“Yup. I’m at the clinic in Ardmore. I’m leaving for Vegas as soon as I’m done here.”
“Oh, no, you aren’t!” she replied, sounding pissed as hell. “I need you back here right away, Zac.”
His throat tightened. “What the hell’s happened this time?”
“Your damned bull! That’s what’s happened, or should I say happen ing.”
“I’m not following you.”
“Apparently the horny son of a bitch climbed out of his corral and busted through the fence. He’s right now in my pasture breeding my cows!”
“Holy shit.”
“You’d better come get him. Now, Zac.”
Zac shouldered the phone and zipped up his jeans. “I’m almost two hours away. You do understand that by the time I get there the damage is already gonna be done.”
“I don’t care. I need you to fix this. I had a plan,” she replied tearfully. “I handpicked every bull for my cows and invested over ten grand in frozen semen. Now it’s all blown to hell because of your damned rogue bull!”
“How many did he get to?” Zac asked.
“Who knows? I gave them all hormones a few days ago to bring them into season. It’s a bovine buffet out there.”
She was furious for sure, but Zac had to suppress a chuckle. “Hang tight, sweetheart. I’m on my way. We’ll just have to figure something out when I get there.”
Zac placed the two specimen containers into their respective plastic bags and took them back to the nurses’ station. “Only one?” she asked, brows arched in question.
“Yeah,” Zac grunted. “I got interrupted by a phone call. I gotta leave. Is there any chance I can just bring this back?”
“How far away do you live?” she asked.
“’Bout two hours.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. McDaniel. That won’t work. We need it within an hour of emission to get an accurate analysis.”
“This is damned awkward, Miss . . .”
“Wanda,” she supplied. “Don’t be too concerned, Mr. McDaniel.” She offered a reassuring smile. “It’s not at all unusual for men to suffer performance anxiety in this setting.”
“Performance anxiety?” He shook his head with a snort of disgust. “That ain’t it at all. I got no problem getting it up, ma’am. I just got distracted.”
“There’s a simpler way to do this if you want to bring your significant other next time,” she suggested.
“How’s that?” Zac asked.
She opened a drawer and fished out a package with a telltale disc shape. “It’s a collection condom. They’re specially designed for this.” She nodded to a couple who’d just exited the exam room, both looking rumpled and smiling sheepishly. “It usually does the trick.”
Delaney slammed her cell phone on the counter and threw herself into a chair, where she finally gave in to the fit of angry tears. It was all Zac’s fault. Since that damned cowboy had walked into her life, all of her plans had gone to hell in a handbasket. Nothing was happening the way it was supposed to. First, her baby plans and now her calves. Her only consolation was that it was at least a bucking bull and not one of the longhorns that had busted in and ravished her heifers. Of course the shameless hussies had been perfectly happy to lift their tails and squat.
Her only hope was that they were too early in the cycle for fertilization. As long as Zac removed the bull before he got another go, maybe she could control the damage. She poured a glass of wine and waited for Zac.
Her nerves had begun to settle by the time she poured her second glass.
It would be at least a week before she could do any preg testing on the cows, but it actually wasn’t quite the disaster she’d first thought. The bull had bred her recipient cows but not the egg donor. Thank God, Diamond was still in her own pen and not turned out with the others.
She downed her third glass and then poured another.
She was feeling dangerously mellow by the time Zac pulled into the drive. She met him at the door, opening before he had a chance to knock.
“I’m damned sorry about this, Delaney,” he said. He stood there with hat in hand and apology on his lips. She focused mostly on the lips. She loved the shape of Zac’s mouth and the feel of it even better. “I’m confounded how he got out,” he continued. “It wasn’t negligence, I swear. He’s got an injured hock and I had him in a six-foot pen. It shouldn’t have happened.”
“I’m sorry for lashing out at you on the phone, Zac. I know it wasn’t your fault. These kinda things happen sometimes.”
He looked surprised. “So you’re not all pissed off anymore?”
“I still am,” she confessed with a hiccup. “But maybe not quite as much as before. Did you come to get your bull?”
“Already did,” Zac said. “I called Bart the minute I got off the phone with you. The bull’s already loaded up and on the way home. He didn’t fight us much.”
“I don’t imagine he had the energy,” she said dryly. “All that humping must have worn him out.”