Brenne pursed her lips. “Look, Doc, this is what you hired me for.”
“I hired you to keep you out of trouble, not thrust you into it,” he grumbled under his breath.
“And I thought you hired me because you were understaffed.”
“More like overpowered,” he muttered, again implying that he hadn’t been the one to suggest she work for him.
Brenne crossed her arms. “You hired me because I have experience. Horses are my thing. He wasn’t going to hurt me.”
“You’re lucky you were right this time, but I’ve seen plenty of animals attack when I thought they wouldn’t. And I have the scars to prove it.”
Brenne thought then about his naked body, about how its perfection was only enhanced by the nicks and scrapes he’d gotten along the way. It’s a shame I never got a chance to really explore that body. We were always in a rush, afraid of getting caught together. We never had the chance to delve any deeper than the surface.
She decided to let the issue go for now. Her emotions already worked up at the sight of the horse’s abuse, the last thing she needed to do now was rehash her failed non-relationship with Alex. The miles rolled past the window and Brenne stared at them, unseeing. The landscape matched her mood, gray and bare, with a certain bleakness she wasn’t accustomed to.
“You know, once I get a look at the samples I took, we may have to isolate the horse.”
Brenne turned to look at him. Alex was watching the road, his expression neutral. “Some forms of infection are too contagious to leave the animal in the stables.”
She frowned, her heart feeling heavy. “That poor creature. It’s already been through so much, and to think it might end up severely ill as well. What do you think it has?”
“It might be something upper respiratory. You heard it cough, and there’s likely sign of infection in its eyes as well. It could be quite serious.”
Brenne frowned. “You’re talking about strangles, aren’t you?” It was a serious condition, one that could prove deadly. And it spread like wildfire. Which means Ryker could have an outbreak on his hands.
Alex didn’t say anything. Instead he gave a single sharp nod.
She’d only seen it once before, and she’d been kept well away from the horse, but it was a nasty condition. The horse she’d seen had been breathing heavily, mucus running from its nose, obviously suffering. Brenne had been so concerned about her own horses catching it that she’d researched the condition heavily. Fever. Lethargy. Nasal discharge. Swelling around the neck. Abscesses.
As she listed them, Brenne realized she hadn’t really seen any of those exact symptoms. “Are you certain it’s strangles? I mean, the horse has an eye infection, but its nasal passages seemed clear.”
“It’s too early to say anything with certainty,” Alex broke in, his voice weighted with the authority of his experience. “But I would prefer to err on the side of caution, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said, telling herself that he knew better. “An outbreak of strangles running through Ryker’s stables is the last thing anyone needs.”
They pulled into the driveway that led to the Parsons’s farm, and Brenne felt a thread of nervousness start to form a knot in her stomach. She’d been to the farm countless times, but not since she and Alex had started fooling around. There had been an unspoken agreement between them that they’d never hook up on either of the families’ farms, for good reason. There was too much at stake to risk being caught for the thrill of acting out on one’s own turf.
Feeling uncomfortable like this was something unusual for Brenne. She didn’t like the way she started to sweat, her heartbeat kicking up and her senses on high alert. It was as if their illicit agreement had left some kind of visible residue on her, and someone would see. It wasn’t quite a big scarlet A sewed to her chest, but she felt like she was wearing a target nonetheless.
Luckily, there was no one around when the van pulled up to the outbuilding that housed Alex’s work quarters. He called it his “country clinic” and over the years had put in substantial work into creating a space that he could use while seeing patients in rural Texas. The outbuilding was originally some sort of two-story storage shed, but it had since been expanded and remodeled. The concrete floor was sealed and an examination area with stainless steel furnishings was placed in half of the space. The other half held equipment storage, an area for cleaning and sterilization, a well-appointed restroom and a small sitting area with a desk and filing cabinets, one stall for larger animals and an area containing crates for smaller ones.
A flight of stairs in the corner led to the upstairs, which Brenne knew Alex used as a living space when he was in Whiskey River. She’d never been up there, but she’d imagined it more than a few times. She liked to imagine herself waking up in his arms, looking forward to spending the day together. A little frizzle of arousal went through her at the memory of the fantasy, and she snuck a glance at her companion for the thousandth time that day.
Alex headed straight to the exam area, unpacking his bag to carefully remove the samples. “I’m going to get to work on analysis,” he told her. “Why don’t you see if you can make anything of the mess on my desk?”
Brenne glanced at the desk where papers were stacked haphazardly. “We’ve already established that filing isn’t my strong suit,” she said. “How about I watch you and that way I might actually learn something?”
Alex shrugged in response, which was good enough for her. Brenne moved to the table, pulling up the stool that stood in the corner and hooking her legs around its legs. She watched as Alex put on latex gloves and a mask. Taking some tongs, he dug into the sample cup he’d taken, smearing some of what he picked up on a slide, then placing it under a microscope.
“Huh,” she heard him say. Then he turned to make a note on a small pad beside him.
“Huh?” she asked. “Is that your scientific opinion?”
Alex chuckled. “You want to take a look and tell me what you think?”
Brenne hopped off the stool and took her place at the microscope. She peered into it, finding a field of blue filled with darker blue dots that seemed arranged in a random pattern. “Huh,” she said, unsure of what she was looking at.
“Exactly,” Alex said, his tone light. “The microscope isn’t powerful enough for me to make a concrete diagnosis, but it does rule out some strains of bacteria which present differently.”
“So we know what it isn’t, but not what it is,” she said, straightening.
“Correct. But we’ll move on to some biochemical tests next.” He went back to work with the tongs, now separating the sample out among several petri dishes. Alex pulled out a small rack of vials that held different-colored solutions. He took an eye dropper and filled it with a pink solution from one of the vials, then carefully dripped two drops inside one of the petri dishes.
Brenne bent over to see what happened. Which was exactly nothing. “Let me guess. Huh again?”
“Yeah,” he replied, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half smile. “Nonreactive.”
She watched as he tried a couple of other solutions. Nothing seemed to do anything. “Okay, we’ve exhausted my modest means at the moment. I’ll send one of these off to the lab I work with in Lubbock, and in the meantime I’ll culture one here to see what grows from it.” He took the remaining petri dishes and put them inside a small metal cabinet, closing the door and making certain it was secure.