Once Tempted by Laura Moore Read Free Book Online

the swimming pool, but his mother and Tess Casari, the snippy beauty with eyes as dark as espresso, had made up for any lack of physical recreation by arranging for extra yoga classes throughout the weekend so that guests could stretch their muscles and find calm equilibrium in the light-filled exercise studio. This way, everyone—horseback riders and those less actively inclined—would be in a proper frame of mind and body to enjoy the afternoon’s high tea.
    The Valentine’s weekend special and all the accompanying pampering required extra work on everyone’s part, both staff and family members, but the payoff—the glowing reviews posted on Internet travel sites andthe bookings from new and returning guests—would be sweet. The businessman in Ward couldn’t ignore the financial boon the holiday presented to his family’s ranch.
    So he tamped down on his desire to saddle his gelding Rio and head out for a soul-cleansing solitary gallop.
    Like everyone in his family, Ward was fully committed to making Silver Creek Ranch the best guest ranch in Northern California. Today that meant spending several hours acting the genial trail guide to couples celebrating romance. He’d stifle his cynicism and ignore thoughts of irritating New Yorkers. After all, he’d been doing a pretty good job of it for five long weeks, ever since the afternoon she’d rolled up to Silver Creek looking lost and lonely and out of her depths.
    The dawn air nipped the band of skin at the back of Ward’s neck where he’d gotten a trim at Joe’s barbershop in town. He shrugged his shoulders and with one hand raised the collar of his jacket while he currycombed Santiago’s liver-colored flank. He’d selected Santiago and twenty other horses for the trail ride later in the morning.
    He paused in the midst of grooming to take a sip of black coffee. He’d placed the thick ceramic mug next to one of the corral’s posts, out of harm’s way from hooves or booted feet. The coffee was sorely needed. He’d been up for hours, roused by Pete Williams, the ranch’s foreman, who’d called to tell him that they had a situation down at the barn. Two of their ewes were having trouble lambing. One was carrying twins, who appeared to be trying to come into the world neck and neck. Definitely not a good situation.
    Pete had hands a surgeon would envy. Nimble and delicate. Unfortunately, he had only two of them, so Ward had rolled out of bed to lend his own pair to the other ewe in distress.
    The second ewe’s problem was far more straightforwardthan the first’s. Her lamb had been a breech presentation. As malpresentations went, rear legs exiting the uterus first weren’t the trickiest, but Pete had made the right call: The ewe couldn’t have birthed it on her own. The lamb was big—Ward could tell just by the size of its protruding hoof—and the ewe was exhausted. Luckily the ewe had been brought inside. The barn was warm and the straw was clean and dry.
    After washing with an antiseptic and applying a lubricant, he’d dropped to his knees by the ewe’s posterior and carefully inserted his fingers into the ewe and gently begun drawing the lamb forward. The ewe appeared quite relieved at the help she was receiving and renewed her own efforts. A couple of muffled, tired bleats and heaving strains later, she delivered a mucus-covered bruiser of a lamb onto the straw. He had wiped the lamb down with a towel and cleaned himself off as well, then waited to make sure the mother would be able to handle the rest.
    Once she’d expelled the afterbirth, the ewe clambered to her hooves to nuzzle and lick her newborn. Ward had carried over a bucket to offer her water in case she was thirsty, but it seemed birthing had made her hungry more than anything else. She’d alternated between munching on wisps of hay and casually nudging her lamb.
    The newborn hadn’t seemed the worse for wear for entering the world ass-backward. Within a half hour he had gained enough