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She never had him over. She didn’t want to be at her house. She never wanted him, or any other friend, to see the way her family lived.
To see her sad mattress on the floor and her peeling nightstand.
Instead, they’d spent time at the Dodge ranch. His family had become hers, in many ways. They weren’t perfect, but there was more love in their broken pieces than Kaylee’s home had ever had.
He taught her to ride horses, let her play with the barn cats and the dogs that lived on the ranch. Together, the two of them saved a baby squirrel that had fallen out of his nest, nursing him back to health slowly in a little shoebox.
Kaylee had blossomed because of Bennett. Had discovered her love of animals. And had discovered she had the power to fix some of the broken things in the world.
The two of them had decided to become veterinarians together after they’d successfully saved the squirrel. And Bennett had never wavered.
He was a constant. A sure and steady port in the storm of life.
And when her feelings for him had started to shift and turn into more, she’d done her best to push them down because he was her whole world, and she didn’t want to risk that by introducing anything as volatile as romance.
She’d seen how that went. Her parents’ marriage was a reminder of just how badly all that could sour. It wasn’t enough to make her swear off men, but it was enough to make her want to keep her relationship with Bennett as it was.
But that didn’t stop the attraction.
If it were as simple as deciding not to want him, she would have done it a long time ago. And if it were as simple as being with another man, that would have worked back in high school when she had committed to finding herself a prom date and losing her virginity so she could get over Bennett Dodge already.
It had not worked. And the sex had been disappointing.
So here she was, fixating on his muscles while he helped an animal give birth.
Maybe there wasn’t a direct line between those two things, but sometimes it felt like it. If all other men could just...not be so disappointing in comparison to Bennett Dodge, things would be much easier.
She looked away from him, making herself useful. Gathering syringes, and anything she would need to clear the calf of mucus that might be blocking its airway. Bennett hadn’t said anything, likely for Dave’s benefit, but she had a feeling he was worried about the health of the heifer. That was why he needed her to see to the calf as quickly as possible, because he was afraid he would be giving treatment to its mother.
She spread a blanket out that was balled up and stuffed in the corner—unnecessary, but it was something to do. Bennett strained and gave one final pull and brought the calf down as gently as possible onto the barn floor.
“There he is,” Bennett said, breathing heavily. “There he is.”
His voice was filled with that rush of adrenaline that always came when they worked jobs like this.
She and Bennett ran the practice together, but she typically held down the fort at the clinic and saw smaller domestic animals like birds, dogs, cats and the occasional ferret.
Bennett did large animals, cows, horses, goats and sometimes llamas. They had a mobile unit for things like this.
But when push came to shove, they helped each other out.
And when push came to pulling a calf out of its mother they definitely helped.
Bennett took care of the cord and then turned his focus back to the mother.
Kaylee moved to the calf, who was glassy-eyed, and not looking very good. But she knew from her limited experience with this kind of delivery that just because they came out like this didn’t mean they wouldn’t pull through.
She checked his airway, brushing away any remaining mucus that was in the way. She put her hand back over his midsection and tried to get a feel on his heartbeat. “Bennett,” she said, “stethoscope?”
“Here,” he said, taking it from around his neck and flinging it her direction. She caught it and slipped the ear tips in, pressing the diaphragm against the calf, trying to get a sense of what was happening in there.
His heartbeat sounded strong, which gave her hope.
His breathing was still weak. She looked around at the various tools, trying to see something she might be able to use. “Dave,” she said to the man standing back against the wall. “I need a straw.”
“A straw?”
“Yes. I’ve never tried this before, but I hear it works.”
She had read that sticking a straw up a calf’s nose irritated the system enough that it jolted them into breathing. And she hoped that was the case.
Dave returned quickly with the item that she had requested, and Kaylee moved the straw into position. Not gently, since that would defeat the purpose.
You had to love animals to be in her line of work. And unfortunately, loving them sometimes meant hurting them.
The calf startled, then heaved, its chest rising and falling deeply, before it started to breathe quickly.
Kaylee pulled the straw out and lifted her hands. “Thank God.”
Bennett turned around, shifting his focus to the calf for the first time and away from the mother. “Breathing?”
“Breathing.”
He nodded, wiping his forearm over his forehead. “Good.” His chest pitched upward sharply. “I think Mom is going to be okay too.”
They stood watching for a moment as the calf stood up on shaky limbs, taking its first few tentative steps. It was all a good sign, but they had both seen enough to know that there was no such thing as out of the woods.
“Give me a call,” Bennett said to Dave. “If you need anything, anytime of night, give me a call.”
“I will. I’m going to set up in here tonight.”
“Good. If he makes it through the night... Well, the odds will be pretty good from here.”
Dave shook his head. “I didn’t know how stressful all this was.”
“I know people don’t understand,” Bennett said. “How you can care so much about animals you raised for food. But I know. They’re your livelihood, and your whole life on top of it.”
Dave nodded. “They are.”
He shook Bennett’s hand, then turned and shook Kaylee’s too. As his hand close over hers she realized what a mess she was. She looked down and saw that her skin was streaked with the aftereffects of touching the recently birthed cow. A fine accessory to go with her flirty date dress.
They collected their gear, and Kaylee followed Bennett outside.
They both looked...well, a little bit ragged.
“You’re wearing a dress,” he said again.
Yes, she supposed that bore paying attention to, considering her typical uniform was plaid button-up shirts and worn jeans. If she was feeling really fancy maybe a belt with some rhinestones on it.
“I was on a date, Bennett,” she said, articulating the Ts a bit more sharply than necessary.
“Were you?” he asked, crossing his arms over his broad chest and leaning against the truck.
She pushed her now-completely-tangled red hair off her face. “I was.”
“Anyone I know?” he asked, his tone overly casual.
He was asking so he could cast aspersions. It was what he did. And it rankled. He was never going to be her boyfriend. And yet he took great delight in judging every single one she’d ever had and finding them unworthy.
“Depends,” she said, keeping her tone sweet. “Do you know Clarence the dachshund?”
He arched a brow. “I do not.”
“Well, I had a date with Clarence’s owner. And since you don’t know Clarence that doesn’t mean anything to you.”
“I didn’t think we dated the owners of patients,” he said, frowning.
“Well, that’s much easier for you, Bennett. If I eliminated every man in town with a pet then I would never be able to date.” She pretty much didn’t. And actually, tonight was the first time she’d been on a date in over a year.
Bennett let out a very masculine-sounding sigh, and she ignored the slight shock wave it sent through her. “Do you want to come over and have a beer?”
She really, really needed to say no. She was supposed to be on a date with another man, she was definitely not supposed to end the night platonically hanging out at Bennett’s house again. It was her default. She did it too often.
She had done it all throughout his dating Olivia Logan, feeling so pointlessly jealous of everything the cute, petite woman was. Certainly everything that Kaylee wasn’t. Refined. Fine-boned. Short. Definitely able to wear giant heels around any man without towering over them. Not that she would tower over Bennett in heels.
At six-four he was definitely tall enough to stand next to her in most shoes. Which had made his association with Olivia even more irritating, since the woman was barely five foot three. That was how that always worked. Tall men with tiny women. Irritating for women like her.
But he and Olivia had broken up a few months ago when Bennett had failed to propose quickly enough for Olivia’s liking, and then, much to everyone’s shock, Olivia had gone and fallen in love with Luke Hollister, who was her polar opposite.
She was from the town’s most prominent family. She was prim. Luke was...not.
She hadn’t really been able to gauge how Bennett felt about it, and selfishly, she hadn’t really wanted to either. She was just relieved. Relieved he hadn’t married her, because even though she didn’t harbor hopes of marrying him herself, if Bennett did get married, things would change.
She didn’t want that.
“I...”
Bennett’s phone rang, and he fished it out of his pocket and answered it. “Hello?” He frowned.
Kaylee took a moment to take stock of her appearance. Her dress was rumpled now, and she was...well, she was a mess. And Bennett still wanted to have a beer with her. Well, because she was like a guy to him, really.
He would invite a guy over to have a beer even if he was dirty.
“Really?” Bennett sounded suddenly irritated. Or maybe, irritated wasn’t quite right. Intense. “Really,” he repeated. “We’ll talk about it later. I’m out dealing with a calf.”
He hung up the phone, and looked at Kaylee. “That was Wyatt.” Wyatt Dodge was Bennett’s oldest brother, and the boss at Get Out of Dodge Dude Ranch.
“Really?” She unconsciously parroted Bennett. “What did he say?”
“Luke called him. Apparently, he and Olivia are having a baby.”
CHAPTER TWO (#ud9cbd981-cf4a-5971-abd2-905948ff5127)
BENNETT COULDN’T BEGIN to untangle the whole mess of feelings rioting around inside him like coiled-up snakes. He wasn’t in love with Olivia. He never had been. But she had been his girlfriend for a year, and he had been planning on marrying her. They’d had an arrangement that had suited them both.
It hadn’t been a love match in a conventional sense. Her father had asked for him to take care of her after a health scare, and Bennett had thought...
He’d thought she was damned near perfect. He didn’t want a passionate love affair, he wanted stability. Wanted the kind of life he could plan. Put in careful order. And Olivia had seemed to want that too.
But right toward the end, he’d been putting off proposing. He’d known what she wanted and he just...
There was part of him that worried she wanted more than he was giving. At first he’d thought she wasn’t any more in love with him than he was with her. Hell, they’d never gone past second base, at her insistence. And she’d never seemed tempted to go further. He’d respected it, respected her. Hadn’t touched anyone else the whole time they were together, because he was a man of his word.
Then, she had broken up with him over the fact he was dragging his feet, and she had gone and slept with Luke Hollister. Who Bennett would have said was about the worst bet in the entire world. If asked, Luke would probably have agreed he was a bad bet too.
But apparently, not when it came to Olivia. Because that bastard had proposed to her in record time. And apparently had gotten right on starting a family with her too.
It was what Olivia wanted. He knew. Well, not to be pregnant out of wedlock. That would bother her. He had a feeling the wedding was about to get moved way the hell up.
But a family. That was what Olivia wanted. Domestic bliss and all that.
“Are you all right?”
Kaylee was looking at him with wide amber-colored eyes.
At the moment she made a pretty comical sight. Wearing a dress a hell of a lot fancier than he was used to seeing on her, the delicate floral material swirling around her long, pale legs.
And her arms were streaked with afterbirth.
Her red hair was disheveled, a smudge of something across her cheek. But she was also wearing makeup.
Frankly, the dress and the makeup were a lot more out of place than the afterbirth.
Kaylee wasn’t a girly girl. She never had been. Kaylee had run with the boys from junior high on. She had been one of his best friends ever since then. The kind of friend that he called if he needed someone to help at two in the morning. The kind of friend who would leave a date—apparently—to come and help him birth a calf.
The kind of friend who knew everything about him.
Almost everything.
“I’m fine,” he said, lying.
But he couldn’t exactly articulate all the things this was bringing up. Because it wasn’t just Olivia. There was something else churning deep beneath the surface and he didn’t want to get into that. He knew what it was. Whenever pain pushed up against that locked door down in his soul, he knew what that pain was. Loss.
All that loss in his life.
And mistakes. Regrets. A time in his life when he hadn’t planned a damn thing, when he had lacked for control and decency, and had paid the consequences of that behavior. Consequences no one, not his family or Kaylee, knew about.
He was different now.
