“Is there anything I can do?” Liz asked.

“Not a thing. I just can’t come help with the teardown business today. One of us will stay with him all day and night. I drew the shift from six to midnight. If you get home in time, you can come out to the barn and keep me company,” he said.

“I’ll be there, and I’ll call before I leave so I can bring anything you need,” she said.

“I just need you,” he said.

“I’ll be there soon as I can. Call me with updates,” she said.

“I will. I see the vet pulling in now. See you later then?” he asked.

“I promise,” she said.

Blaze cracked the door. “You promise what?”

She stood up and headed out across the grounds. “That I’ll go by the barn and see about the horse that got out. Ever heard of Glorious Danny Boy?”

He grabbed a toolbox from the bed of his truck and followed her to the Ferris wheel. “Everyone that follows horse races like Tressa and I do knows that name. He’s that famous quarter horse that won the Texas Heritage Stakes several years ago. When anyone talks about horse racing they say ‘as good as old Glorious Danny Boy’ or ‘never as good as.’ Why are you asking?”

“That’s the horse that got loose this mornin’. Glorious Danny Boy. The O’Donnells own him and Major Jack,” she explained.

Blaze gasped. “Those people are the O’Donnells?”

“Yes, they are,” she answered. “Let’s get things going here. Hand me the stubby. I’ll get the first board off since my hands are smaller.”

“And Colleen comes from that family,” he groaned as he handed her the screwdriver.

Liz nodded.

“There’s no way she’d ever be interested in any kind of relationship with me,” Blaze said.

“Long-term or long-distance?”

“Either one,” Blaze said. “What happened to the horse?”

“He got out of the horse barn, jumped a couple of fences, and they found him in a mesquite thicket with a torn foreleg. The vet had just gotten there. The family will stay with him all day and Raylen’s drawn the straw for first shift tonight,” Liz answered as she went to work on the troublesome screws.

Blaze got a battery powered drill from the toolbox and started helping. “If that horse belonged to me, the whole family would stay with him tonight. Colleen could read bedtime stories to him and keep him calm with her soft-as-silk voice.”

Liz shook her head. “You are smitten.”

“Yep, I am. Are you?”

“Oh, yeah! But I have been since I was a little girl,” she admitted. “I fell in love with Raylen when I was ten years old.”

Chapter 21

Liz had been on the phone with Raylen every minute of the way from Bowie to the O’Donnell ranch. She could see the lights shining out the open doors of the big barn, and then there was Colleen walking right toward them.

She put on the brakes and said, “Just a minute. Your sister is in front of me. Is she the one who will be relieving you?”