Page 15 of Stables Spurs Suits
“You did?”
“Yeah,” he says, grabbing out his phone. “I thought she looked so sweet lying there like that, so I snapped a pic. Let me find it,” he says, scrolling his phone.
“How many photos have you taken this morning?”
“They all looked sweet, okay?” he says, and then his hazel eyes go wide, and he turns the phone to face me.
“Is that a foot?” he asks, zooming in on her rear.
“Yes. Fuck, okay, we need to help her, get in here.”
“Wouldn’t Skye be better—“
“Just do what I say,” I bark, and he steps through, hands shaking as he kneels beside me.
“What do I do?”
“Get up near her head. Keep her calm and steady. The last thing we need is for her to thrash or roll.”
“Okay, but how do I do that?”
“Just talk to her the way you do with Loki,” I say, and then I turn my attention to the foal. Lilly is clearly exhausted.
“Skye,” I call, ready to ask for a towel, but he’s already holding one out for me.
“I figured you might need it,” he says, and I fold it ready for when the legs are out.
“Come on, Lilly, give me a good push, girl,” I say, and Matthew repeats my words up near her head. I rest one hand on her and feel for the contraction. When it hits, she pushes hardjust like we need, and the foal’s front legs emerge. I wrap them quickly in a figure eight with the towel so I can time my pull with the next contraction.
Matthew’s soothing voice continues up the other end. On the next contraction, the nose pokes out, still covered with some of the thick white membrane, so I grab the end of the towel and clear it away, so that when it’s out, it’ll be able to breathe.
“Almost there,” I say, and as much as I want to help more, it’s important I only apply steady, controlled traction when she’s actively pushing.
It takes another five contractions that feel like they’ve lasted an hour before the head is out, and thankfully, only one more contraction later, the foal slides completely free of her.
“You did it, Lilly. You have a new baby,” I say, as I check the nose is clear again and rub the foal’s chest with the towel to help stimulate breathing. I look up, and Lilly is resting her head against Matthew’s chest, his hand brushing the side of her face, all the while telling her how good she did.
The foal snorts, and it gives Lilly a boost of energy, and she shoves herself up and around to start licking it clean. Matthew presses himself against the wall of the stall.
“What do we do now?” he asks.
“Now we get a drink,” I say, and he follows me out of the stall.
“Skye, yell out if she needs us,” I say, and Skye nods, his wide grin locked on the new addition as he peers over the side of the stall. He’ll be there for an hour watching the foal as it takes its first steps and starts making sweet, high-pitched whines and neighs to talk to its mother.
“You did well in there,” I tell Matthew, and he rubs the back of his neck with one hand.
“I didn’t do anything. You were amazing. That was amazing.”
“You were more helpful than you realize,” I reply. It’s weird. I thought he was a complete fish out of water out here, but thehorses seem to have accepted him. Not just Loki, who hasn’t played dead even once when he’s seen him, much to Skye’s dismay, but also the other horses too; they all seem to recognize something in him they connect with.
“I should probably mention, I don’t really drink,” Matthew says as he shoves his hands into his pockets and kicks the toe of his boot into the gravel. Tiny rocks skid ahead of us in a small plume of dust.
“That’s okay, it’s more of an act of celebration. It doesn’t have to be alcohol. How about some of Sally-May’s fresh lemonade?”
“That sounds amazing.”
We head into the main house and find Sally-May in the kitchen already preparing things for tonight’s dinner. I wash my hands at the sink before touching anything, and Matthew follows right after.
