8 Chapter 7

"Love, Hailey?"

I slowly rose from my seat when the dark-haired nurse in the pale purple scrubs called my name. We made eye contact before she gestured me over.

"Right this way, please. Dr. Murphy is ready to see you."

I nodded, and followed her silently, a slight limp making a significant appearance in my stride.

My phone rang as soon as my feet hit the asphalt outside of the clinic. I answered it without looking, my left hand lifting the phone to my ear.

"Hello? Hailey speaking."

A masculine voice filtered its way through the speaker.

"Where are you? It's way past eleven o'clock, and you said you would be here at eight!"

I sighed deeply, rubbing my face with my right hand and continued the shortish walk to get to my truck.

"I had something important come up in my private life that took priority over getting to the barn that early this morning."

There was a pause before Ethan spoke again.

"What happened?"

If I was the type of person who could pop the veins in my face, I'm sure that several would have done so by now.

"When I said it was a part of my private life, that meant that you have no need to know about it. I will be at the barn soon enough. Goodbye."

I hung up the phone without giving him the chance to respond and stopped in front of my truck. I pulled the keys out of my pocket, since I don't normally make it a habit to keep them in my little purse and unlock the bedded vehicle. I climbed in, only to have my phone ring again. I groaned and answered the phone with looking...again.

"Whaaaaat?"

"How was the appointment?"

I rolled my eyes, grateful that Lynn ignored my exasperated greeting. She was used to me being like this by now.

"Oh, you know. 'Keep taking it easy on that leg of yours. It's finally starting to heal properly, but if you push it too soon, it'll take even longer to finish healing!' Same old news I always hear from the doc." I rolled my eyes and waited for her response.

"You were limping pretty badly today, weren't you?"

I groaned slightly. "Yeah. Just a bit."

She sighed into the phone. "You know, if you aren't careful, you might be forced to use a cane or something for the rest of your life."

I chuckled humorously. "At least if I had a cane, I could hit you and that idiot I'm coach upside the head with it, even when you are sitting up on a 17-hand horse while I'm on the ground."

She laughed along with me.

"Anyways, I wanted to let you know that we have a new horse coming in around half past noon today."

My interest was piqued. "Really? Whose horse?"

It was her turn to groan. "It belongs to the Witch Hopper."

The left side of my upper lip and my left nostril curled in disgust at the resident drama instigator in the barn. "Seriously? Another one? How many horses does that woman need? Please don't tell me it's another one that her 'amazing little sweetheart' is supposed to ride?" The sarcasm was strong in my voice.

I could almost hear the grimace on the other line. "Good lord I hope not. I contacted the previous owner, and I didn't hear the best of things about this horse. Let me just say, it's a damned stallion. If we have any say about it, I can guarantee that we wouldn't let that woman's child anywhere near that horse. Especially after everything that I heard about it." She paused for a moment. Probably another grimace. "I was sent a few pictures, and I must say that I don't blame her for purchasing him. He is a gorgeous specimen of Appaloosa. He's got surprisingly good confirmation, and I didn't see any major deformities in the photos. But we'll just have to wait and see when he gets off of the trailer to find out how he really is like."

I hummed in response, now slightly more eager to get to the barn than. I slid the keys into the ignition and started the truck's motor.

"Well, I'll let you go so that I can hurry up and get to the barn. I'll see you soon."

"Bye!"

As I pulled past the barn to my usual parking spot, I saw something that instantly started to annoy me.

The Witch Hopper and her daughter were here, acting like a pair of entitled brats. Judging by the raised voices and shaking trailer, they were having trouble getting the new arrival off of the trailer.

I sighed to myself and got out of my truck before limping my way towards the growing fiasco.

"What seems to be the issue here, Ms Bonavich?"

The dark-haired woman spun around to see who addressed her, before offering a simpering smile upon seeing me.

"Hailey, sweetheart! I didn't know you were back. Do you think you could be a doll and help me get my new horse off the trailer? These people," here she let a disgusted glare form on her face, aimed towards the poor men charged with helping the beast of a woman, "helping me don't seem to know what they are doing." At this, I got two reactions, the return of her simpering smile and dirty glares from the men surrounding the trailer.

I nodded and made my way over to the men. When I reached for the door of the rocking trailer, one of the men, a particularly large one, grabbed hold of my arm. "Ma'am, are you sure you want to go in there? That beast is one of the craziest things on four legs that I've seen. I wouldn't want to see you get injured." The man glanced down at the leg I was favoring.

I offered the man a smile before resting my hand on the one holding my arm. "Trust me, I'll be fine." I leaned in to whisper in his ear. "I'm just sorry you had to deal with our resident witch."

He chuckled before letting my arm go. "Apology accepted. Be careful." With that, he handed me a rope and gestured for the trailer door.

I opened the door to the trailer and looked inside at what I had to work with. Standing between two dividers, soaked in a nervous sweat, was a huge stallion, muscles twitching in anticipation of what might happen. He was tossing his head, kicking the trailer behind him with his hind legs. I stood there, quietly observing the wide-eyed horse that was border line panicking. I shook my head and stepped back out of the trailer. There was no way that I was going to be able to get that horse out of the trailer safely, much less calmly, not when he was already so wound up.

"There is no way that I am going to be able to lead that horse out of that trailer. He's too panicked."

The men exchanged looks before looking back at me silently.

I sighed, rubbing my forehead with my thumb and forefinger. "Let me make sure the arena is cleared, then we'll have him unload into the arena so that he can run a some of the panic out of his system." I limped over the arena and leaned in. Only Lynn was in the arena, riding one of the older horses. "Oi! We need to use the arena to unload this horse. I'm having them use the Colt Protocol." She nodded my way and stopped to dismount. She promptly exited the arena to head to a different one to continue her ride. Lynn and I set up what we called the Colt Protocol to unload any two-year-old colts that had yet to be broken out yet. Since they are typically hard to handle, as well as having little to no training in terms of ground manners, we would let the horse exit the trailer into the arena, so that they were out of the trailer, given room to run, yet also in an enclosed area.

I turned back to the one of the men who had followed me. "Have your colleagues back the trailer into the opening of the arena. I'm going to enter the trailer and have you unclip the horse from outside his window. Then I'm going to open the divider and let him run out of the trailer into the arena. After that, I'll take care of catching him." He smiled gratefully.

"Thank god. We've been trying to figure out how to get this horse out of that trailer for the last half hour."

I smiled and nodded before we went our separate ways to do our designated parts.

The driver skillfully backed the mouth of the trailer into the opening of the gate. I entered the trailer once it was stopped and limped towards the divider. I reached where the divider was attached to the wall of the trailer and looked upon the sweat-soaked stallion. He had his head twisted around to where he could stare at me with his wide left eye. His nostrils were puffing out with heavy labored breathing but yet his ears weren't entirely pinned against his neck. Instead, it seemed as though they wouldn't stay still. They swiveled every which way, not seeming to focus on only one sound. He still tossed his head periodically, but he wasn't kicking the trailer anymore. I slowly raised my hand, which he eyed wearily, before gently resting it on his rump. His skin quivered violently under my hand, but he thankfully didn't kick out at me. His left ear swiveled towards me when I spoke gently to him.

"No need to be cooped in here anymore, bud. We're gonna let you out to finally stretch your legs!"

I made eye contact with the man outside the stallion's open window and gave him a nod, signaling for him to unclip the bungee attached to his halter. Not a moment after the clip of the bungee hit the metal wall of the trailer, I was unlatching the divider and running backwards to both open it and keep it between myself and the stallion. The stallion eyed the man at the window and tossed his head, only then realizing that he wasn't confined anymore. He started backing out quickly, running backwards down the ramp of the trailer before spinning around and taking off across the arena.

I let out a sigh of relief that nothing went wrong with the unloading of the large stallion. I made my way out of the trailer and closed it up before grabbing the gate and signaling for the driver to drive out. As the trailer pulled out, I close the gate behind. Just in time too, since the stallion came cantering by us.