The Prince

As soon as she disappeared, Wesley heard his father sighing.

“Dad, drop it. Nora and I are a fact of life. Get used to it.”

“I’m used to it the way I’m used to my herniated disc. It’s also a fact of life—doesn’t mean I’ve got to like it.”

Wesley kept his retorts to himself. After all, he’d just made Nora come so hard his ears would probably ring for the next two hours. Nothing his dad said or did about her could make a dent in his impenetrable wall of happiness right now.

“Ready,” Nora said as she returned, wearing pants and carrying a T-shirt for Wesley. “I’ve never seen a horse give birth before.”

“It’s nasty and disgusting,” Wesley’s father said as the three of them headed to the waiting pickup truck. “So much placenta sometimes you have to yank the little one out of it. Momma often eats the afterbirth.”

“Fantastic.” Nora grinned from ear to ear. If his dad was trying to scare her off, he had no idea what kind of woman he was dealing with. “I’ll film it for YouTube.”

“Don’t you dare put a Rails horse on the internet,” Wesley’s father said, his voice unnecessarily cold and stern.

“Dad, she was kidding.”

Nora held up her empty hands. “No camera. Promise.” She smiled broadly. Orders delivered in a cold and stern voice tended to have the opposite effect on her than his father had intended.

They arrived at the mare stable in under two minutes. Wesley’s father hopped out of the truck before he’d barely turned it off, and ran straight to the door.

“What’s the hurry?” Nora asked as she trotted next to Wesley, who moved almost as fast. “Doesn’t this take hours?”

“It can. She’s probably been at it for a while, though. But we have to be there in case something goes wrong—you’ve only got minutes to save mare and foal sometimes.”

They entered the barn to the sound of low panting and soft moans.

“That sounds familiar,” Nora said, and Wesley smacked her lightly on the bottom.

At the door to the stall they stopped and looked in. Track Beauty lay on her side in the hay, her long legs wobbling from exertion. Even on the ground, with a distended belly and sweat on her flanks, she lived up to her name.

Wesley entered the stall and found his father and Dr. Fischer, the resident veterinarian, taking the mare’s vitals and conferring.

“What’s wrong?” Wesley asked, kneeling down and gently stroking Track Beauty’s sweat-stained nose. Horses were intelligent animals, although Thoroughbreds tended toward instinct over reason. But usually some awareness shone in Track Beauty’s dark eyes. Now she seemed merely a dumb animal, however. Pain and fear had taken all the perception from her gaze.

“She’s been down there a long time,” Dr. Fischer said. “We need to pull.”

“Poor thing,” Wesley said to the laboring horse. “Can’t imagine how much this is gonna hurt.” Track Beauty’s stomach undulated as the unborn foal struggled inside her.

“What is it, Wes?” Nora asked, her voice soft as a whisper. She might not know anything about horses, but was smart enough to know trouble when she smelled it.

“She’s in some distress. We’re going to pull the foal out.”

“Who’s we?” Nora asked as Wesley disinfected his hands and arms. “Wes?”

“We is me,” he said, deciding in that moment he’d be the one to do it. His father had a bad back and Dr. Fischer was in his sixties. Any minute now every last person who worked on the farm would start to gather outside the stable to await news. Wes wanted to make sure the news they received was good. “Come hold her head, Nora. Beauty’s more comfortable around women than men.”

“Son, I don’t know—”

“It’s fine, Dad. Just back off so Beauty will calm down.”

Dr. Fischer stayed in the stall, but way in the corner where the horse couldn’t see him. Wesley watched Nora tiptoe into the stall and kneel by Track Beauty’s head.

“You know you’ve got options,” Nora whispered to the horse as she stroked Track Beauty’s tangled mane. “IUD…the pill…do they make NuvaRing for horses? Or would that be hula-hoop size? Maybe just abstinence. It’s the only one hundred percent way.”

Wesley laughed softly as he reached down and pushed Track Beauty’s flopping tail to the side and saw the placenta bubbling out.

“No commentary, Nora. Please,” he said as he pushed an arm inside the mare.

“I won’t say a single word,” she pledged as she took the horse’s head in her lap. “Except that this reminds me of my last date with Griffin.”

Wesley reached in deep and found what he sought—a bone-thin ankle. He found another right next to it.

“Keep her still as you can,” he said, glancing at Nora. “I’m going to pull hard and steady, and this is going to get messy.”

Nora nodded as she ran her hand down Track Beauty’s neck in a soothing massage. Wesley came up on the balls of his feet and started to pull firmly and slowly. At first the foal didn’t want to budge, and he feared breaking one of the fragile legs in utero.

“Come on, gorgeous,” Nora said to the mare. “Let him go. Can you push a little for me?” She blew straight on the horse’s face and Track Beauty twitched. The twitch caused just enough of a push that Wesley could finally pull the two ankles out of her. He tore off the placenta and wrapped a towel around the foal’s legs.