Bittersweet. Laura Browning

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       BITTERSWEET

      LAURA BROWNING

      LYRICAL PRESS

       http://lyricalpress.com/

      KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

       http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/

       To every veterinarian who’s had to get up in the middle of the night and work by flashlights or headlights. You all rock!

       Chapter 1

      The cellphone on Anna’s hip buzzed. She had turned off the ring in the hope that Becca, nestled in her carseat in the backseat of the pickup, would stay asleep at least for a short while. Days and nights of colic had drained them both. The programmable swing at home wasn’t a luxury but a necessity. Miles of uninterrupted driving making farm calls also seemed to soothe her daughter. Saturday night dinnertime had already come and gone, both hers and Becca’s, and Anna felt the pressure to nurse. She had been about to pull over to feed her when the phone had vibrated against her hip. Not now. Just this once.

      “Dr. Barlow,” she murmured into the phone as she slowed the truck and pulled to one side of the secondary road. The clinic answering service secretary was on the line with an emergency farm call. Anna jotted the address and the directions the operator gave her. Still somewhat new to the area, she was learning her way around, so directions were a must. Getting lost on her way to an emergency was not an option. And at this hour on a Saturday evening, no one called a veterinarian for anything routine, but the nature of the emergency wasn’t what made this call different. The owner’s name made her stomach jump with nerves.

      “Please let Mr. Stevenson know I’ll be there in five minutes.” Anna hung up, checked there was no traffic and pulled onto the road. She found the first available driveway to turn around and head back the way she had come. She glanced at the address again. Main barn, Fincastle Farm. Of course she had heard of it. Who hadn’t? The farm had been the signature of the Stevenson family for several generations.

      She had held hope that Fincastle would never appear on her client list. Naive of her to think she wouldn’t see him. Some sort of veterinary call had been bound to happen sooner or later. Later would have been much better. Never even more so. Maybe she’d luck out and the Mr. Stevenson in this instance would be father rather than son.

      Anna swallowed as she turned down the long driveway bordered on each side by tall, white-paneled fences. In the paddocks left and right, high-dollar horses grazed in the glow of the spring moon. Ahead lay a long, pristine white barn. A darker color trimmed the doors and windows. It would be green, she recalled. Forest green, like the curtains around the Fincastle tack stalls at shows. Light blazed from one barn, which must be her destination. Most barns would already be settled for the night.

      Okay. She was headed into the lion’s den. Chris Stevenson, the man she so did not want to meet. Anna hoped he wouldn’t be there. Sure, she’d known the possibility of meeting existed when she took the job in Redfield. Let him not be there. Not tonight, when she was tired and needed to nurse Becca to the point that her breasts ached. The show season had started, after all, so he should already be on the road at some of the smaller warm-up shows.

      She took a deep breath and let it out. It didn’t matter. She could do this.

      After she parked in front of the barn, Anna shoved two more nursing pads inside her bra and muttered a quick prayer she and Becca could wait a while longer. One glance over her shoulder showed her infant daughter still slumbered in the carseat. She rolled down the windows before she got out and checked on the baby one more time. A gentle tug brought Becca’s blanket back to where it belonged. After releasing a soft sigh, Anna straightened away from the truck. She pulled the zipper higher on her cotton coveralls and threw her stethoscope around her neck.

      “Dr. Barlow?” someone inquired in a deep, masculine voice.

      For an instant, she swayed. That voice. So much for being on the show circuit. Anna stepped around the back of the pickup into the view of the man who had emerged from the lighted doorway of the barn. Even as one part of her brain told her it was him, she shook her head in denial. Not with his reputation, and not on a Saturday night. There must be some horse show groupie somewhere who was willing to jump his bones, and that would take precedence over actual work.

      “You’re not Dr. Barlow? Where is he?” the silhouetted figure asked. Anna could not see his face, or much else, since the light behind him cast his front in shadow. As much as she might have tried, she would never forget his voice. She didn’t need to see his face to know the speaker was Chris Stevenson.

      Now, though, irritation kicked in. Where was he? She sighed. In this day and age, women veterinarians were more the norm than the exception. Of course, her height, or lack thereof, also played a role. She had encountered similar questions before, so she shouldn’t have been surprised when it came from a man like Stevenson.

      “Sorry, my mind was on something else. I am Dr. Barlow. I understand you have a horse in need of stitches.” Anna’s jaw hardened as she sensed his reluctance as well as his outright hostility. “If it will make you feel better, I would be happy to show you my credentials, Mr.…” That was a nice touch. She’d make him think she had no idea who he was.

      “Stevenson. Chris Stevenson.”

      “The man himself.” As soon as Anna voiced it, she wanted to kick herself. She hadn’t meant to say that aloud. He had half-turned, and in the glow from the barn, she saw his frown at her tone, but she was not going to back down now. Stevenson was nothing to her. Not anymore. Not ever. Once he’d been her hero, the object of teenage fantasies. But that was in the past. There was an injured animal to treat, she had a hungry daughter to feed and a painful need to feed her that only increased as time passed. She’d do her job, get the hell out of there and be done with it.

      “May I take a look at the injury, or would you like me to call the answering service to see if someone else is available to take the call?” At the moment, she couldn’t care less that Fincastle was one of the clinic’s biggest clients. She was tired and wanted to go home, so if he wanted a different vet, that was fine with her.

      She braced herself as they walked into the light of the barn. As the fluorescent lights illuminated his lean features and fair hair, she realized he looked different. He was harder, but also healthier. The dissoluteness that had begun to leave its mark last summer was gone.

      “You’ll do,” he grunted in response. “Follow me.”

      Anna cocked one eyebrow at Stevenson’s retreating back. At least he was polite enough not to sigh as he said it. Still, what an arrogant jerk! Thank God she need have nothing to do with him outside of professional calls, and thank God he appeared to draw a total blank when he looked at her.

      She supposed she should be used to people questioning her abilities because of her petite size. She had received odd looks through veterinary school, and even had to answer some pretty pointed questions when she talked to people about joining their large animal practices. Just over five feet tall, she was slender to boot, and at the time, she had been very pregnant. At least the vets at Redfield were able to overlook her appearance in favor of the credentials she’d set in front of them.

      Her biggest relief was Chris seemed not to recognize her. She shouldn’t be surprised. She knew she looked a lot different than when he’d seen her, but part of her hardened with hurt and anger. What was she hoping, that he would remember the night they met? He would fall at her feet like the prince with Cinderella? There was no reason for it to stand out in his memory, not like it forever would in hers. He spent plenty of nights bedding besotted bimbos. She’d been another in a long line.

      Stevenson stopped so abruptly in front of the stall midway down the