But to continue on like this would only prove Sara right. Someone—she—was going to get hurt. To continue on would surely take things to the next level, a level she didn’t even know what to call, other than a huge mistake, because as Sara had so helpfully pointed out, it could and would derail her life plan.
The chopper banked again, steeper now. Biting her lip, Emily reached out in blind panic, and felt her hand gripped.
Wyatt.
No longer laughing at her. “Okay?” he asked.
“Worried I’m going to throw up on your shoes?” she managed to ask.
“This is a no throw up zone,” Brady said from the pilot’s seat.
“Take your thumb and middle finger and press firmly on both sides of your wrist,” Adam told her. “It’s an acupressure point, and should reduce nausea.”
Wyatt didn’t take his gaze off Emily as he reached out and did the acupressure for her. “You’re all right,” he said, holding on.
She was very glad he thought so.
But he was right. She was fine. They landed on a concrete pad to the side of a huge ranching operation. And even better, she didn’t toss her cookies.
They were met by Tex, the ranch manager, and immediately taken by truck to one of the back pastures.
“The rains have wreaked havoc and hell on everything,” Tex said. “The creek overflowed, took down the northwest fence line. The horses got out at some point in the night, and a few of them tangled in the barbed outer line fence. We got all but Aurora free.”
Emily knew the recent night rains had saturated the ground, but she’d had no sense of how bad it could be until they alighted from the truck near a line of fence that vanished around a hill.
Even making their way closer was difficult, her feet kept sinking in the mud, and then a terrible scream stopped her heart.
Not human.
Horse.
There were three men surrounding the downed horse, who was struggling wildly, entangled in the barbed wire. Both Adam and Wyatt turned to Emily at the same time.
“Stay here,” they said in unison.
She started to balk because she wanted to help, but the look on Wyatt’s face was steel.
So she stayed, watching in horror, at the horse stuck in the mud and barbed wire, fighting itself and the men already in place trying to help. With every movement, Aurora only succeeded in embedding the wire deeper and deeper in her flesh.
Wyatt, Adam, and Brady waded right in, not a single one of them hesitating in any way or dodging the possibility of getting caught beneath those wild hooves or the weight of the horse. She watched Adam take charge of the rescue while Wyatt did something with a syringe. Then he was adding his hands and voice to the mix. Calm. Sure. Absolutely one hundred percent in charge as he worked to soothe Aurora.
The horse thrashed and fought, not going down easy.
“The wire’s beneath her,” Wyatt clipped out to Adam.
“Get her up,” Adam said.
Heedless of the danger to himself, Wyatt dug his feet into the mud and added his bulk to the efforts of getting Aurora upright. Meanwhile Adam tried to work around the flailing horse to cut the wire free, all while Aurora did her best to trample the shit out of all of them.
Wyatt grabbed Aurora’s face and spoke right into her ear with calm authority, and Aurora’s ears flattened. She was listening. Not necessarily liking, but listening.
And Emily was transfixed. Watching Wyatt in action was like watching a rock star. A vet rock star.
Like Adam, like Brady, like Dell—all men she’d come to admire—Wyatt never rattled, was always willing and ready to be in charge of any given situation.
Just as they got the horse free of the wire, Aurora finally began to succumb to the sedative. The poor, exhausted thing dropped her head and huffed, pressing close to Wyatt, knocking him back a step.
Wyatt just spread his legs for better balance and wrapped his arms around her, stroking her face, murmuring something low that Emily couldn’t hear, while the other men pulled the rest of the wire as far from them as they could get it.
Wyatt gestured Emily in. “She’s good now,” he said, eyes locked on to Aurora’s. “Aren’t you, sweetheart?” He stroked her, loving her up, and the horse tossed her head. “I know,” he murmured softly. “You’re still beautiful.”
The horse, bleeding from a dozen deep cuts, snorted her agreement and gave Wyatt a not-so-gentle head butt to the chest that once again knocked him back a step.
He just grinned at her. “Still feisty. I can understand that. You’ve had a rough morning. Emily, you ready?”
She was ready, and side by side they began treating her wounds.
“Stay sharp,” Wyatt told Emily quietly as they worked. “She’s still looking for someone’s ass to kick after her ordeal.”
And indeed, when Emily shifted too suddenly, Aurora whipped her head around, teeth bared.
She might have taken a nice bite right out of Emily’s shoulder if Wyatt hadn’t given Emily a shove, a move that sent her flying back.
To her ass in the mud.
Aurora bit Wyatt instead, getting him on the forearm. Emily scrambled up to her feet and reached for him.
“I’m fine,” he said.
Great. He was fine and her ass was covered in mud and smarting from the fall. But this was the job. She knew this. She accepted this. So she pushed her own discomfort aside and dove into the work.
Wyatt showed her some quick bandaging techniques for temperamental, still pissed-off and frightened horses so that she didn’t get almost bit again.
It was the sort of experience she never would have gotten in the Beverly Hills vet office, and she knew it. By the time they all got back on the helicopter an hour later, she was exhilarated, but aching everywhere and starving.
Brady was there ahead of them, ready and waiting with—God bless him—food. Hot pastrami sandwiches loaded with cheese and spicy mustard. The exact perfect food. She stuffed in her first bite and moaned. “I could kiss you,” she told Brady.
Brady smiled. “That’s what all the women say.”
Adam gestured to her leg. “What’s wrong?”
He’d seen her limping. “Nothing,” she said quickly. Too quickly because Wyatt’s gaze narrowed in on her. “I’m fine,” she told them both. Sure, her butt hurt from the fall, but she’d probably just hit a rock or something. “I slipped in the mud—”
“You didn’t slip,” Wyatt said. “I pushed you.”
“Yes, well, I was trying to be polite.”
“You pushed her into the mud?” Adam asked him, voice low but a whisper of disbelief in the tone.
“To keep me from getting bit,” Emily said. “That, or for the whole mud effect.”
“I did it for the save-Emily’s-arm effect,” Wyatt said. “But checking out your bruise later might make it worthwhile.”
She choked on the bite she’d just taken. He was checking out her bruise never.
The light of intent in his gaze said otherwise, and her inner slut sighed in pleasure.
She shut it up with the rest of her sandwich.
Nineteen
They made it back to Sunshine in one piece. Emily exited the helicopter and walked across the street toward Belle Haven ahead of Wyatt and Adam, who’d stayed behind to talk to Brady for a moment.
She was glad. She’d joked about the mud incident, but sitting in the chopper had made her muscles tighten up. The back of her leg, between her butt cheek and upper thigh¸ hurt like hell.
Intending to go straight to the bathroom to take a peek, she started to walk into the front door of Belle Haven, but a hand clamped on her wrist.
Wyatt.
Without a word, he pulled her around the side of the building, through the back, and then nudged her into his office.