LITMIR.BIZ

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      Hell, he hadn’t expected the pregnancy. Jabbar hadn’t been put to stud in years, having earned his retirement from both the stud and the showring, where he’d been a perennial champion. It was Jabbar who had made The Desert Rose a top breeding farm for world-class Arabians, and his offspring numbered a multitude.

      Plus one, if Alex could get Dr. Clark to the ranch in time.

      Why had he put his new breeding mare in the pasture with Jabbar? He had thought Khalahari would be safe, be slowly introduced to the ranch, and that Jabbar, in his old age, would ignore the retired showring horse whose injury had taken her from the ring. Alex had bought the mare for almost nothing, but she had such good lines that he hoped one day to breed her. Just not now, and not with Jabbar.

      “Somebody must have slipped the old boy some Viagra or something,” his brother Mac had joked when Alex confirmed that Khalahari was unexpectedly carrying Jabbar’s foal.

      Consternation had changed to excitement as Alex decided that this could be a fantastic union, producing a true champion to take Jabbar’s place in the ring, in the stud. He didn’t know precisely why he felt that way, but it seemed as if fate, and Jabbar, had decreed it.

      Now Khalahari was in trouble, the foal twisted inside her, and Alex knew he could lose them both.

      “Come on, come on,” he chanted as he listened to the phone ring, willing Dr. Clark to answer, to be there, to come do his magic as he had done in the past.

      “Hello? Dr. Clark’s office.”

      Alex began speaking even before the woman had finished her greeting. “This is Alex Coleman out at The Desert Rose. I need the doctor, now.”

      “I’ll be right there,” the woman answered.

      “What?” Alex held the phone away from his ear for a moment, then realized what was going on. It wasn’t old Doc Clark. He was speaking with the daughter. Hannah? Yeah, Hannah. And fresh from veterinary school. “Not you, woman—your father. I’ve got a prize mare down, foaling, and she’s in big trouble.”

      “I understand, Mr. Coleman,” Hannah answered, and he could hear her moving around, probably on a portable phone, gathering supplies or keys or whatever. “My father isn’t available, but I can be there in twenty minutes.”

      “Look, sweetheart, I don’t think I’m getting through to you. This is an important foal. Get your hands-on experience somewhere else. With kittens, or something. But get me your dad, now.”

      “He’s in Dallas attending a conference, Mr. Coleman, and won’t be home until very late tonight. I don’t think your mare can wait for him. As I said, I’ll be right there. Beggars can’t be choosers, Mr. Coleman. I’m a vet. You need a vet. Now we’re wasting time, aren’t we?”

      “But—but I don’t—”

      He was talking to the dial tone.

      HANNAH MADE IT in fifteen minutes, pushing her four-wheel drive all the way, skidding to a halt in the stable yard as Alex Coleman ran into the yard, waving his arms at her.

      Hopping out of the driver’s seat, her bag already in her hand, she got caught in the seat belt and landed on all fours in the stable yard. She quickly got up, brushed herself off, then followed him into the stable at a trot. “Where?” she said, as the man obviously wasn’t going to waste time saying hello.

      “The big stall, down at the end, if you can get there without falling on your face again,” Alex told her, leading the way. “It’s a breech. Her first foal, and probably her last.”

      “Gee, that pumped me right up, makes me all chock-full of confidence,” Hannah grumbled under her breath as she turned into the stall, tripping over a towel lying on the straw. Some entrance she’d made, pratfalls all the way. But she couldn’t think about that now. Not with the mare lying there, her single visible eye wide and wild with pain.

      Hannah’s well-known klutziness, a symptom of her lifelong shyness and her father’s belief that she could never really please him, disappeared in a blink of the mare’s eye, and Hannah became all business.

      “Grab her head, and hold it firm while I take a look, see where we are,” she ordered Alex. She was already throwing her fleece-lined jacket into a corner of the stall and rolling up her flannel sleeves. It was early March, and cold as hell outside, and the weatherman had actually promised there’d be an ice storm by nightfall, not that the weatherman was ever right. “Talk to her, let her know everything’s going to be all right.”

      “Is it?” Alex asked, his tone caught somewhere between concern and sarcasm. “Oh, all right,” he said, dropping to his knees at the mare’s head. “It’s not like I have a choice, do I?”

      Hannah looked at him. Tall, dark and handsome is as tall, dark and handsome does, and at the moment Alex Coleman wasn’t doing it for her at all. Which was strange, because she’d spent the past sixteen years of her life dragging around a crush on the man that probably matched the size of Texas and parts of Oklahoma. Not that he ever noticed. Not that he ever would notice.

      Shaking herself back to attention, Hannah pulled on tight latex gloves and examined the mare, being careful to avoid the animal’s sharp hooves as she confirmed Alex’s own conclusion. “Breech, and too late to turn her,” she said, gathering her instruments for what would be a difficult birth.

      There were alternatives. Cesarean, for one, but even that was risky, as one of the foal’s legs was already partly out of the birth canal. There was nothing else to do but reach in, find the other leg and pull like hell. Not exactly fancy, but the last resort usually isn’t.

      “Can you do it?” Alex asked, obviously figuring out what she planned to do.

      “I can do it,” she muttered from between her clenched teeth as she literally reached inside the mare, all the way up past her elbows. “Got it!” she said after long moments of fruitless searching, grabbing onto the foal’s legs, praying the birth canal had softened and widened enough to allow a safe passage for the foal.

      “Small foal, thank God,” she said, pressing her head against the mare’s flank as she eased the second leg beside the first and waited for the next contraction. “Probably early?”

      “Yes, early,” Alex said, soothing the mare. “She’s rolling her eyes again.”

      “Contraction coming. Hold on, here we go,” Hannah said, then took a deep breath. She felt as if her arms were being crushed in a vise, as the mare tried to expel the foal and her arms from its body. She had a moment to rethink the gloves, as she was afraid she might end up losing one of them inside the mare.

      “Watch the spine,” Alex warned.

      “I…know…that,” Hannah gasped, for the first time worried that her strength wouldn’t be enough. But she’d gotten both back legs clear of the birth canal, and that was the biggest trick. One more contraction ought to do it. “Come on, little lady,” she crooned. “Come on and give us another push. You can do it.”

      Her hands and arms still inside the horse, Hannah closed her eyes and visualized the drawings in one of her textbooks. Hands here. Position the foal, trying to turn it so the spine isn’t against the mother’s spine. Be careful of the cord. Wait for the contraction. Pull. Pull.

      “Here it comes!” she shouted as the mare’s womb convulsed again and the animal screamed in pain. Half cradling, half turning and pulling, Hannah breathed a silent prayer and, moments later, felt the foal slip into the world. Ass backwards, but here just the same.

      “Keep holding her head while I check both her and the foal,” Hannah ordered Alex, deftly dealing with the aftermath of the violent birth.

      “What is it? Is it a mare?”

      Hannah sneaked a quick look as the foal, typically light, as an Arabian destined to be coal-black looked at birth. “Nope. You’ve got yourself a new stud, Mr. Coleman, and he’s

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