Free Here to Stay by Catherine Anderson Page B

then turned to face the interloper, who sat so tensely on her chair she might have been waiting for a firing squad. He thought he caught a guilty look flicker across her face, but he was too tired to think about it right then. He ran a hand over his eyes and stifled a yawn.
    “The coffee will take a few,” he said. “My name’s Zach Harrigan. Normally, I’m a little more gracious to guests, but you caught me sound asleep. Long day, sick horse. I decided to call it an early night just in case she goes south on me before morning.”
    “A sick horse? Not Rosebud, I hope.”
    This was Zach’s second red alert since meeting this lady, and it topped the innocent look by a mile. He came wide-awake fast. “As a matter of fact, it is Rosebud. And how do you know her name?”
    She batted lush, reddish brown lashes, and splotches of pink flagged her cheeks. “I, um ...” She tugged the rounded edges of the bolero closed and dipped her head. The mane of sorrel hair fell forward in shimmering curtains to hide her face. “I was—”
    Before she could finish her explanation, Zach heard the thumping sound again. He’d heard it earlier when he’d been jerked awake, but then it had been interspersed with sharp raps, and his sleep-deprived brain hadn’t recognized that the two noises had been coming from different sources. He sprang away from the counter, his heartbeat picking up speed. “Rosebud?” As he raced toward the archway leading to the living room, he followed that utterance with a breathless curse unfit for mixed company.
    “What is it?” his guest cried.
    Zach heard the tap of her low-heeled pumps trailing him across the kitchen. As he entered the dark living room, the woman’s muted footfalls were drowned out by the sporadic whaps of miniature hooves on the thick carpeting. “Rosebud?” Zach called.
    Following the sound, he found the tiny palomino behind his recliner. She wasn’t merely tapping her hooves. She was stomping them, and then to Zach’s alarm, she stretched her body as if to pee and began pawing at her belly with a hind hoof.
    Shit . He promptly forgot all about the woman. Zach had been around horses too long not to know what Rosebud’s behavior might mean.
    Dropping to his knees, he felt her belly. Hard as a rock . Pressing an ear to her barrel, he listened for gut activity. To his surprise, he heard some rumbling. He took her pulse. Way too fast . He turned on the floor lamp to peel back her lips and check her gums, praying he’d see healthy pink. Instead, he saw grayish white.
    Shit! He shifted on his knees to look at the lady. City shoes and ridiculous jacket aside, he needed her to step up to the plate, and he didn’t waste time on politeness.
    “I’ve got to call the vet,” he bit out. He jabbed a forefinger at the carpet. “You, right here ! Keep an arm under her belly. If she starts to go down, hold her up. Got it? And for God’s sake, no matter what, don’t let her start to roll.”
    Zach half expected her to retreat, but instead she dropped to her knees beside Rosebud, curled an arm under the little horse’s belly, and said, “I’ve got her. Go! ”
    Lunging upward, Zach raced to the kitchen, slapped on the lights, and shot out a hand for the cell phone he usually left on the table. His fingers closed on air. Spitting out a word that would have made his sister blink, he grabbed the landline portable instead and speed-dialed Sam’s house. Tucker answered, his voice scratchy with sleep. As a vet, he kept hours as crazy as Zach’s and often went to bed with the chickens.
    “Tucker, it’s Zach. Get over here! I think Rosebud may have colic.”
    “ASAP.” A vet accustomed to middle-of-the-night emergencies, Tucker suddenly sounded wide-awake. “Be there in five.”
    Zach tossed the phone and hurried back to the living room, furious that he hadn’t realized sooner that something was seriously wrong. He’d known the loose, frequent bowel movements were out of the ordinary,