SWNOVELS The Front Runner: Chapter 2
PRESENT
My breath comes out in puffs, white against the night sky, as I trudge down the steep stairs from my apartment. I had been warm. I had been dead to the world, blissfully floating through a deep, dreamless sort of sleep.
Until the alarm went off.
It only took one glance at the webcam set up beside my bed to tell me there was about to be another new arrival at Gold Rush Ranch.
The last one for the season—thank God.
This has happened every night this week. It’s the end of February. Foaling season—at least for racehorses who need to be born early in the year. And it seems as if every single mare at Gold Rush Ranch has gotten together over a bale of hay and discussed syncing up their births just to spite me. I imagine them like women, sitting around sipping a green smoothie, planning out how cute it would be to have their babies at the same time. How they could all play together, go to school together. Haha. Imagine if they dated one day! How precious.
We wanted the foals this year to be born as early as possible to give them every advantage on the track. But back-to-back-to-back? This is just torture.
The night is quiet and wet. Rain mists down continuously, causing a chilly dampness that leaches the heat from your bones and creeps into all the layers you’ve tried to guard yourself with. Spring in Ruby Creek is a different beast from what you’d see in the city. The elevation change assures that, and Canadian winters aren’t known for how mild they are. We butt up against the Cascade Mountains, which means it’s frigid even when there isn’t snow. Cold in the winter and scorching hot in the summer.
My leather gloves wrap around the steel barn door and heave, the wheels screeching as I slide it open. A quiet nicker greets me as I head down to the last stall. It’s lit with warm infrared lights and glows a sort of orange color in the otherwise dark foaling barn.
We have seven mares on the farm who are due this year, six of whom have already foaled out. Four this week alone. In the middle of the night, no less.
Sadly, the mare from last night didn’t make it. Everything seemed fine. Baby was up and nursing—until she collapsed. It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. And it sucks every goddamn time.
I’ve wanted to be a veterinarian since I can remember, I’m well aware it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but it doesn’t stop the bridge of my nose from stinging when I think about it.
Now, we’ve got this beautiful red colt, with flashy white legs and a wide blaze over his face, who doesn’t have a mom. What’s worse is he’s our first—and only—foal sired by the farm’s celebrity stallion and two-time Denman Derby winner, DD.
He’s the special foal we’ve all been waiting for.
For the past twenty-four hours, we’ve been taking turns bottle feeding him. Every single person on the ranch has put out feelers looking for a mare who may have lost a foal, because what this little orphan needs is a mare who will adopt him. A nurse mare. Without one, his chances of survival aren’t great. He really needs that colostrum.
I peek into his stall, trying not to tear up at the sight of his tiny sleeping form, before moving on to the next stall. One thing at a time, Mira. You can’t save them all.
“Hey, mama,” I coo at the dark bay mare who is already down on the ground, sweat slicked across her neck. “How we doing, huh?”
I run my fingers through her thick forelock as she gives me a slight head bob, her eyelids closing under the gentle pressure of my hand. This isn’t Flora’s first rodeo. From what I understand, she’s produced several nice foals for the farm and is the great-granddaughter of the first-ever racehorse at Gold Rush Ranch, Lucky Penny.
The interconnectedness of it all is almost saccharine in its sweetness. The two grandsons of the couple who founded this place are running it with their partners and making international headlines. Still breeding racehorses off that very first bloodline.
I’m not an overly sentimental woman, but even I must admit it’s pretty adorable.
I crouch down behind Flora, lifting her thick, black tail while rubbing at her haunch to watch for contractions, checking my watch to time them. The second one comes, but not so fast that I need to stay here and crowd her.
That’s the philosophy I try to carry forward with the animals I treat. How would I want a medical professional to react in this situation? I haven’t had a baby before, but I imagine having a doctor hover and stare at me would be stressful.
So, I extend the same courtesy to Flora and head into the staff lounge attached to the barn. Might as well make some coffee. Again.
I flick the lights on, put a pod in the coffee maker, and then slump down in the cushy armchair, feeling the weight of my exhaustion. It’s like the marrow in my bones has turned to lead. My entire body feels heavy. But I’ve always wanted this career, and I’ve worked too hard and too long to complain now that I’m finally here. People have survived worse, Mira.
Dragging my phone out of my pocket, I fire a text off to Billie as promised, and I wait for the hot water to flow through the pod and create a hot caffeinated drink for me. Billie is the head trainer here at the ranch, as well as the owner’s fiancé, but she’s also become one of my closest friends over the last couple of years. We initially bonded over a close call with her stallion, DD. And then she was like a fly I couldn’t shake off, hugging me and inviting me to girls’ nights. Talking to me like we’d known each other for years. She’s one of those people who just has a way of making you want to be around them. Her energy is as addictive as her language is colorful.
MIRA
Ginger is foaling. I’m at the barn.
She’s been sleeping with her ringer on, waiting for this final foal. Billie is usually cool under pressure, but she’s nervous after last night. With a fresh reminder of how wrong it can all go, I can’t blame her for feeling that way.
It only takes a few moments for her to respond, even though it’s just after two a.m.
BILLIE
You really need to hire someone to help you.
Don’t I know it. The problem is, I’m kind of a loner. As an only child, I take pleasure in my solitude. There are very few people in the world I can spend extended periods of time around without eventually feeling agitated by them.
MIRA
Fucking tell me about it.
It’s the only response I can muster as I shove my phone back into my pocket, grab the cup of steaming coffee, and wander back into the barn. I hear Ginger’s labored breathing and soft grunts now, all normal. I peek in and time another contraction, which are slowly getting closer together. She won’t be long now. Provided everything goes the way it’s supposed to, it rarely takes long for a foal to be born.
As I sip my coffee, I move back over to the small orphan colt’s stall and watch his tiny ribcage rise and fall where he’s snuggled up in the straw. I’m worried sick about him. I grew up on a farm. I’m a scientist, so I like to think of myself as rational. But as much as I’ve trained myself to look at much of what happens to animals in this line of work as the natural circle of life, now and then, you get one that just kicks you in the gut for no good reason. Something so unfair that it clenches your heart in a fist and won’t let it go. And this nameless colt is that for me.
I feel powerless to help him, and I really hate that. It almost makes me want to wake him and feed him again, even though I can see from the chart on his stall that Hank was here only a few hours ago and gave him a bottle then. He needs to rest, and I recognize that I just want to wake him to comfort myself. To convince myself that he really will wake again and stand on those wobbly, gangly legs. This shouldn’t be how DD’s first foal hit the ground.
It should be a moment of celebration, not sadness.
When my phone rings in my pocket, I don’t even bother checking the number before I hit answer and say, “Go to sleep, psycho. I’ll call if I need your help.”
But it’s not Billie’s voice I hear. “Dr. Thorne? It’s Stefan Dalca.”
Stefan Dalca is pretty much everyone’s least favorite person. He’s solidified himself as Enemy Number One to most people at this farm for the arrogant shit he’s pulled, or for the arrogant shits he’s employed. And to be honest, the only reason I haven’t entirely written the guy off is because I kind of like him. He’s a good client at the clinic. He takes meticulous care of his horses, he pays his bills early, and he keeps his appointments—in a lot of ways he’s a good guy.
“Listen, if you’re calling in the middle of the night to ask me on a date, the answer is still no.”
Stefan is also relentless—and I kind of get a kick out of it. He asked me out six months ago as a joke. And now it is the running joke. He smirks and offers a date in lieu of paying a bill. He winks and offers a date in exchange for throwing a race. A woman with better sense would tell him to back off, but I’ve always been drawn to the man—against my better judgement—so he usually gets a headshake, and an eye roll, followed by an ‘in your dreams’ with a small tip of my lips.
“I called the clinic but—”
“That’s because it’s closed. You can’t be calling me at all hours of the night, Stefan. I don’t even know how you got my personal number. I’m not on call. We open at nine—”
He cuts me off with a crack in his voice. “It’s an emergency. I need you at my farm as soon as possible.”
I pull straight up to the big barn doors at Cascade Acres. My footfalls echo in the otherwise quiet barn as I run down the alleyway to where lights are on at the back.
“Stefan?” I call out breathlessly. “I’m here.”
“Over here,” he barks back from only a few stalls ahead, just as I see his wide-eyed barn manager, Leo, step out into the aisle.
The man presses his lips together and shakes his head at me as I turn down into the oversized foaling stall. Stefan is hands-on with his horses, and it’s irritating that Leo, who is supposed to know something about this business, is standing here like a bump on a log while I’ve spent the drive over talking his employer through what to do to salvage a dangerous situation.
Stefan is down on the stall floor, kneeling beside a motionless foal, his hands braced on his knees, and his head bowed.
His voice comes out quiet and lightly accented when he finally speaks. “I’ve been trying to resuscitate her the way you told me to. I think she’s dead.”
I step in and check the chestnut mare, who is standing above the foal’s body, quickly. She looks tired but isn’t bleeding excessively. Thankfully, nothing looks emergent with her—it’s the foal that has me worried. “Mom looks okay for now.”
“I burst the bag just like you told me to.” His voice is thick, and blood covers his naturally tan arms and white T-shirt.
Red bag deliveries are dangerous, messy, and rarely end well. The placenta separates and the foal is born prematurely.
I take a deep breath and then kneel beside Stefan. “You did great. You did everything right.”
He looks at me now, his green eyes almost mossy in the low light. There’s no smirk on his face tonight. He looks genuinely gutted.
I drop his gaze, pull out my stethoscope, and listen for a heartbeat. Finding none, I place my hand gingerly over one of his. “I’m sorry, Stefan.”
He nods, unable to meet my eyes. I hate this part of being a vet. The dealing with people part. The dealing with feelings part. Animals live their life in the moment. They are eternal optimists—they don’t know any better. But people are complicated and traversing their emotions isn’t my strong suit. I’m not a talk-about-your-feelings type of gal.
With my other hand, I awkwardly pat his back. I’m aware my bedside manner leaves something to be desired, but I’m good with the animals, and in my book, that’s what counts. It’s moments like this where my tongue ties in a knot, and my otherwise quite exceptional IQ short-circuits.
“Did I miss something?” he asks, his voice so thick it makes me blink away unwanted moisture in my eyes.
I sit back on my heels and heave out a sigh. “You didn’t miss a thing. This is just . . . nature. It’s sad and gritty sometimes. But what you did saved your mare’s life. In the wild or without supervision, they’d both be gone.”
He nods but still doesn’t look at me, so I opt to sit beside him in silence, holding vigil over the lost foal. What more is there to say, really?
The world is a cruel place sometimes.