Dundee yawned and jumped up on the bed.
Sam studied herself intently as she rotated her body in the mirror. All 5’6” of it. She cringed. “Why do I have to be so real?!! I don’t have full, sensuous lips, sexy eyes or hair like a goddess.” She tossed the book on the floor. “Okay, so what if I’m 28 and single. I’m well educated and I have a wonderful career. To hell with Seth and Sienna. I’m going to bed!”
Sam put on her PJ’s, jumped into bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. Dundee settled into the curve of her back.
A few minutes later she could hear his soft snore as she drifted off to sleep.
The next morning while making her rounds, Sam found herself placing a large thermometer in the rectum of a dairy cow. She thought briefly about her statement the night before about her wonderful career. Okay, so maybe being a vet wasn’t always glamorous, but it was her chosen career and she was proud of it. It was just that today she wouldn’t call it wonderful. Not while she was standing in a cold drizzle with her hand up a cow’s butt. Maybe tomorrow would be wonderful.
Sam looked around Ralph Anderson’s small dairy farm and couldn’t stop herself from glancing toward the horse stalls. When Ralph called her that morning her first thought was that something had happened to Maggie’s new colt. She was relieved to hear him tell her about a sick cow. She watched the mother and son huddle together contentedly in a stall staring at her. Her heart caught. Somehow she was going to talk Ralph into selling that colt to her.
Ralph watched Sam look at the new colt and grinned. She was standing in the rain in what he called her “vet uniform.” Tan barn jacket, blue jeans, T-shirt, and Roper boots. Her hair was pulled back into a pony tail pulled through her favorite ball cap that had “Barn Goddess” printed across the front. He knew she was shocked the day before when she saw the colt for the first time. He couldn’t figure out why for the longest time. Then he remembered right when he got in bed that night.
“Well, hell!” He had exclaimed to his wife, Gracie. “He looks just like her old horse, Sinbad.”
“What are you talkin’ about, you ol’ fool.” His wife asked sleepily. He had woken her up with his outburst.
“Maggie Mae’s new colt. He looks like the horse Doc Kendrick had when she was a kid. You remember ol’ Sinbad don’cha?”
Gracie turned and looked at him a second. “Yeah, I remember. That girl was all over the territory on that horse.” She smiled. “I’ll never forget her and Sinbad riding over to bring us her mom’s homemade soup when we both had pneumonia that one year. She came over everyday for two weeks. She couldn’t have been more than eleven at the time. I can still see her gallopin’ down the road holdin’ on to that basket. Didn’t even spill any soup. Did she ask about buyin’ him?”
“Nope, but I bet she’s thinkin’ about it.”
“Well, you sell him to her if she asks. She never did ride much after that horse died. Broke her heart like nothin’ I’d ever seen.”
Gracie heard Ralph snore. “Ol’ fool,” She muttered as she turned over and went back to sleep.
The next morning Ralph called Sam. He knew his ol’ cow, Blackie, was coming down with a cold, but he had medicine in the barn to give her. The real reason he wanted Doc Kendrick to come out was so he could feel her out about the colt. If she did have her eye on him he was going to make sure she got him. She had been his vet since she started her practice, and most of the time she never charged him for her visits. The Kendrick’s had been good neighbors. Any time they needed anything, all they had to do was call Tom or Sarah and they were right there. That really helped, especially when their kids went off to college and weren’t around to help. He remembered the year he and Gracie had pneumonia. If it hadn’t been for Tom and Sarah he didn’t know what they would have done. Tom came in the middle of the night to take Gracie to the hospital when she got so bad she couldn’t breathe and Ralph had been too sick himself to drive that night. Sarah came over every day to check on them. When she couldn’t make it, she sent Samantha on Sinbad.
Ralph was still watching Samantha. She couldn’t keep her eyes off the colt.
“He’s a pretty thing, isn’t he?”
Sam turned her attention back to the cow. “Yeah,” She said softly. “Who’s the sire?”
“You remember ol’ man Stoddard’s paint stallion, Chief? He’s the father. I bred Maggie cuz she’s gettin’ old and I wanted the grandkids to have a good horse to ride when they visit. Didn’t realize until last night how much he looks like your old horse, Sinbad.”
Sam turned and looked at Ralph’s old, weathered face. “Yeah, I noticed yesterday.”
Ralph looked at his feet and kicked some mud with his boot. “I was worryin’ last night. I really wanted a filly for the grandkids. Don’t want no stallion, or gelding. I may sell that colt when he’s weaned so if you’re interested in buying him you let me know.”
Sam stopped and stared at Ralph. She didn’t say anything for a minute. She couldn’t believe what she’d heard. She thought she’d have to get down on her knees and beg to get that colt away from Ralph. She almost wept.
“Yeah, I’m interested in him,” she finally told him when she could control her voice. “I’d appreciate it if you’d let me have first chance if you decide to sell.”
Ralph kicked more mud with his boot. “Well, consider him yours. We’ll talk ‘bout terms after he’s weaned.”
Ol’ Blackie decided to cut loose at that moment and Sam moved her hand seconds before a big glob of steaming cow poop landed on her boots. She shook her head and looked at the thermometer. She hoped this wasn’t going to be a sign of what her day was going to be like.
“Blackie will be okay,” she told Ralph. “She’s got a little cold. I’ll give her a few antibiotics and she’ll be as good as new.”
Sam walked back to her truck to get a penicillin shot. It took every ounce of restraint she had not to jump up and let out a whoop until she was out of sight.
Then her cell phone beeped and she came back down to earth. She grabbed it off her belt and looked at the caller ID. It was her office.
“Hey, Sam.” It was Melanie. Doc Howard’s wife.
Sam looked over at the colt and remembered how angry she was at Doc when she was sixteen. She’d blamed him for Sinbad’s death but now, thirteen years later, she was his partner. She forgave Doc the day after Sinbad died when her dad told her what Doc and Mel were going through. Mel had cancer and was taking chemo treatments. Doc nursed sick animals during the day, and then went home and nursed Mel. Sam’s mom spent a lot of time helping Mel during that time, and fortunately her cancer went into remission and she made a full recovery. Then a year later, when Sam’s brother, Mason, was born with Down syndrome, it was Mel that came over everyday to help her mom. Doc and Mel didn’t have any children, so they unofficially adopted Samantha and Mason. When she decided she was going to be a vet, Sam spent endless hours bugging the dickens out of Doc. She followed him around asking a million questions which he patiently answered. He even let her ride with him when he made his rounds sometimes. He became her mentor and friend. She cried when he asked her to be his partner after she finished college.
“What’s up?” Sam asked. She could see Mel in her mind, one slender hand on the phone and the other pulling her dark hair over one ear.
“We got a call from Cheyenne Wells. He needs you to stop by and check out Mr. Wilson’s champion stallion. He has diarrhea and is off his feed today.”
“Yeeuu,” Sam said. Although not because of the diarrhea. It was the word Wilson that made her want to throw up. The Wilson Ranch was usually Doc’s exclusive client, which was fine with her. She still hated the snooty Wilson’s. Not to mention that she wasn’t looking forward to seeing Cheyenne again.
Lance Wilson, the owner of the Lazy W Horse Ranch, was in his late 60’s, very narcissistic and totally hen-pecked by his jealous wife, Marietta. Marietta was not a nice person. She was brash, arrogant, mean and spiteful. Sam shuddered. She wanted nothing to do with either of them. She never could figure out how Cheyenne, who was their manager and head trainer, could put up with either of them. Then she thought again. Maybe Cheyenne was getting what he deserved. He had certainly made her life miserable when they were in school together. But the honest truth was she’d rather go back and stick her hand up ol’ Blackie’s butt than deal with Lance or Marietta Wilson that morning.
“When’s Doc getting in? He’s the one the Wilson’s always want out there.”
“He called me this morning. He extended his private training session in Montana for that famous newscaster, you know the one on NBC or ABC or whatever. He asked me to tell you that he won’t be back until tomorrow sometime, and Cheyenne said they needed someone out there right away.”
Sam sighed. That’s what she got for being a partner with one of Colorado’s renowned horse trainers.
“Okay, I’ll go. Call Cheyenne back and tell him I’ll be there as soon as possible.”
Minutes later, Sam finished packing her gear and called for her loyal companion. “Hey Dun, let’s go!”
The dog bounced into the white Chevy Silverado and crawled up into the passenger’s side. He always rode shotgun.
On the way to the Wilson’s ranch, Sam’s thoughts turned to Cheyenne. After graduation he went to a well-known Farrier school in Kentucky and when he finished he came back to Colorado and started working for the Lazy W. Sam thought he was wasting himself on a low paying, dead-end career. Besides that, he was working for the Wilson’s. But it wasn’t long before Lance recognized his talents and turned the training and managing of the ranch over to him. Under Cheyenne’s leadership, the horses were winning shows all over the country and the Lazy W had become know as the premiere Paso Fino horse ranch in the United States.
Doc was constantly singing Cheyenne’s praises, and that really got under Sam’s skin. It wasn’t that she didn’t want Cheyenne to do well in his career, she just didn’t want him to do THAT good.
Sam’s cell phone beeped. This time it was her mom.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Hey, sweetie.”
“What’s up?”
“I wanted you to know that I’m on the way to the emergency room with your dad. He’s okay so don’t worry.”
“What happened this time?”
“Well, you know I wanted a new light fixture in our foyer so your dad decided to replace it this morning. I told him to be sure to turn the breaker off, but you know how he does things. He got involved with his little project and didn’t do it. I think he sort of electrocuted himself.”
“Omigod! Is he okay?”
“I think so. He’s holding his shoulder and moaning. He’s coherent, just in a lot of pain. I left for a few minutes to go to the store and when I got home he was laying on the floor groaning. He said he felt a shock and the next thing he knew he was flat on his back looking at the ceiling."
Sam shook her head. Her dad could ride a horse better than anyone in the country, but he was a klutz when it came to home improvements. Her dad had been zinged, zapped and zonked so much his trips to the hospital were notorious in Fairview. You’d think that someone who owned a construction company could handle hammers, saws and electricity. Unfortunately, not Tom Kendrick. Although Sam’s mom begged him to send some of his men over to do their home repairs, he always refused. Then her mom would mumble something about his ADD kicking in and the next thing they knew he was off to Home Depot. And after that the emergency room.
“I’ll meet you there in five minutes,” Sam told her mom, and then turned in the direction of the hospital.
A few minutes later Sam parked her truck and raced inside the Community Hospital’s emergency center leaving Dundee sleeping on his pillow in the back seat. She reached the front desk as they were rolling her dad in a wheelchair through the swinging doors to the back.
He glanced up and gave her a pained smile. He was holding his right arm and breathing hard.
“Got any good horse pills to help me out?” he asked.
“Which would you prefer, hard drugs or hard booze? I got both,” Sam answered as she bent down to give him a kiss on his cheek.
“Sarah, we’ll get Tom on back and check him out. You and Samantha know where the coffee pot is, so help yourself,” said Helen, the desk clerk. “You two don’t need to worry about Tom. We got a new doctor back there that’ll take good care of him.”
Sam and her mom walked into the waiting room. “So, other than this, how is your day going?” Sam’s mom asked her.
“Oh, so-so. I got a call from the office and Cheyenne Wells needs me to check one of Lance Wilson’s stallions since Doc is out of town.”
“Hmmmm,” Her mom looked thoughtful as she filled two cups with coffee.
Sam looked over at her tall, energetic mom. Her mom spent a lot of that energy trying to set her up with dates so Sam knew what she was thinking. She didn’t want to go there so she immediately changed the subject.
“Is Isabella with Mason this morning?”
Mason was twelve, and Sam’s best friend, Isabella, had been hired to help entertain him when her mom was out