Death by Equine by Annette Dashofy (booksvooks txt) 📕

react, he grabbed her and pressed a kiss, hot and hard, to her lips. Blindsided, both her mind and her knees lost their resolve. As she moved to slip her arms around his waist, he released her. She staggered and caught the edge of his desk, clinging to it the way she’d momentarily wanted to cling to him.

“Does this mean what I hope it means?” he asked. “The quarantine will be limited to the two barns?”

“Uh. Yeah.” Breathless, she fought to regain her composure. “I spoke with Dr. Baker from Veterinary Services, and she agrees. There’ll still be follow-up tests, though.”

“Fine. Whatever you say.” Daniel snatched her into his arms, and for a moment, she thought he was going to kiss her again. Instead, he swung her around in what she supposed was a waltz. “We have to celebrate.”

She pushed away from him before she tripped over her own feet. “Celebrate?”

“Absolutely. Dinner. Anyplace you want. After we give everyone the good news, that is.”

“Dinner?” The kiss still lingered on her mind along with its promise of much more.

“Where do you want to go?”

“I...don’t know.”

“That’s all right. You can tell me when and where later.” He turned toward his phone. “Right now, I want to call Zelda. She’s been waiting for word of when she could bring Clown back.”

The fantasy melted away like the last snow of spring dropping into the Monongahela River. Jessie stared at Daniel’s back as he placed the call. Could this be the man who drugged Clown, turning the Thoroughbred into a murder weapon?

Was she falling in love with a killer?

BARN BY BARN, JESSIE delivered the owners’ copies of the negative Coggins tests. For days, she’d felt like Typhoid Mary. Today, she was greeted with smiles and handshakes and a round of thank-yous.

As she crossed the road between barns, footsteps padded up behind her. She turned to find Sherry jogging toward her. Jessie kept walking, and she fell into step at her side. “I hear the news is good.”

“Better than the news I had to deliver to Doug Whitman.”

“I bet.”

“By the way, I wanted to thank you for helping out on Monday. I really appreciate it.”

“How much?”

Jessie stopped short. “What do you mean?”

“How much do you appreciate my help? Enough to take me into partnership with you here at the track?”

Jessie studied her face, searching for some sign she was kidding. But Sherry’s eyes were bright and steady. “You can’t be serious,” Jessie said.

“Why not? I figured you’d buy my dad’s practice since he didn’t leave it to me. Old Dr. McCarrell wants to retire, so there’ll be more clients here than you can handle alone.”

“You admitted you hate me and now you want to work with me?”

“Hated. Past tense.” Sherry walked a few paces ahead of Jessie, then turned to face her again. “Besides, we wouldn’t actually be working together most of the time. The horsemen could pick which one of us they preferred.”

From Sherry’s grin, Jessie surmised she expected to gain the larger numbers.

It wasn’t a bad idea. From what Jessie had seen, Sherry was more than competent. And she knew her way around the racing world. There were, however, a couple of problems with the plan. One being Jessie didn’t trust her. The other was the simple fact that Meryl had turned down her request to buy the hospital. Jessie chose to keep both to herself. “I’ll think about it.” She continued across the road and into the next shedrow.

Sherry kept pace. “Good. I need to start making some money.”

“What about your inheritance?”

“I haven’t received the check yet. Besides, it’s already earmarked to pay off my loan.”

“To Butch.”

Sherry rammed her hands into her jeans’ pockets and lowered her head. “Yeah.”

While Jessie had Sherry in a talkative mood, she decided to do some digging. “By the way, do you happen to know anything about a horse named Mexicali Blue?”

Sherry tripped but caught herself. “Like what exactly?”

“Milt Dodd bought him from your friend Neil Emerick but didn’t have a pre-purchase exam done. It turns out Blue has a broken coffin bone.”

Sherry let out a raspy whistle. “That’s rough. Bad injury for a racehorse. Milt didn’t have him checked?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s pretty stupid, don’t you think?”

Jessie took the question as rhetorical. “Do you know anything?”

Sherry glanced over her shoulder. Then back to the ground in front of her feet. “Nope. Don’t know a thing. Look, I gotta go. You have fun on your mail route.” She wheeled and strode off in the direction from which they’d come.

Sherry was lying. She may not want to admit it, but she knew about Blue. Jessie was sure of it. Doc’s daughter seemed well versed in the practice of deception. And there was still the issue of the silver and turquoise barrette stashed in Jessie’s desk drawer.

What else was the new Dr. Malone lying about?

Twenty-Two

The celebratory atmosphere that had enveloped Riverview’s backside was short-lived. Jessie hadn’t completed delivering the test papers before owners and trainers, negative Coggins tests in hand, loaded their animals into trailers and headed for the exit.

By the time Jessie returned to the clinic, a line of horse trailers jammed the road from the gate toward the river. The rumble of gasoline and diesel engines and the choking stench of exhaust filled the air. She spoke to several of the men and women behind the wheels of the rigs, imploring them to stay, but the general consensus was to beat it before the powers-that-be changed their minds.

Dinner might not be the festive occasion Daniel had anticipated.

She stood in the shade of the clinic with her arms crossed, watching the exodus. This wasn’t what she’d wanted.

Her phone rang. She slipped inside and pressed a finger into her other ear to block the growl of idling engines.

Sherry’s voice greeted her. “I need to talk to you.”

“Well, you’ve got me. If you’re calling about partnering up with me, take a look around. There aren’t going to be enough horses left on the grounds for even one of us to