Hunter (Stud Ranch 2)

The bull bellowed behind her.

Ten feet.

Hunter had jumped up on the fence and reached out his arms. “Run,” he kept shouting, features screwed up in terror. “Run.”

The roaring bull noises got closer than ever behind her but she didn’t dare risk losing momentum by looking back. When she got close to the fence she jumped, reaching for Hunter’s arms even as he stretched over the fence toward her.

He caught her and dragged her over the top of the fence. Their momentum kept carrying them and the next thing she knew, she was flying toward the ground. She landed on her back and Hunter collapsed over her, his chest to hers. He barely stopped himself from smashing into her by catching himself with his hand on the grass beside her.

Isobel blinked hard and gasped, her breath having been knocked out of her.

“Are you okay?” Hunter asked, his eyes frantically searching her face. Then he pulled back and grabbed her cheeks. “Isobel, focus on my finger.”

He lifted his index finger and waved it back and forth in front of her face. She followed his finger with her eyes, feeling ridiculous. She would have told him how ridiculous he was if she had the breath to speak with.

Instead she just flopped her head back against the grass as Hunter demanded, “Tell me if it hurts,” while he felt down one arm and then the other, then ran his hands up and down her legs.

When he started up the thigh of the second leg she sat up and knocked his hand away. She took a deep breath and finally got enough air to say, “Normal to have,” she gasped in more air, “two near-death experiences in two weeks,” another gulp of air, “on this job?”

She closed her eyes and focused on getting several deep breaths. “Should have read the fine print.”

She smiled and reached a hand out for Hunter to help her to her feet but he wasn’t laughing at her joke. No, he was glaring.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

“Excuse me?” Isobel asked, affronted.

“I was waving my arms and yelling at you for a full thirty seconds before you started running. What the hell else do you think this—” he waved his arms in an overexaggerated motion that had to be tugging on his back stitches— “means?”

Was he seriously saying it was her fault that she almost got trampled by a bull?

“Are you blaming me for that?”

“You never enter a situation where you don’t know the variables. The first thing you ask when you’re dealing with cows is if there are any uncastrated males around.”

“Well I didn’t see you asking!” Isobel yelled back at him, finally getting to her feet on her own.

Hunter took a step forward like he was going to yell something else but he couldn’t think of anything to say.

Instead, he turned on his heel and stomped back toward the four-wheeler they’d used to get out to the field.

Well, he wasn’t the only one who got to be pissed and act like a preschooler. She stalked over to the four-wheeler and got on the seat ahead of Hunter. She felt more than a little smug satisfaction when his arms had to snake around her waist so he wouldn’t fall off.

While she’d been overly cautious on the way out to the pasture to be careful not to go too fast because of Hunter’s back, now she had no such qualms. She gunned it along the uneven dirt path all the way back to the farm house.

Hunter’s arms tightened around her reflexively and for some stupid reason, it made her smile. It was nice to be in the driver’s seat for once where Hunter was concerned. He always made her emotions fly all over the map.

As soon as they got back to the house, however, Hunter was vaulting off the four-wheeler and stomping up to the door. He about banged the thing off its hinges before the owner came out.

Hunter immediately lit into him for not warning them about the bull.

The owner hemmed and hawed about how the bull had never hurt anyone and was docile.

Isobel couldn’t help arching her eyebrow at that and Hunter went through the roof. “Well you and your docile bull can find another veterinarian because I refuse to work for someone who endangers the life of my staff.”

Hunter pulled out the check the man had written him earlier and ripped it in half before flinging it in the air. It fluttered to the ground as he turned and stalked away from the farm house.

Isobel just lifted her eyebrows again at the farmer because, well, what was there to say after that? She hurried to follow Hunter back to the truck.