Her Cowboy Dilemma

“Afraid so.” Farley kept a hand on Lucky Lucy as he walked around her, then out to the aisle. “Good thing you keep your riding horses separate from the breeders. Hopefully the quarter horses will be fine. But I’d recommend no sales or purchases until the strangles is under control.”

Olive made an impatient sound. “Is that really necessary? You said yourself, we have the two operations completely separate.”

“Just to be sure, I think it is. You’ll have to set up a quarantine area here in the barn. Watch the other horses carefully. Any of them show signs of the disease, then they’ll need to be separated, too.”

Jackson rubbed his unshaven chin. “This is going to mean a lot of extra work. Frankly me and my men are stretched to our limits right now...and Corb and his wranglers are, too.”

“Jackson’s right about that,” Corb was quick to agree. “Most of the calves have been born, but we’ve got branding and vaccinating...and soon we’ll need to be moving the herd to higher ground.”

Suddenly it seemed like everyone was looking at Cassidy. Heck and darn. “You know I’m only home for a couple of weeks, right?”

Olive frowned at that, but Corb wasn’t deterred.

“A couple of weeks could see us through the worst of this. If we’re lucky.” He turned to Farley. “What’s involved, exactly?”

Farley shook his head. “Strangles is incredibly contagious. It can be passed on through indirect contact with buckets, feed, grass, fences and especially water troughs.”

“I don’t see why our quarter horses should be under quarantine then,” Olive said sharply. “We feed, water and pasture them entirely separately from the riding horses.”

“The infection can also be transmitted by flies,” Jackson replied calmly. “Still, I have to wonder how Lucy caught this. I haven’t heard of any other cases in the area.”

“Have you brought any new horses onto the property lately?” Farley placed the vial for testing into his black case, then went to the sink at the corner of the barn and washed his hands.

Jackson shook his head no, then glanced at Olive. “Didn’t I see you load Lucy in the trailer last week?”

“That wasn’t Lucy,” Olive said shortly. “I did buy some secondhand tack at auction on the weekend.”

“That could be your culprit. I hate to say it, but your whole tack room should be disinfected. You’re going to need to stock up on chlorhexidine soap.”

“We have some,” Corb said, pointing to a gallon by the sink.

“You’re going to need more. But I have a few gallons in my truck I can give you for now.” He turned to Cassidy. “If you’re in charge of containing this infection, we should sit down somewhere and talk.” He looked as excited as if he’d just sentenced himself to an hour in a dentist’s chair.

Cassidy felt the same way herself. After a semester of studies, she’d hoped to spend most of her break on the back of a horse—not cooped up in a barn with a bucket and a rag.

“You two might as well talk in the office.” Olive waved to the door next to the tack room. “I’ll bring out some coffee and sandwiches. I know Corb and Jackson will be happy to get back to work.”

“Over the moon with excitement,” Corb teased. He gave Cassidy a tap on the shoulder. “We’ll catch up later, okay? Come by tonight and say hi to Laurel and Stephanie?”

“I did drop in at the café for a visit on my way through town, but I’ll still take you up on that offer.”

“Better disinfect your arms and hands, if you’ve had any contact with Lucy,” Farley warned as the two men and Olive left the barn. “And your boots.”

“I’ll set up a boot dip right now.” Cassidy found a plastic tub in the tack room and mixed up a disinfecting solution. She set the tub by the door so that anyone leaving the barn would be able to disinfect their boots on their way out.

Corb, Jackson and her mother all made use of the new boot dip then headed off to their respective chores.

And then it was just the two of them in a barn that was suddenly, uncomfortably silent.

For a second Cassidy considered trying to clear the air between them. But how could she possibly do that? What she’d done had been inexcusable, even if she’d only been twenty-one at the time.

Instead, she headed for the office, trusting Farley to follow, which he did, along with Sky.

The border collie settled at her feet when she sat in the oak chair behind the desk. Farley took the upholstered chair opposite, dwarfing the thing with his tall, muscular frame.

It took a lot of physical strength to be a large-animal vet, and no one could doubt that Farley had that. But it was more than his size that she found intimidating right now. When Farley looked you in the eyes, you could tell he wasn’t one to compromise.

Or make allowances.

Cassidy found paper and a pen for taking notes, then waited for her instructions. As the silence stretched on, she forced herself to meet the vet’s gaze.

“What can I do to help Lucy?”

“Hot compresses on her swollen glands. The abscesses will probably rupture on their own in about a week, but if they don’t, I’ll need to lance them.”

Cassidy made a note. Hot compresses. “Anything else?”

“It’s important that she keep eating and drinking to maintain her strength. You can try feeding her gruel—that might go down easier than her usual hay mixture. But the majority of your effort should go into keeping the infection contained.”

She nodded, well aware of the risks.

“As well as keeping Lucy quarantined from the other horses you’ll need to clean and disinfect her water buckets and feed containers daily. Bedding should be burned, walls and fences scrubbed down.” His gaze fell to her hands, which were smooth and pale after so many months of study. “You up for all of that?”

“Guess I’ll have to be.”

“There’s more. Any contaminated pasture areas should be rested for at least four weeks.”

“You want those scrubbed down, too?”

One corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “Fortunately for you, ultraviolet light from the sun has natural antibacterial qualities.”

“Yeah. I’m feeling really lucky right now. As is Lucy, I’m sure.”

Once more Farley seemed to struggle not to smile. And seeing that, she felt an ache for the easy friendship that they’d once shared.

Though friendship wasn’t quite the right word. She’d had a crush on him dating back to the days when he and her brothers would hang out together. As a young girl, she’d followed them around the ranch until Brock ran out of patience and came up with some devious plan to get rid of her.

“Remember the time you, Corb and Brock lured me up the hayloft in the old cattle barn, then pulled down the ladder and stranded me up there?”

Farley blinked. She’d disarmed him by bringing up a story from so long ago, before the trouble between them.

“I do. How did you get down, by the way?”

“One of the hired hands heard me yelling and came to the rescue.”

“You were quite the tomboy back then. But I guess it’s going to be accounting offices and city life for you now, huh?”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”