Her Cowboy Dilemma. C.J. Carmichael

Lucy?”

      “Hot compresses on her swollen glands. The abscesses will probably rupture on their own in about a week, but if they don’t, I’ll need to lance them.”

      Cassidy made a note. Hot compresses. “Anything else?”

      “It’s important that she keep eating and drinking to maintain her strength. You can try feeding her gruel—that might go down easier than her usual hay mixture. But the majority of your effort should go into keeping the infection contained.”

      She nodded, well aware of the risks.

      “As well as keeping Lucy quarantined from the other horses you’ll need to clean and disinfect her water buckets and feed containers daily. Bedding should be burned, walls and fences scrubbed down.” His gaze fell to her hands, which were smooth and pale after so many months of study. “You up for all of that?”

      “Guess I’ll have to be.”

      “There’s more. Any contaminated pasture areas should be rested for at least four weeks.”

      “You want those scrubbed down, too?”

      One corner of his mouth turned up slightly. “Fortunately for you, ultraviolet light from the sun has natural antibacterial qualities.”

      “Yeah. I’m feeling really lucky right now. As is Lucy, I’m sure.”

      Once more Farley seemed to struggle not to smile. And seeing that, she felt an ache for the easy friendship that they’d once shared.

      Though friendship wasn’t quite the right word. She’d had a crush on him dating back to the days when he and her brothers would hang out together. As a young girl, she’d followed them around the ranch until Brock ran out of patience and came up with some devious plan to get rid of her.

      “Remember the time you, Corb and Brock lured me up the hayloft in the old cattle barn, then pulled down the ladder and stranded me up there?”

      Farley blinked. She’d disarmed him by bringing up a story from so long ago, before the trouble between them.

      “I do. How did you get down, by the way?”

      “One of the hired hands heard me yelling and came to the rescue.”

      “You were quite the tomboy back then. But I guess it’s going to be accounting offices and city life for you now, huh?”

      “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

      He shrugged. “I’m not the only one who’s surprised.”

      This was true. Corb, B.J. and her mother had all tried to talk her out of studying business when she’d first told them about her plans to go to college. She didn’t know if they didn’t think she was smart enough, or what, but they certainly hadn’t been supportive.

      “Yoo-hoo,” her mother’s voice rang out. A few seconds later she breezed in the door with a tray. “I don’t mean to interrupt, just wanted to bring you some lunch.”

      She’d brought out a carafe of coffee with mugs and a plate of sandwiches. After setting the tray on the middle of the desk between them, she stood back and looked from Cassidy to Farley with a smile of satisfaction.

      “Actually,” Farley said, “we were just finishing up here.”

      “Don’t be in such a rush. You have to eat, don’t you? Take your time. I’m sure you two have a lot of catching up to do.”

      And with that, Olive left, making a point of closing the door behind her.

      Olive didn’t often make herself scarce, so Cassidy couldn’t help but be suspicious. Was it possible her mother was hoping she and Farley...?

      No. It couldn’t be.

      She risked a quick look at the vet’s expression, trying to judge if he’d felt any weird vibes from her mother, too.

      “Olive seems to be in a good mood for a rancher who has just had her livestock quarantined,” he commented, reaching for one of the ham-and-cheese triangles.

      “Yeah. She’s up to something.” She felt the hot color rising on her neck.

      “Matchmaking?” Farley suggested.

      “Kind of looks that way, doesn’t it?”

      “A little,” he admitted. The light in his eyes grew darker, colder. “Guess you forgot to tell her that I’m the last man on earth you’d ever want to be with.”

      Chapter Three

      It wasn’t true. Farley wasn’t the last man on earth she’d want to be with. But she had told him he was. One minute before leaving the dance she’d gone to as his date—on the arm of another man.

      At least, she’d tried to leave with another guy. Oddly enough, she couldn’t remember the name of that other guy anymore. But she did recall that she’d been the one to ask him to dance. With Farley on the sidelines, silent and angry, they’d danced an entire set together before she’d convinced the other guy that he wanted to drive her home.

      They’d left the dance floor arm in arm. But Farley, in a voice that was not open to negotiation, had stepped in at that point. “You came to the dance with me. I’m damn well seeing you home safely.”

      The other guy had stepped aside hastily then, no doubt having assessed Farley’s size and the girth of his biceps, and decided he liked the current shape of his nose just fine, thank you very much.

      Cassidy had endured a fifteen-minute drive in Farley’s truck during which time not a single word was spoken. When they’d pulled up to the ranch house, he’d been out of the truck so fast that he had her door open before she’d even located the lever to do it herself. With his arms crossed over his broad chest, he’d stood watching until she was safely inside her home. Only then had he driven away.

      And he’d pretty much never spoken to her since then.

      Did she blame him? No.

      Was she embarrassed for the way she’d acted? Hell, yes.

      The truth was, she never should have accepted his invitation to the dance in the first place. But he’d caught her off guard in the Lonesome Spur Bar on the night of her twenty-first birthday. She’d been out having her first legal drink with a group of friends when he caught her eye and crossed the room.

      She’d been ridiculously excited. Farley was older, hot and sooo handsome. And suddenly he had noticed her, too.

      “Is it true?” he’d asked her, dark eyes smoldering with an emotion she’d never seen in them before. “Pretty Cassidy Lambert is no longer jailbait?”

      “I stopped being jailbait a long time ago,” she’d announced with a voice full of sass and vinegar. That didn’t mean she wasn’t quaking inside. She’d assumed Farley was completely out of her league. But now he was finally seeing her as someone other than his friends’ annoying little sister.

      He’d asked her to the Harvest Dance being held in the community hall the next evening. She’d accepted. And then all it had taken was one dance in his arms and she’d panicked.

      Simple as that.

      “Is it too late for me to apologize for my behavior that night? I was just a kid.”

      “No.” Farley placed a hand on the desk. “If you’d still been a kid, I wouldn’t have gone near you.”

      “I suppose that’s true. But I was young.”

      “It wasn’t the classiest move I’ve ever seen, Cass. But it was honest. You always were one for knowing what you wanted.” He paused, then added pointedly, “And what you didn’t.”

      She stared at him mutely. How could he talk as if he knew her so well, when she, herself, had never quite figured out why she’d acted the way she