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broken.
    Thank God for that.
    It would break Jack’s heart to have to put
Chinook down.
    He heard voices and looked over to see Chuck
walk in with Janet.
    “Oh, wow!” Janet stared at the stallion like
a woman who’d just fallen in love.
    “How’s he doing, boss?”
    “It looks like the bone is okay, but I need
to clean the wound and get a closer look. Can you get on the phone
with Doc Johnson and tell him we can handle this ourselves? It
looks like flakes are about to fly, and I don’t want him risking
the drive. When you’re done with that, grab a flashlight and get
out to the corral. I want to know where he was standing when he was
hit.”
    “On it.” Chuck turned and walked away.
    Janet walked up to the grill, reached through
the bars to rub Chinook’s muzzle. “He’s beautiful. I love
palominos.”
    The stallion gave a soft whicker.
    “It’s nice to meet you, too,” Janet answered.
“I’m so glad you’re okay.”
    Jack pointed to the wound. “You can see here
on his forearm—a three-inch contusion. It’s pretty deep. I don’t
think it could be anything but a bullet graze. It seems to have
stopped bleeding on its own, but I’d like to clean it and get a
closer look.”
    He stepped out of the stall, closed the door.
“Why don’t you two get acquainted while I get the first aid
supplies?”
    “That sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it,
buddy?” Janet answered, speaking more to Chinook than to Jack.
    Yep. Women and horses.
    # # #
    Janet held Chinook’s halter, while Jack
irrigated the wound with sterile saline, then washed it with an
antiseptic soap and rinsed it. When the blood was washed away, he
probed the wound gently with gloved fingers. She couldn’t help but
admire his skill or the gentle way he handled the big animal.
    Had she really just been kissing him?
    Yes, she had, and he’d been skilled at that,
too. She’d enjoyed every second of it, her lips still tingling, her
body still warm from being pressed so closely against his.
    “We’re damned lucky. It’s just a flesh wound.
It should heal well, but it’s likely to form proud flesh if we
don’t stay on top of it. I’m going to get some tea tree oil on here
and then bandage him up.”
    “Tea tree oil?” She’d never heard of using
that on a horse before.
    Jack got to his feet. “It’s got antimicrobial
properties but isn’t cytotoxic the way iodine and hydrogen peroxide
are. Doc Johnson, our vet, is an old hippie. He swears by the
natural shit, and so far he hasn’t steered us wrong. If he
prescribed butterflies and rainbows, I’d go for it.”
    Janet couldn’t help but laugh. “He sounds
like a character.”
    Jack opened the door to the stall. “Do you
feel safe staying in here with him? He’s very high spirited.”
    The question surprised her. It hadn’t
occurred to her to be afraid of the stallion. “Yes. No worries.
We’ll be fine.”
    He grinned, nodded, the warmth in his blue
eyes making her pulse skip. “I’ll be back in a few.”
    He stepped out, shut the stall door behind
him, and walked away.
    Janet patted the stallion’s powerful neck.
“Who did this to you, boy?”
    Had it been hunters like Jack and his men
suspected?
    The horse whickered, watched her with a dark
eye.
    She hadn’t allowed herself to look at the
wound yet, not directly. But now that she was alone with Chinook in
his stall, she glanced down. The wound was nothing like the one
that had torn through her hip and pelvis, but it was clearly a
bullet wound, cutting through the fleshy part of the stallion’s
upper forearm.
    Sniper! Nine
o’clock!
    Bullets. Screaming. Pain.
    Chinook jerked on the reins, pulling her
back to the moment. The big animal clearly sensed her distress, and
it made him nervous.
    She drew a deep breath into her lungs, willed
herself to focus on the stallion and the present moment. “Sorry,
buddy.”
    She saw a blue rubber curry comb resting on
the inside ledge of the grill. She released Chinook’s halter