Crazy Heifer (The Valentine Boys 2)

I held up my ‘cake’ that looked more like a pile of sludge.

“So, I did some research while you were out here. And along with dinner prep for tomorrow, I made Star Shine a dinner of champions,” I explained. “You were saying that she was too weak to eat, so I made her a mash of sorts that we can put in her mouth and hopefully she’s able to swallow it.”

His face warmed.

“That was nice of you,” he said. “But I honestly think she’s too weak to eat even that.”

I looked at her and thought much the same.

“It can’t hurt to try, though,” I said. “Can I get down there with her?”

Callum was picky about some of the horses that he trained, and I didn’t want to overstep my bounds.

He swung his arms in a ‘go ahead’ gesture, and I moved toward her.

She was lying on her side, her head in the straw, and her eyes open but tired.

Her breathing was labored, and the foal that she’d just delivered was curled up next to her side.

I smiled at the pretty little thing.

It was all legs and definitely looked to be the cutest thing I’d ever seen.

She had a white patch on her nose, and one of her feet was white. But the rest of her was pure brown.

And she was cute as a button with a fluff of white hair for a mane.

When I got close, she poked her head up and examined me as I went to her mother’s head.

Protective.

I liked that.

“Can you help me prop her head up on my thighs?” I asked.

Callum moved Star until her head was propped up against my thighs. Her head rested in my lap, at an angle that would allow the food I’d made her to flow straight down her throat.

“Open her mouth for me?” I asked.

Callum helped me open her mouth, and slowly but surely, I spooned food into her mouth.

Some of it fell onto my jeans, but a good majority of it slid down her throat.

She weakly swallowed it and looked to be tolerating it fairly well.

“There,” I said as I handed Callum the platter. “Let’s see how she tolerates that. If she does good with it, we can give her more in about an hour. Or at least that was what the website I used said.”

Callum took the platter from me and put the half-eaten concoction into a fridge in the corner of the barn.

Absently I sat with Star’s head in my lap and stroked her, smoothing her mane away from her eyes as I did.

I talked to her for what felt like an hour before I couldn’t take it any longer.

“I have to get up,” I said. “My legs are asleep, and they’re not even tingling anymore.”

Callum’s lips twitched.

He’d watched me take care of his horse. All the while, his eyes had watched me.

Neither of us had said a word to eachother, and when he finally walked over to me and helped me move Star’s head back onto the straw, he was almost smiling.

“She looks a little better,” he admitted. “Not much, but her eyes are tracking me instead of staring listlessly ahead.”

That was true.

She’d looked like she was watching me talk to her the entire time I’d fed her.

“Let’s hope that it works,” I said, offering him my hands.

He pulled me to my feet and held me steady as I wiggled my toes.

“Owww,” I said as circulation began to return to my lower half. “Why does that hurt so bad?”

He shrugged. “No earthly idea. But it sucks.”

I leaned even more into him, resting my head on his muscled chest.

Wrapping my arms around him, I moved my hands until they were pressed underneath his t-shirt that had come untucked at some point in the last hour.

He’d come in with it tucked in, and now it was completely loose around his hips.

Which was practically unheard of for him.

I’d never seen a man tuck his shirt in as much as Callum.

Not that I was complaining. It gave me ample opportunity to study his Wrangler-covered ass.

And what a Wrangler-covered ass it was.

I moved my hands. One going to lay flat on his back, and the other going partially down the backside of his pants to come to a rest on the top curve of his butt.

He grinned and dropped a kiss onto my mouth.

“I’m gonna stay here tonight, baby,” he said.

I frowned. “On the floor?”

He gestured up with his chin.

“Hayloft,” he said. “There’s a futon up there.”

I didn’t like the idea of him staying by himself, so I nodded once.

“There a bathroom here?” I asked.

He jerked his chin to the corner of the room next to the fridge.

“There,” he rumbled.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll stay with you.”

His eyes shone as he grinned at me. “Yeah?”

I nodded once. “Yeah.”

Letting me go, I went to the bathroom and did my business, coming out about five minutes later with my face freshly washed, and my teeth wiped down with a paper towel.