Chapter One

Jaxon Granger crammed his cowboy hat on his head as he bolted out the front door with his shirt tail flapping. He alternately hopped on each foot as he stomped into his boots then raced across the yard. His heart pounded from coming out of a dead sleep to the sound of the emergency buzzer.

Bursting through the side door of the indoor exercise arena, he vaulted the metal corral panels then walked calmly across the dirt floor to the injured horse. His younger brother, Steve, held the thoroughbred stallion by a halter and lead rope as their foreman, Mac Hartley, kept pressure above the horse’s wound to stem the bleeding.

Jax talked in a low tone and patted the stallion’s rump as he rubbed his hand along the big bay’s back, slowly working his way forward. Blood oozed from a horizontal gash across the stud’s meaty chest, and another slash went up his shoulder. The horse danced around and tossed his head, unwilling to stand still.

“Vet coming out or are we hauling him in?” Jax asked.

Mac replied, “Doc Bohlinger’s taking a couple weeks off. He’s got a new vet working with him. She’s on her way now.”

Jax looked up sharply. “She?”

Mac nodded, grinning.

“Shit,” Jax complained. He tried to inspect the wounds again, but the stallion would have none of it.

Mac eyed him. “What’s your problem? Afraid someday you might have to give a woman credit for being capable at her job?”

“The last female vet Doc sent out here passed out from the blood.”

Steve disagreed. “Hey, there was a shit-load of blood. Even made you queasy.”

Jax tried to look at the wounds again. “What about Miss Prim and Prissy last spring? She wasn’t strong enough to handle a horse, and she got herself hurt worrying about her manicure.” Jax gave up his inspection and looked at Steve with a hard expression. “Doc needs to stop hiring women and get men who can do the job.”

Steve disagreed. “I think you’d better reserve judgment with this one. She started working for Doc about three months ago, and she’s already in hot demand with horse owners. Seems to be her specialty.” Steve punched Jax’s arm. “And she’s single. With any luck, maybe she hasn’t heard anything negative about you, and she won’t think you’re a total dick the minute you open your mouth. You might have a chance to ask her out before she’s too jaded.”

Jax shot him a go-to-hell look. “You know how I feel about women like her. They have no business trying to do a man’s job.”

Prodding, Steve continued, “You didn’t think jockeying was for women either, but Allison Keane sure kicked your chauvinistic ass all over the racetrack when she rode Sailor Boy across the finish line in record time last summer. If I recall, you dropped a wad of cash on that bet. And lost.”

Mac joined in as if Jax wasn’t there. “And I seem to recall Jackie Burke walking circles around him as a farrier, too.”

Steve snapped his fingers. “That’s right. And wasn’t it a female orthopedic surgeon who patched him back together when he broke his shoulder? I mean, what’s the world coming to? It’s downright criminal. Why, women are taking over the very jobs men need to support their families.” He made a histrionic overture of pseudo alarm.

Mac chided, “Well, it didn’t seem to stop him from getting in their pants every chance he could.”

“What exactly happened between you and Allison anyway? I liked her a lot. She was a keeper. I was looking forward to finally having a sister-in-law. I even heard a rumor that you’d actually bought her a ring.”

“Yeah, what really happened with Allison?” Mac pushed him.

Jax bristled. “Your rumor mongers are wrong, and none of your fucking business.”

“I remember that night you two broke up. I was just going back to the house from making the night rounds, and I saw Jackie half-dressed in your doorway, and Allison was storming to her car calling you names I’d never heard. There was something about unprepossessing misogynistic Neanderthal prick just before she punched you in the nose. You ever look up unprepossessing misogynistic…”

“Shut up, Steve. I know what it means.”

Dogs barking, headlights shining, then the sound of tires on gravel interrupted the ensuing guffaws. Steve handed the lead rope to Jax. “Here, hold him. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea about me. You? Well, I don’t really give a shit.”

Despite his façade of nonchalance, Jax was curious. When she walked in beside Steve, the sight of the old-fashioned, worn-leather medical bag in her grip amused him. It reminded him of Doc Adams’ from Gunsmoke. She carried herself with confidence and was asking Steve how long since the horse had been hurt.

A visor cap over a blonde ponytail and the round blue-lensed glasses perched on her face suggested an outdoorsy veneer. Much as he didn’t want to admit it, her gender-indeterminate, faded green medical scrubs and scuffed leather work boots fit with his predetermined expectation of a veterinarian, and he nodded approvingly. He was surprised at the medicinal whiff he caught as she brushed past him.

Evidently she doesn’t marinate in perfume. He glanced at her hands. No artificial nails nonsense, either. At least she hasn’t tried to feminize the profession. Let’s see if she can get her hands dirty.

The stallion snorted and rolled his eyes as she neared, tugging the lead rope taut, but Jax held him without fighting his head. The woman murmured soothingly and stroked the horse’s neck as she held her open palm under his muzzle. He sniffed warily then munched the compressed pellets she offered. She continued to talk to him until he nuzzled her clothes for more. Bending down to check the damage, she said, “I’m Melissa Price, DVM. Call me Lissa.”

Steve said, “This is Mac Hartley, our foreman. This goofy bastard ogling you is my brother, Jax. Along with our paren—dad, we own this outfit.”

Jax shot Steve a quizzical look, but Lissa interrupted the question leaving his lips. “Nice to meet you. So, what happened here?” She placed her bag on the ground, opened the center hinge, and brought out a bottle and syringe.

Steve explained, “Got a mare in heat a couple of paddocks over from his, and he apparently wanted to answer her mating call.”

She nodded. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I can fix him up here instead of taking him to the clinic. I assume you have the facilities to keep him quiet for a few days.”

“Got a fresh stall for him over there,” Mac pointed.

She clamped the filled plastic syringe sideways between her teeth as she swabbed alcohol on the stud’s neck, offered him another alfalfa pellet, and gave him a shot. The stallion flinched, but Jax held him steady.

“I just tranquilized him. Now would be a good time to move him while it takes effect. Can I drive in here so my equipment’s handier?”

“Sure,” Mac said. “I’ll open the outside doors.”

A few minutes later, Lissa had everything she needed laid out on the open horizontal table doors of her mobile vet unit. She gently wiped the periphery of the wounds with a disinfectant then injected a local anesthetic around the bloody lacerations.

With Steve holding the stud and Mac standing in the open stall door, Jax leaned against the panels, observing her cool efficiency and deft skill with grudging admiration. She continued talking to the horse, and he stayed calm, head hanging and patient.

The men knew to let her work without distraction, and she didn’t chat. Jax waited until she was nearly finished before he spoke. “You’re not from around here.”

She didn’t look at him. “No, I’m not.”

“Steve says you’ve been working for Doc Bohlinger a few months.”

“That’s right.”

Silence for a minute, and Jax shifted his weight to his other leg. “Where’d you work before?”

“Thoroughbred tracks back east. Off and on at all night emergency clinics.”

“Where’d you go to vet school?”

“Alaska and Canada.”

“Been doing this long?”

She paused long enough to look at him. “Is it my credentials or gender that bothers you the most?”

Steve whistled. “She pegged you right off.”

Jax ignored him. “Just curious. I haven’t encountered a female veterinarian yet who could do the job better than a man, and there aren’t many vets who make night calls nowadays. You must not have much of a social night life.”

“That depends upon your definition of night life.” She finished with a shot of penicillin. “I prefer working nights.” She rubbed the drowsy horse between the ears and inspected her handiwork, then abruptly left the stall and began cleaning up and putting her equipment away.

“Well, Doc, it was nice to meet you, but I’m going to bed,” Mac said as he latched the stall gate.

“I’m heading home, too,” Steve said, “G’night.”

“Nice to meet you both. I’ll come back in a couple of days and see how he’s healing.”

Watching her, Jax speculated whether she was wearing anything under her scrubs, while estimating how many times he’d have to take her to dinner before she slept with him. With Mac and Steve out of earshot, he asked, “Why is that? Working nights, I mean.”

“I’m sensitive to sunlight.”

“What sort of sensitivity?”

Without missing a beat, she said, “My skin starts to sizzle then slough off. It’s a nasty sight.” She closed a door and walked to the other side of her truck. “Takes a lot out of me to regenerate the damaged skin. I don’t care for it.”

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