If Wishes Were Horses by Karly Lane

Author:Karly Lane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2017-03-16T04:00:00+00:00

Nineteen

The next morning, Sophie walked out of the house as she heard the vehicle approaching and met Zac over at the stockyards.

‘How’s the patient?’ he asked, opening the back of his four-wheel drive to pull out a large bale of hay that he hefted up onto his shoulder.

Sophie found the action did lovely things to the man’s already impressive-looking biceps. It clearly took a lot of strength to manhandle his patients, especially large farm animals, and it was probably offensive on some feminist level to be ogling the man’s arms, but they certainly brightened up her afternoon.

‘He’s been a bit quieter today.’ Although since the sedative had worn off, he’d gone back to that wary, standoffishness he’d displayed before.

‘We might see how he goes without being put in the crush. It’d make it easier if we can treat him in the yards,’ he said, coiling the long rope she’d held yesterday and slipping it over his shoulder. He pulled apart the bale of hay before carefully opening the gate enough to slide through, turning to close it behind him.

‘Come on, old fella, let’s get a look at you.’ He approached the animal slowly, holding out the feed in his hand as a peace offering.

The horse gave Zac a sideways look and backed away, but Zac calmly continued walking towards him, keeping his tone low and gentle and his movements slow and steady until he was within touching distance. ‘There’s a good man,’ he said softly as he held out the hay. ‘Nice and easy now. Good boy, no one’s going to hurt you. We’re just going to get a look at you.’ The horse reared and gave a high-pitched whinny that sounded like a scream, kicking out before dropping his feet back to the ground and tossing his head.

Zac didn’t back off as Sophie had expected but continued to talk quietly in that low, soothing voice, gradually creeping closer to the agitated animal. After what seemed like an eternity he was finally close enough to gently place the end of the rope across the horse’s neck, making soothing noises as it shuffled uneasily a bit but didn’t pull away. He placed the hay on the ground and watched as the horse sniffed it warily before nibbling at it, while Zac continued to rub the rope along the animal’s neck and head until eventually the horse didn’t shy away or jerk in alarm.

After a while Zac gently guided the rope close enough until he could clip it onto the halter without too much fuss from the now somewhat subdued animal, who seemed happy so long as he could continue to eat.

‘Good man,’ he praised, still keeping his tone calm and low, and Sophie understood the soothing impact it had on the animal; she was fairly sure she would have done pretty much anything for him too if he asked her in that voice.

‘Sophie, I need you to come over here,’ he said, and suddenly she realised he was using that tone on her and she was about to do whatever he asked.

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