that. From the second she stepped behind the desk, the clinic was running more efficiently than it had in years.

Boone mirrored his brother’s stance, hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans.

How different he and Boone were. But then Eli glanced down at the boots peeking out from the scrubs he wore beneath the coat, a shred of his former self that he still couldn’t abandon, and he wondered if his brother could still see it too, the man Eli used to be.

“Eli, you are full of more shit than Cirrus’s and Midnight’s stalls plus the entire chicken coop combined. So tell me what the hell you did to incur the wrath of Delaney’s sister, and then get your ass out to the barn and check up on our mare. You’re late for our appointment.”

Eli sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. When he squeezed his eyes shut, he could still see the mixture of shock and anger and sadness in Beth’s eyes.

“You’re not riding any horse on this property,” he’d told her that afternoon outside the mare’s stall. “Least of all Midnight.”

Her mouth fell open, but she regained her composure a second later.

“Did you just forbid me from riding this sweetheart of an animal?” She nodded her head in Midnight’s direction. “And let me clarify that that is the first and probably only time I’ve ever said that about something that walks on four legs.” Midnight nudged her shoulder softly. “See?” she added. “We’re, like, connected or something. She wants me to be the one to rehab her. She needs a rider, right? Why shouldn’t it be—”

“Dammit, Beth! It’s not happening!” Eli snapped, and a split second later, he saw it: Midnight shifting her weight to her hind legs, her head rearing back.

In one swift motion, he wrapped an arm around Beth, swung her out of the way, and yanked the stall door shut with his boot. His whole body shook against the metal frame as Midnight struck it with what he hoped was her good hoof. The fact that she’d even struck metal was a blessing in and of itself considering the door was more of a gate. She could have punched right through Eli’s back, and then what? Beth would have to deal with the aftermath?

Beth screamed, her head buried in his chest and her body shaking against his. But when she finally pulled away and set her eyes on him, her gaze threatened to burn him to ash.

She pointed at him, and her voice shook as she spoke. “You did that.”

He could hear Midnight breathing heavily behind him, but she didn’t strike again.

“She could have hurt you,” he said evenly. Or worse.

“She could have hurt you!” Beth lobbed back at him.

On instinct, he reached over his shoulder, massaging the part that had taken the brunt of Midnight’s kick.

Beth’s expression softened. “She did, didn’t she? You’re hurt.”

Eli rolled his shoulder. “I’m fine.” At least physically he was. “I knew what I was doing. But you… You fully admit that you know nothing about animals, yet you crawl into a horse’s stall like she’s some giant stuffed prize you won at a carnival.” He heard the volume of his voice rising again and took a beat to collect himself, for Midnight’s sake and for Beth’s. “You don’t know what you’re doing when it comes to creatures like her. I do. Midnight belongs to the Murphy ranch, and I’m a Murphy. So…yes. I forbid you to ride her or to enter her stall alone again. As an employee of the Murphy ranch and veterinary clinic, can I trust you to do as I’m asking?”

He hated himself for the way he spoke to her then and hated himself even more as he retold the story to his brother now.

Beth had responded by fisting her hands at her sides, then clearing her throat.

“Yes, Dr. Murphy,” she told him with terrifying sweetness. “Whatever you say, Dr. Murphy.” Then her gaze moved past him and to the mare still standing behind the stall door.

Beth’s eyes grew glassy, and Eli swore under his breath.

“Did you say something?” she asked.

He opened his mouth to respond, to apologize for being the asshole he knew he was being. But instead, he merely replied, “No.”

“Then I’ll see you at the clinic tomorrow,” she’d said flatly before giving Midnight one last pat on the nose and storming out of the barn.

Now, Eli leaned back against the exam room door and let his head fall against it.

Boone reacted to the story with a long whistle followed by an even longer silence.

“Say it,” Eli told his brother. “Say whatever it is you’re thinking. I might have been a dick, but I saved her life.” He hoped rationalizing his behavior to his brother would do the job of rationalizing it to himself. But this was a question with a yes or no answer. Yes, Eli had been an ass. No, the situation didn’t have to go down that way.

Boone shrugged. “Sure. Sure. Yeah. That’s one way to look at it.”

Eli sighed. “And the other way?” he asked.

“Or…you provoked the mare by threatening the only human she trusts right now.”

His younger brother didn’t say anything more, but Eli knew what came next.

You are the one who put Beth in harm’s way, Eli. Just like you did with Tess.

What if Eli had gone after Fury instead of Tess? What if he’d called the sheriff’s department instead of trying to catch the would-be thieves himself? What if Tess had mounted the mare after the clap of thunder that shook the earth? And the best one yet… What if he’d told Tess to wait inside the house in the first place?

He at least knew the answer to the last question. Tess would have torn him a new one and still done whatever she thought she could to save her horse. But what if he’d found a way to convince her to wait?

What if? What if? What if?

In his head, he’d replayed that night’s sequence of events too many times to count, trying to come up with the scenario where Tess lived, where Fury didn’t give up on her will to do the same, and where Eli didn’t lose every goddamned thing he held dear.

“Hey…” Boone nudged his shoulder. “Did I lose you?”

“What? No. Sorry.” Eli straightened and repositioned the stethoscope hanging around his neck. “Animals with trust issues are volatile,” he told his brother. “Beth could have sneezed or hiccupped or…I don’t know. She could have done any number of things to set the mare off before I showed up. Bottom line is there’s no telling how a scared creature like that will react to any sort of new stimuli.”

Boone took a step forward and clapped Eli on the shoulder. “You said it, big brother. Not me. Just remember that humans are animals too.” He opened the door, but before striding through it, he called back over his shoulder. “Meet me at Midnight’s stall, but maybe consider apologizing to that highly efficient young woman out there before you do.”

Apologize? For keeping her safe? Whether or not he provoked Midnight, the important thing was that she was too dangerous to ride, especially for a novice.

“Apologize,” he mumbled with a derisive laugh as he spun toward the door to follow Boone out. “Ha.”

Except…he’d yelled. At Beth. That wasn’t him. Eli had never raised his voice to anyone like that, not even his brothers. But Eli Murphy hadn’t been Eli Murphy in years. And it was starting to scare him that he might never find his way back.

His phone buzzed in his pocket before he made it all the way to the clinic’s reception area. It was a calendar invite. From Boone.

Event: Ranchers who knit shit no one wants

When: Every Saturday, 7 a.m. Trudy’s bookshop.

Message: You need this. Say no, and I’ll drag your ass there anyway. It’s up to you. Also, dress for riding. Trudy likes to take pictures for the website. Says it’s good for tourism.

Eli sighed and shoved his phone back in his pocket, ignoring the invite and the brotherly threat. Instead he steeled himself, brushed nonexistent dust or lint or whatever from his coat and scrubs, and made a direct line for the check-in desk.

“Absolutely,” Beth was saying into the phone. “We can fit your new cat in for those immunizations tomorrow morning. You’re welcome. We’ll see you then.”

She hung up the phone and finished entering the appointment into the computer. Even though Eli could see she’d completed the reservation, she kept her eyes on the screen and dragged her index finger along the mouse’s scroll wheel.

He cleared his throat, and after a brief hesitation, Beth finally looked up.

“What can I do for you, Dr. Murphy?” she asked, all cool professionalism, saccharine sweetness, and none of the warmth he heard her use daily with his clients.

He glanced over his shoulder. The waiting area was empty, which meant she must have already situated Trudy and Frederick in a room.

“You’re still pissed at me,” he began. Not a question but a statement.

She shrugged and tucked her blond waves behind her ears.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dr. Murphy. I’m simply your employee who does what’s asked of her, whether it’s being directed to answer calls and take appointments or being forbidden from riding a horse that needs to learn how to carry a rider again.”

And there it was.

Eli huffed out a bitter laugh. “So…pissed.”

Beth folded her hands in her lap, and he couldn’t help but notice how much greener her eyes looked when reflecting her green scrubs, like the forest beyond the Murphy property.

“Did you need something from me, Dr. Murphy? Have I double-booked any clients or failed to properly sanitize a room after an exam?”

He’d really messed up, hadn’t he?

Eli rested a hand on top of the counter. “No, Beth. Shit. It’s not like that. You’re doing an amazing job here. It’s me. I wanted to tell you that I’m sorr—”

The door to the exam room directly opposite the desk flew open, and Trudy Davis emerged, tears streaming down her cheeks, her beagle, Frederick, lying limp in her arms.

“Eli! Oh god. Help! I think something’s really wrong with Frederick!”

Beth sprang up from her chair. “What do you need me to do?”

His tech, Ryan, was in the middle of a teeth cleaning with an anesthetized cat.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, already heading toward his frantic client. “Just grab Frederick’s chart, and meet me in the exam room stat!”

Today was only supposed to be a checkup. Maybe an ultrasound to see if the mass in Frederick’s abdomen was still stable. But today wasn’t goodbye for Trudy and her long-beloved companion.

Not if Eli had a say in the matter. And today, he sure as hell hoped he did.