Boone
It had been two months since my silver-haired beauty ripped my heart in two. I’d come home and buried myself in work, which was easy to do during calving season, even if I did have my family underfoot asking questions for that first week or so.
Now calving was just about done, and I had way too much damn time on my hands. I often ended up thinking about Gabs and the short amount of time I’d had with her. Even today, when I was at my parents’ place surrounded by family, including my three nieces who wanted me to constantly play hide and seek with them, I couldn’t completely push Gabs from my mind.
Mentally shaking my head, I told the girls I needed a breather and headed inside to grab a beer. As I walked up the stairs onto the back porch, my mind kept rolling on the Gabs train, thinking about how if I hadn’t stepped in and gotten her out of the hospital that day and forced her to rest and eat, she would have worked herself into the ground. I couldn’t help but worry about who was making sure she didn’t overdo it now that I wasn’t there. I could only hope that after I’d pointed it out to her brother, he paid a little more attention to his sister’s welfare.
When I saw both Ma and Summer were already in the kitchen prepping dinner, I made fast work of grabbing a beer from the fridge before either of them could start in on me.
“Hey, bro, my girls wore you out already, huh?” Summer asked as she continued slicing up potatoes.
I took a swig before turning to answer her with a smirk. “They sure did. They gang up, and it’s just not fair. I am but one man.”
Summer and my mother laughed as I drained half the bottle in a couple swigs.
“Oh, son, don’t come at us like that,” Ma said. “We all know how much you love those girls.”
My mom went silent in the way she did before she’d say something she knew I wouldn’t like, which meant it’d be about my lack of providing them with more grandbabies. Thankfully, before she could get started on that line of conversation, my phone rang, saving me.
“Sorry, gotta take this.”
Grateful for the reprieve, I didn’t check who was calling before I answered as I stepped into the family room.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Bo.”
Those two words spoken in that sweet southern drawl made sure the call had my full attention. There was only one person in the world who called me Bo.
“Gabs?”
Silence followed, and I pulled the phone away from my ear to see if the call had dropped.
“Gabs, you there? What’s going on?”
She cleared her throat. “Um, well, Dad got discharged from the rehab facility today and Christopher is staying with him and Mom so I could have some down time. Um, you know, so I could have a break. I figured I’d come home for a while. Tidy up, relax. I haven’t been home for more than ten minutes since the accident.”
Something big had happened for her to be rambling about bullshit like she was, and I was getting worried. “Gabs, darlin’, you don’t need to tell me how hard you work. I’m well aware. Although, it’s nice to hear your brother is stepping up to help out. What’s going on? You need help?”
She paused, and my worry for her increased. What the hell could have happened?
“Whiskey was in the field by my house. You should have seen her, Boone. She’s so skinny, and has this gash on her chest—”
With that, she had my full attention in a different way. She was well aware I volunteered with the SPCA to help deal with cases of animals in that exact situation.
“You telling me the horse has been neglected? Abused? What about the others? Your landlord had more than one horse, right?”
There was a catch in her voice. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I followed Whiskey back to the barn. She’d busted her way out of her stall and the barn. That’s how she cut herself. All the horses are severely underfed and haven’t been groomed in months. I took some photos before I brushed them. I’ve fed them all, cleaned everything up and tended to Whiskey’s cut. They’re out in the field now, and I’m in the process of mucking out all their stalls.”
Damn, she was one hell of a woman. She’d seen those horses were in need and took care of it. That endeared her to me all the more, not that I needed more reasons to love her. If only she’d not pushed me away, I would have been with her when she’d found Whiskey in the first place. Owners could get nasty when confronted about their actions, and since she still hadn’t told me exactly what she wanted from me, I was worried she’d been hurt.
“Have you spoken to your landlord about it yet?”
“Not yet. I wanted to get the horses looked after first, and I needed time to cool down. Not that time has helped. I’m still so damn furious. I would have been happy to keep looking after them. There was no need for this to happen!”
Relief she hadn’t been harmed flowed through me as I wondered exactly how she would have managed to look after the horses when she hadn’t even had time to look after herself since the accident, but I kept that to myself. It wasn’t going to help anything to bring it up now.
“There’s never any need for animal neglect to happen, Gabs. But sadly, it does every damn day of the year. Now, while I’m more than happy to hear from you for any reason, why exactly did you call me?”