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the horse.
    She knew from the phone call that Dale had found the animal with a stick puncturing the muscles of its leg.
    From here she could see the stick hanging down between his front legs. As she bent over to get a closer took, her mind skimmed frantically through her anatomy lessons, trying to picture which muscles the stick could have injured.
    Watching the horse to gauge its reaction, she gently touched the leg, feeling for heat. But he didn’t flinch.
    “When did this happen?” she asked, looking up at the wound. There was surprising little blood on the stick, which led her to believe it hadn’t punctured anything important.
    “Um…let’s see…” Mr. Chapman hesitated, as if trying to recall.
    “I found Duke this morning in the new pasture.”
    The deep voice behind her reverberated across her senses. Then Nicholas crouched down beside her and she caught the scent of hay and the faintest hint of soap and aftershave.
    She couldn’t stop the quick flashback to another time when she was at the ranch watching her uncle working on one of Nicholas’s horses. It was the first time she met him.
    Too easily she recalled how attracted she had been to him. And when his eyes had turned to her, the feeling of instant connection that had arced between them.
    And right behind that came the memory of his father, watching her with narrowed eyes. He still doesn’t like me, she thought, wondering once again why.
    Not that it mattered. The way Nicholas acted around her, she was sure the son and the father were finally on the same page as far as she was concerned.
    “Doesn’t look like any veins or arteries are punctured,” Cara said, gently touching the stick. It slid easily to one side. “I’m guessing it slipped between the muscles.”
    Duke shifted its weight and the stick moved down a bit more.

    “I’m going to pull this out, but before I do, I want to give him some anesthetic,” she said as she went back to the kit for a syringe and a needle. “How heavy is he—”
    But as she spoke, Nicholas gave her the weight, as if anticipating her question.
    She drew up the proper amount, pleased to see her hand held steady. She walked back to the horse but Nicholas was already at the Duke’s head, brushing the mane back, giving her a clear injection site.
    “Are you sure you should just pull that stick out?” Dale’s voice said over her shoulder as she found a site for the needle. “That’s going to be trouble.”
    “The stick is simply inserted between the sheaths housing the muscles. Pulling it out won’t cause more problems.”
    Cara stifled her momentary irritation with Nicholas’s father. When she had worked for her uncle before, she had occasionally encountered resistance from people who didn’t think a woman was tough enough to do large animal work. And while she knew Nicholas’s father never particularly cared for her, she didn’t think that dislike extended to her capabilities as a vet.
    “You haven’t been doing this for a while—”
    “I’ll need a hose and water,” Cara said, interrupting his questions. “Could you get that for me, Mr. Chapman?” she asked, gently tugging on the stick.
    He grumbled a moment, but left, giving Cara room to breathe.
    Cara eased the stick the rest of the way out, moving more carefully than she might have with someone else’s horse, with someone else watching. She wanted to prove herself to Nicholas—to prove she wasn’t as incompetent as his father seemed to think.

    The stick came out without too much exertion. It was exactly as she had said. It had slipped between the muscles and had only punctured the skin.
    “Thankfully the injury isn’t major.” She stood up and held out the stick to Nicholas, who took it from her without a word.
    She got a large jug of distilled water and a bottle with a squirt cap from the car.
    She gently ran her hands over the wound, then, pulling apart the skin, began to rinse. “I’m just doing an initial cleaning of the