Return of Dr Irresistible

‘He said front-leg breaks are worse than back, which aside from his circulation issues... I don’t really understand.’ She rested the plate on her thigh, freeing her hands to shuffle the water bottle off to the other side. It must still be hurting. ‘Not sure if he means that they happen more frequently or if they are harder to splint, harder to heal, harder on the horse, or if it’s Gordy-specific...’ She gestured to the new harness on Gordy with the toe of her boot. ‘But that sling is more comfy and it’s not bound by notches. They got it perfectly seated. Mack said it’s possible he twisted something inside when he fell, so it was good that we got him on his feet so fast. They couldn’t feel anything when palpating his belly, but he was out of it by then and couldn’t have told them it hurt even if the pain was blistering.’

‘Prognosis?’ He looked at the food, not able to bring himself to take a bite yet. She hadn’t either, even if she was using her feet to gesture so her hands could keep hold of her dinner. Well, hand. She wasn’t using the injured arm for anything but keeping her water tucked against her thigh.

‘Oh...’ She breathed the word, her tone confirming the worst, and that she wouldn’t agree with it until forced to. ‘He said it’s rough... We would try...’

But.

She didn’t actually say it but he still heard it.

He put his bottle down, fished the pills from his pocket and placed them beside her leg. ‘Anti-inflammatories,’ he murmured, leaving her to take them or not, and went back to the conversation about Gordy. ‘So what’s the next step?’

‘Sit with him. Keep him comfortable. Watch for signs of colic.’ She took the pills. ‘And I have both pain medicine and tranquilizers to inject if he gets worse.’

‘You did really well with the tranquilizer earlier. Hit the vein the first time. Did you take courses on animal care too?’

‘No, I learned to care for people, but I’ve given injections and done blood draws on the horses before. And I read. A lot.’

He remembered that. She read anything zoological in nature, didn’t matter if it dealt with the horses and dogs that were in the show or wild animals, which had not been in the show since her twice great-grandfather had been mauled by a lion during an act. The circus was always dangerous, but it had got a little less dangerous when they’d got back to their roots and away from the exotic-animal fad popular from the Victorian era.

‘Thank you for dinner.’

He kept his eyes on the food, but not looking at her didn’t keep memories at bay. He made himself eat. It would be a long night, as he had every intention of spending it here at her side. ‘You’re welcome.’ He looked at her again. Dammit.

The wild auburn curls had been worked into some kind of fancy braid so he could see her clearly even in the dim light of the stable. Still the prettiest girl he’d ever seen in the flesh. Even prettier than when he’d left. She might have cried again since she’d left her trailer—her wide-set green eyes looked bigger, glassy, and heartbroken. There was a little crease between her brows that said she frowned more than she should, and even now, with her expression mostly blank, the shadow of that unhappy crease remained.

‘I know it’s not the right time for this, but I wanted to apologize,’ Reece said, feeling his way through the words as he went.

‘For leaving us?’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_ea134bdc-0b4e-5c89-8abf-c0f784bdadfc)

NO. HE COULDN’T apologize for that. ‘For...’ He looked at her again and drew a deep breath. ‘I mean about the circus. About what I’m here to do. I know it’s not what you want, but I want to help you get settled wherever you want to go after Keightly.’

‘I don’t want to go anywhere else,’ she said.

None of them did. He was the bad guy in this, but for the right reasons. One day she’d see that. ‘I know you don’t.’

She put the untouched plate aside and turned on the cot to face him. ‘Listen. I didn’t expect to see you tonight. Actually, I didn’t think I’d see you at all until Ginny and Mack’s wedding. And what happened to Gordy...I had a plan for how it should go when you came to the farm. What I wanted to say... But it sort of evaporated when I freaked out.’

She had a plan? She had pictured him coming back and it didn’t involve being a crazy woman? ‘Don’t say you wanted to talk me out of closing.’

‘I was going to ask you to work with me and change what we do. No more traveling circus, a new future.’

That sounded an awful lot like ‘Please don’t close’.

‘There is no future for Keightly, Jolie. This isn’t just about me and what I want to do with my life. It’s dangerous. Especially with people getting older, it’s getting more dangerous for them. Gordy is an old-timer and—’

‘He’s not an old-timer,’ she cut in, the flash of her eyes telling him that the crazy woman might be about to make a reappearance if he didn’t watch out. ‘He’s twenty-eight. Miniature horses live much longer than big horses, and we have some big horses on the farm that are over thirty-five. Gordy is firmly middle-aged.’

She was still afraid someone was going to announce plans to euthanize the little guy. ‘Not what I’m getting at.’

‘Number one, the big-spectacle acts, the ones that are the most dangerous, aren’t done by the core troupe any more. We get contracts for the headliners—fliers. We had a Russian bar act a couple years ago. But just because the core group is getting older doesn’t mean that they want to give up the life.’

‘I know they don’t want—’

‘Number two.’ She held up two fingers, silencing him. ‘I don’t want to keep the circus on the road. I don’t even want to keep it a circus.’

‘Not keep it a circus?’ His headache was increasing. ‘Stop counting lists of supporting...whatever, and tell me what you want to do with Keightly.’

‘I want to make a circus camp,’ Jolie said, her voice softening. ‘At the farm.’

‘A circus camp.’

‘The older performers can still teach. I’m proof of that. Just because I don’t perform any more doesn’t mean I don’t know how to do things. I can be the demonstration, they can instruct, and we can make sure to...to...’ Her hands flew up, a gesture he knew was meant to summon some word that had temporarily eluded her, and which had always been his cue to finish her thought when her mouth got ahead of her. Not that he could do that any more.

‘Circuses are dying.’ She abandoned that train of thought and started again. ‘They’re dying out. There were probably thousands in North America, now how many are left? How many close every year? How long before these art forms are no longer even remembered? Sooner, if we don’t teach them to children and pass on our knowledge. Plus, we’re only half an hour from Atlanta, and people love Keightly in this part of Georgia. They’d love to send their children to circus camp in the summer. Physical activity, fun, a day camp while their parents work. And for the rest of the year we could do the circus-school thing for older kids. Like high school and college age, those who are at their most fit and can best handle the rigors.’

‘Wait.’ He lifted a hand to rub his forehead, a headache blazing to life dead center behind his eyes. It wasn’t exactly asking him to keep things going as they were, and while he appreciated that... ‘You make good points. All your points are good, but Mom is done with running things. She’s said so over and over again and that’s why I’m here. But I don’t have time to devote to co-running a circus camp. I have a practice to build and run.’

‘I’m not asking Ginny or you to run anything. I’m offering. I will run it. I can do it. I’m not a little girl any more.’ It wasn’t that she didn’t like being told no, she just wouldn’t be told no about this. Her fingers twitched then drummed against her legs, trying to calm her indignation. ‘You do whatever it is you want, focus on your practice. Ginny can retire and participate however much or little she wants to.’

‘My name is on it, this is my equipment, I’ll have to take a hand in it. Plus, there’s also no way I want to subject children to that kind of danger.’

‘I wouldn’t just welcome them and throw them on the trapeze without a net,’ Jolie said, and then winced, realizing how badly chosen her words had been for him. ‘We’d be safe. Start slow. Probably start with simple tumbling for children without any gymnastic experience. And it’s not all acrobatics. You know as well as anyone that there are a blue million different disciplines within the circus that don’t even approach performance. Including costume design, set designs, tending animals...’

‘People like you who don’t perform any more.’

‘Right.’ She stopped looking him in the eye, shifting her gaze back to the sleeping Gordy.

Because she’d basically told him to stuff it earlier when he’d asked why she hadn’t been dressed to perform. He couldn’t tell if she didn’t want to talk about that or if she just didn’t want to talk about it with him. Screw it, he wanted to know! If it was another of his sins, he had to know so he could fix it. ‘When did you stop?’

‘I stopped when you did.’

His stomach lurched. ‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘I just did.’

‘You had to have had a reason. You loved it...’

She shrugged again. ‘I didn’t want to any more.’

‘Jolie—’

‘I still practice, do different things, it’s a good way to keep in shape. I don’t do the trick-riding, but I figure the rest of the Bohannons have that market cornered anyway.’

She didn’t cast blame on him, and that was something he should be thankful for. What could he say if she brought up his past sins? And why was he digging into her history and motivations when he really didn’t want her digging into his? Because he was an idiot. Because he couldn’t know her without wanting to know every single thing about her.

Because he couldn’t say no to her, which was why he had stayed as far away as he’d been able to.