The next seconds were a blur of motion and adrenaline as Zac wrapped his arms around the bull’s horns, twisting until the animal’s slick nose met the crook of his elbow. The bull tossed his head with a snort as Zac threw his hip into the animal’s neck. Straining and grunting, he flipped the bull over his leg and onto its side. “Now, Delaney! Quick. Get his legs!”
While Zac lay on top of the struggling animal, she leaped into action, but failed to rope the legs. Letting loose one of the horns, Zac reached out to guide the lasso over a foreleg, but the bull jerked before he could catch it. On the third try, Delaney got them both. She gave a solid yank on the rope to tighten the loop and then turned to the horse, who stood ears pricked in readiness as she dallied the rope to the saddle horn.
“Got the cutters?” Zac called out.
“I got ’em,” a gravelly voice answered.
Zac looked over his shoulder to find Bart dropping from his horse.
“What the hell took you so long?” Zac growled.
“Traffic,” Bart snapped back sarcastically, and then knelt by the bull, wire cutters in hand.
Delaney joined him with another pair. The two went straight to work squeezing and snipping, cutting the wire away by sections. Zac’s stomach knotted with apprehension as blood coated the tools and their hands. Ten minutes later, the bull was freed of the barbed wire, but, weakened by blood loss, the animal had stopped struggling. It lay panting with its black tongue lolling. The bleeding by now had slowed, but it was impossible to assess the full extent of his injury.
Delaney looked anxiously to Zac, her brows knitted. “How bad is it?” she asked. “Will we have to put him down?”
“Hard to say,” Zac replied. Where the hell was the vet? “He’s lost a lot of blood, but I’ve seen animals bounce back from a lot worse. Bulls are tough and resilient.”
Zac was wondering if he’d have to use the shotgun when the sound of an engine broke the silence. A pickup appeared on the horizon. It was the vet, towing a stock trailer.
Delany waited, nervously chewing her lip. She rushed to the truck as soon as the engine cut off. “Thanks for coming so quickly, Kevin,” Delaney said.
“I’m sorry it took me as long as it did,” the vet said with an apologetic look. “I was literally up to my shoulder in a cow when your call came. I got here as soon as I could.” He moved quickly to evaluate the bull. “Glad you have him immobilized. That’s always half the battle.”
“I never could have done it without Zac,” she said.
The vet nodded, acknowledging Zac with an appraising look.
“We got all the wire off, but he’s hurt pretty bad,” Delaney continued, her worry lines deepening. “Please do whatever you have to. I’ve got a lot invested in that animal, but I don’t want him to suffer.”
After examining the animal, Kevin reported a severed artery in the pastern and went to work stitching and bandaging. “The bleeding’s stopped. He’s weak but I think he’ll pull through,” he reassured Delaney a few minutes later. “Whether he’ll be well enough for future competition, only time will tell.”
“I hope so,” Delaney said. “He’s my best prospect.”
“He still needs some IV fluids,” Kevin said. “We also need to keep him quiet to be sure that artery doesn’t open up again. I’d like to take him back to the clinic so I can keep a close eye on him for a night or two if that’s all right with you.”
“Keep him however long you have to,” she said.
Delaney stepped back to allow the men to move in. In a few minutes, they had the injured animal loaded onto the trailer. “Take good care of my bull, Kevin,” Delaney said. “I’m serious when I say do whatever he needs.”
“You know I will,” Kevin replied.
Zac watched them intently as he latched the trailer door.
“I’ll come by first thing tomorrow to check on him,” she said.
“I’ll look forward to it. I’ve seen far too little of you lately,” Kevin replied with a smile that suggested far more than a strictly professional relationship.
Lately? Zac’s gut twisted. What the fuck was going on between Delaney and the vet?
“Just been real busy,” Delaney answered.
Kevin gave Zac another speculative look.
Zac answered it with a glower that hung over his brow until well after the vet climbed into his truck and drove off.
After the vet departed with her bull, Delaney turned back to Zac. His jeans were caked with mud and his shirt was torn and covered with blood. Was it his? The bull’s? Or a combination of both? Delaney’s chest tightened at the significance of what he’d done for her. Had he lost control, the eight-hundred-pound bull could easily have crushed him, yet he hadn’t hesitated to help her. “I don’t even know how to begin thanking you for what you did.”
“Just being a good neighbor.” Avoiding her eye, he squatted to retrieve the bloody wire cutters, and tossed them into her cart.
“It was much more than that,” she insisted. “I know I could have lost Romeo today if it wasn’t for you.”
“Seems to me Kevin was the hero of the day.”