Page 15 of Burke (The Haven #2)

She was on the phone quickly, and, once she confirmed they had the tools, she set it up so Tommy could just go by and pick them up.

“That’s great, thanks.” He looked over at Burke. “You want to come for a ride?”

“No thanks, I’ll stay here and help with the horses,” he replied.

“You do that,” Tommy muttered. “Horses aren’t my thing. I like them from a distance, but I don’t feel like getting too close.” He frowned as he watched one horse eye him nervously. “It’s almost as if they hear me.”

“They do,” she confirmed, “and they know exactly who’s afraid of them and who’s not.”

“Which in itself is creepy,” Tommy muttered. “That’s why I’m better with a hammer or a computer.” Then he gave them a smile and added, “You guys look after the horses. I’ll give my back a break and do a town run.”

“Sounds good.”

And, with that, he was up and off fairly quickly.

Tiffany looked over at Burke. “Are you okay to give me a hand for another hour or two?”

“Sure.” He watched in amazement as she thoroughly but gently worked on the worst two horses, building up a nutritional panel for the one and X-rayed the injured leg on the other.

She muttered, “It’s not broken. So that’s a good thing, but it’s definitely inflamed. So, we’ll see what we can do about that.”

“What is it then?”

“Hopefully just a sprain,” she suggested, waving her hand. “We’ll need to wrap it for support and give her some meds, and hopefully it won’t be too uncomfortable when you work on her hooves.”

“We can bind it now to get a start on the hoof, once I get the tools,” he noted.

Together they worked for another couple hours. When she finally sat back, she sighed. “Okay. I think that’s all we can do for today, at least until the tools arrive.”

He nodded. “It shouldn’t be too long now, should it?”

“It’s hard to say, depending on what all Tommy had to pick up,” she said, with a laugh. “I would love to get a start on it today, but, if we can’t, we can’t.”

Just then Timber walked in, and the horse nickered at him.

He walked over and spent a few minutes just talking to her.

She relaxed completely against him, dropping her head down to blow air gently down his neck.

He smiled up at the mare. “You’ll be just fine, honest. We just need to get some tools, and we’ll get you fixed up.

” She nickered softly, and he just kept talking to her, his voice calm and completely natural. But then that was Timber.

Burke smiled at him. “This really is where you belong, isn’t it?”

He nodded. “Yes, and the good news is, I know it,” he declared, with a big smile. “So, I’m not planning on going anywhere, just working to get horses and other animals, like this one, where they need to be.” He looked over at Tiffany. “What’s the verdict?”

“It’s not broken,” she said, “so that’s the good news. Burke will get her trimmed up. Then we’ll bind it, wrap it up, and give her a little bit more support until it heals.”

“And the other one?” he asked.

“We’ll get her nutrition panel fixed up, and her diet will have to be modified. From the looks of it, she’s extremely weak and worn down. She’s in need of a trim as well, so getting that done will make her more comfortable and will encourage her to move around a bit more.”

He nodded and didn’t say anything.

Burke looked at him and shared, “You seem to be handling all this pretty easily.”

“There’ll be an awful lot worse that we’ll see as time goes on,” he pointed out. “We’ll just deal with what we can, never quite knowing what will show up next.” He looked over at Tiffany, “I came to tell you that there’s coffee.”

“Coffee would be good,” she said.

He laughed. “Coffee is always good, even if you do drink too much.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Hardly.”

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her back up to the house, turning to look at Burke. “There’s coffee on, if you want some too.”

“Yeah, I’ll come in a few,” Burke replied. “I will just visit with this gal for a bit.”

“Go ahead. Just remember she’s had her heart broken a time or two.”

“I know, and she’s showing it. Nothing quite like people who treat them like tools instead of family.”

“I know,” Timber muttered. “That’s another reason why I’m trying to bring as many here as I can.”

As soon as they were out of the room, he moved over and gently stroked the older mare’s neck, giving her time to get used to him and his touch. She had shied away initially but seemed to be more accepting now.

“Nobody here will hurt you, sweetheart,” he vowed. “I know you don’t believe me yet, but you will. Soon enough you will. And, when those tools get here, we’ll see if we can get you walking a little easier.”

She had completely overgrown hooves, and one was cracked. It broke his heart to see animals in this condition, but people were people.

As he walked back to the cabin to get coffee, Tommy drove up, honking the horn, as he went to cross the yard.

Heading for the truck instead of coffee, Burke asked, “Were you able to get the tools?”

“Sure did,” he confirmed, as he handed them off. “Tiffany had it all set up for me.”

“That’s good.”

Tommy laughed. “Better you have them than me. I can’t imagine those horses will be that happy to have you using these tools on them at this point in time.”

“It’s hard to say,” he admitted. “Their hooves are pretty overgrown and cracked. Yet, after I’m done with them, this will make them feel a lot better.”

“If you say so.” Tommy shook his head. “As long as it helps.”

Tommy then backed the truck up toward the building where the construction crew had been working.

Several of them came out to help unload whatever else he’d picked up, but Burke had his farrier tools in hand and headed to have a look at the mare’s hooves.

He would rather fix these up first, then go for coffee.

Completely focused on the task at hand, he settled into it right away. Before long, he straightened up and patted the mare. “That should do it. How does that feel?” he asked the mare.

“Seems to be a whole lot better than it was.”

He looked over to see Tiffany, smiling at him. “That was a nice job.”

He shrugged. “As I told you, I’m not formally trained,” he cautioned, “as in I’m not certified or anything.”

“Nope, and I hear you. Lots of things that we do in life we do because we learned how, but that doesn’t mean we have any credentials or certification,” she stated, with a becoming smile.

“My father was like that. He was incredibly capable and didn’t have certificates for most things, but we still got along just fine. ”

“What did he do?” he asked.

“A whole lot of everything and a whole lot of nothing,” she replied, with a chuckle.

Just then the horse nickered, and somebody out in the pasture nickered back.

“That’s her saying she wants to go join the others, now that she can walk a bit better,” she shared, as she led her over to the paddock gate, where she opened it wide and let the mare out.

As soon as the mare cautiously stepped through and then realized a big open field was in front of her, she picked up the pace and started to move toward the others.

“She looks pretty happy, doesn’t she?” Burke asked.

“She does, indeed,” Tiffany agreed, with a smile. “She’ll be just fine. Thank you for doing that.”

He stared at the horses, absolutely loving the fact that Timber was helping them. Burke realized that he wanted to do something similar, but he didn’t know exactly what. Just that he wanted to do something with meaning.

As he stood here, Tiffany tapped him on the shoulder, “That’s an odd look on your face.”

“Not so odd,” he muttered, with a sad smile. “Just the realization that I very much want to be doing something similar.”

“Similar to what? To what Timber is doing?”

“Yeah, similar in the sense that he’s helping people and helping animals.”

“Good,” she stated. “A lot of room for it. While you’re here, you might as well figure out what he’s doing, and maybe he needs help with something specific.”

Burke nodded, listening intently.

She hesitated, adding, “I hope you don’t mind, but he did tell me a little bit about the troubles you’re having.”

“ Yeah , and that is having an impact on me deciding my next move because I don’t know if I’ll be on the hook for this mess in terms of finances.”

“You shouldn’t be, but…”

“Exactly. It’s the but part that’s hard to live with.”

She smiled. “I have faith that things will turn out well.”

“I do too,” he conceded, and he really did.

He didn’t know why, but he was feeling hopeful that it would all work out in his favor.

As he went to go grab coffee, his phone rang.

He looked down and realized it was Shirley.

“Hey, Shirley. How are you doing?” But there was a sob on the other end.

“Are you okay? What happened?” He could tell that she had obviously been crying.

“I got laid off at work today, so I can’t say I’m doing very well.”

“What? Why?” he asked.

“Silvia.… She came to my office today and absolutely lost it on me.”

“Why?” But inside he already knew the answer.

“Because she couldn’t access my money,” she shared.

“I had been warned yesterday that somebody had been outside the office trying to get in to see me and that, if my personal life caused disruptions at work, I could be dismissed, but I didn’t really think too much about it as I didn’t have any reason to think she would go so completely haywire. ”

“But she did?”

“She did, and I got sacked for it.”

“That won’t help her either then, will it? So she did try to get money out of your bank account then?”

“Yes. She told me that I owed her and was furious because I had taken what she called her money. Of course my bosses weren’t interested in hearing the truth of the matter. They just didn’t want any disturbance, so guess who was asked to leave?”