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He knew Erin hadn’t left Clayton, but she wasn’t supposed to be here. Inside an old barn adjacent to a dilapidated farmhouse a few miles outside of town. They’d both grown up in Clayton—their houses only a few blocks apart.
The mare tossed her head after sensing an unfamiliar presence, reminding Lucas why he was there.
Focus, buddy. In a town the size of Clayton, you knew you would see Erin sooner or later, he told himself.
Later would have been better.
The expression on Erin’s face told him that she felt the same way.
“What are you doing here? Where’s Tweed?”
“He had another call.” Without waiting for an invitation, Lucas stepped into the stall. Kneeling down next to Erin, he caught a whiff of her shampoo, a light floral scent that reminded him of mountain lilies.
A scent that had no business lingering in his memory.
“I don’t understand. Why would Tweed send you?” Erin shifted, putting a few more inches of space between them.
“He hired me.” Lucas ran a hand over the horse’s neck and felt the muscles ripple under the velvety skin.
“Hired…” Her gaze dropped to the medical kit he’d set down in the straw.
Lucas watched the myriad emotions topple like dominoes in a pair of eyes the color of warm gingerbread. Confusion. Disbelief. Denial.
“I’m here to help,” Lucas said curtly. Being this close to Erin had opened a floodgate to his past and it was his way of trying to put a cap on the memories flooding in. “But if you’d rather wait for Tweed—”
“No. I just wasn’t…” Erin averted her gaze. “Go ahead and do whatever you need to do.”
Lucas opened the med kit and began to prep for an exam. “She belongs to you?”
Erin nodded. “I didn’t realize Diamond was pregnant when I rescued her from the auction.”
Diamond. It figured. Only Erin Fields would see potential in an animal as battered and broken as this one. The number of scars crisscrossing the washboard ribs hinted at invisible ones below the surface.
Lucas worked quickly, aware that the woman beside him was watching every movement. He tried to keep his expression neutral, but she must have seen something there. Erin had always been good at reading him. Sometimes too good.
She leaned forward. “How is she?”
“In distress.” Diamond’s ears twitched at the sound of his voice, but she didn’t even bother to lift her head. Lucas silently weighed his options.
“What can I do?”
“Keep her calm.”
Erin had always been good at that, too. How many times had she listened to him as he vented about his mother’s unreasonable expectations for his future plans? Taken his hand to absorb his volatile emotions, her lips moving in a silent prayer on his behalf? Been there for him without asking for anything in return?
Don’t leave like this…
Lucas ruthlessly shook off the memory of the last night they’d spoken. A hundred miles down the road he’d realized that Erin had done the right thing when she’d refused to run away with him. He hadn’t been fit to be a good husband back then.
Any more than he was fit to be a father now.
He turned to reach for a syringe only to find that Erin had anticipated his need. Their fingers brushed together and Lucas couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t wearing a ring. The realization that Erin wasn’t married sent equal measures of relief and terror skittering through him.
“Talk to her.” Lucas’s voice came out sharper than he’d intended. “She’s not going to like this.”
Erin scooted closer to the horse and spoke to her in the same gentle, soothing voice she’d once used on him.
Lucas worked in silence for the next few minutes, administering a sedative to relax the horse while he performed a brief but enlightening internal exam.
He stood up after it was over and tried to ignore the pain that rattled down his spine, a subtle but persistent reminder of a conversation he’d had with a cranky bull the year before.
Erin looked up at him. “The foal is breech, isn’t it?”
Lucas didn’t miss the catch in her voice and he gave a curt nod, mentally bracing himself for the inevitable—telling her there was a good chance she would lose both the mare and the foal.
Lucas took a step toward her, shrinking the space between them. He could see the faint spray of ginger-colored freckles on her nose. The eyelashes spiked with unshed tears.
Something twisted in his gut. His sigh came out in a puff of frost. “Erin—”
“Don’t say it,” she said fiercely.
“You might have to choose,” Lucas pushed.
“All right.” Erin’s chin lifted, warning him that she was willing to push back. “I choose both.”
Lucas stared at her in disbelief. The girl he’d known in high school hadn’t been a fighter. It was one of the things Lucas had accused her of the night he’d asked her to run away with him.
“When it comes right down to it, you’re a coward, Erin. Your problem is that you have all these plans, all these big dreams, but you aren’t willing to fight for them.”
“And your problem is that you want to fight everything and everybody,” Erin had said, her voice cracking under the weight of his accusation. “You think if you leave Clayton, you’ll leave behind your grief and all the regrets over your relationship with your dad—”
“Don’t bring my dad into this.”
“Why not? You do it all the time. Every minute of every day. But if you leave Clayton like this, it’s all going to follow you until you give it to God—”
“Leave Him out of it, too.”
“Oh, Lucas…”
“Lucas?” Erin stood up. The top of her head was level with his shoulder but she didn’t back down. “I’ll help. Just tell me what I need to do.”
“Leave.” He didn’t want her to witness what might happen. Or see him fail.
“Give me something else to do.”
Was that a glimmer of humor in her eyes? Lucas couldn’t be sure but the warmth of it momentarily chased the chill away, if not the doubts.
“Diamond is strong,” Erin whispered. “She’s going to get through this.”
There was a time when Erin had believed the same thing about him.
Before he’d walked away.
Erin tried to keep her thoughts centered on delivering the foal and her eyes off Lucas.
He worked with a calm efficiency that astonished her. As a teenager, Lucas had reminded Erin of a caged mountain lion. Filled with restless energy. Eyes fixed on some point in the horizon that no one else could see.
She didn’t know this man. The one with the patient hands and soothing voice. It had taken Diamond several months to trust Erin enough to accept a treat from her hand, but in the space of five minutes Lucas had gained the mare’s trust.
She still couldn’t believe that he’d gone to college. Become a veterinarian.
Her dream…
“Erin?” Lucas’s voice tugged at her.
She realized he’d caught her staring and blushed. “Sorry. What did you say?”
“The foal turned.” In spite of the temperature outside, beads of sweat dotted Lucas’s forehead. “I think we can let Mom take it from here.”
Five minutes later, Diamond delivered a tiny, jet-black replica of herself.
Erin closed her eyes.
“Thank you, God,” she murmured.
When she opened them again, she found Lucas staring at her, a wry expression on his face.
“Are you going to send Him the bill, too?”
Erin couldn’t prevent a smile. And to her absolute amazement, Lucas smiled back. A faint quirk of his lips that carved out the dimple in his left cheek, a trait passed on from Clayton to Clayton like a family legacy.
Lucas hated it. Erin, however, had referred to it as the “Clayton brand” and teased him about it.
Pressed her lips against it.
Swallowing hard, she turned her attention to Diamond, severing the fragile connection that had sprung up between them. “There’s a bucket of water and a clean towel in the tack room if you want to wash up.”
“Thanks.” The smile had disappeared.
Two polite strangers. That’s what the years of silence had accomplished.
It’s what Lucas had wanted, Erin reminded herself.
Diamond’s soft whicker was a welcome distraction. The mare was nuzzling her newborn foal, who lifted its head in response to the attention.
Caught up in the wonder of the moment, Erin watched the two interact until Lucas returned and began to collect his medical supplies.
“Everything looks good but I’d keep a close eye on her for the next twenty-four hours.” He turned to her, his gaze once again distant. “I’ll give you my cell number in case there’s a problem.”
Erin caught her lower lip between her teeth. She didn’t want his phone number. Didn’t want to see him again and deal with the stampede of emotions those denim-blue eyes triggered.
“That’s not necessary. I’ll call Tweed if I have any questions. He’s treated Diamond since I brought her home.”
“Tweed…” Lucas hesitated. “He’s planning to retire around the first of the year. Until then, he wants to stay in the clinic and limit his practice to pets.”
Erin sucked in a breath, hoping that didn’t mean what she thought it meant.
“I’m taking over the large animal side of his practice.”
That’s what she’d thought it meant.
“You’re staying in Clayton?” Erin tried to keep her voice steady.
“It looks that way. For a year.” Lucas didn’t sound happy about it, either.
So the rumors she’d heard about George Sr.’s will had been true. Until now, she hadn’t quite believed it.
“Yoo-hoo! Is anyone home?” A feminine voice floated through the barn.
“We’re in here,” Lucas called back.
A few seconds later, Mei Clayton appeared in the doorway, holding the hand of an adorable preschool-age boy. A bright red snowsuit enveloped his thin frame but instead of a stocking cap, a cowboy hat was perched on his head. A battered black Stetson that looked a lot like the one Lucas used to wear.
He smiled shyly, pressed his cheek against Mei’s leg and pointed to the foal. “Thatsa baby horse.”
Erin couldn’t help but smile back. “Babysitting today?”
Lucas and Mei exchanged a look that Erin couldn’t decipher.
“This is Max,” Mei said.
“Hey, Max.” Erin experienced the familiar pang that happened whenever a cute little kid came into the café. Someday. “I’m Erin. It’s nice to meet you. Do you like horses?”
“I like trucks better,” Max declared.
Erin winked at Mei. “We’ll have to work on that.”
“What’s up, sis?” Lucas shrugged his coat on. His sister slanted an apologetic look in his direction.
“I know I promised to watch Max this afternoon, but the high-school secretary called and asked if I would be available to attend an emergency parent-teacher conference after school. You didn’t answer your cell so I called Tweed to track you down.”
“That’s okay.” The affectionate smile Lucas gave her told Erin the siblings still shared a close bond. “I’m finished here.”
Max broke away from Mei. And to Erin’s astonishment, he headed straight for Lucas.
Her gaze bounced from Lucas’s sister to the boy, who’d wrapped both arms around Lucas’s knees and was clinging to him like a burr on a wool sock.
Lucas looked so uncomfortable with the attention that Erin had to stifle a smile.
