Lina’s POV

            I was fully expecting to be grounded for the next few weeks for what happened with Landon but to my surprise my parents didn’t seem to be that upset with me about the whole thing; maybe it was just the fact that Landon actually hit me that made them forget about the rest of it. I still couldn’t believe that he did that; I would have never expected that out of Landon, it just wasn’t the kind of guy that he was. I was happy that Jon hit him but at the same time I was nervous about him getting in trouble for it; luckily the sheriff is Jen’s dad and like a second father to me so he would basically bend over backwards to make me happy. I was still confused on what exactly happened out there; it was like after Landon hit me I just went into a daze of rage, I had never wanted to shoot anyone more than I did in that moment.

            It was a good thing that Jon was there because I might have just shot Landon; I doubt I would have went as far as to kill him but maybe an arm or leg shot, something that I knew would hurt like hell and take him a while to recover from. He deserved it, he hit me; if there’s one thing that you learn in the south it’s that a man never hits a woman, it doesn’t matter how mad you are or what she did to you, you never hit a girl. If Jon wasn’t there to talk me down and Landon wouldn’t have left when he did there would have been a whole lot more bullet holes in things other than just his truck; I couldn’t believe that I just lost it like that, it was like I wasn’t even fully in control of my own body.

            After a long lecture from my parents about being more responsible with firearms they reminded me that they had a horse show in Kentucky that they were going to; I had totally forgotten that they were leaving, they were going to be gone for two weeks and I was in charge of the farm while they were gone. It was a yearly trip that they always took to buy new horses for breeding; we had to buy a few new horses a year to keep the bloodlines fresh and try out new combinations to see what type of horses we could produce. I was looking forward to two weeks without them here but at the same time I hoped that Landon would listen to the sheriffs warning and stay off our property because there was no telling what I would do if he showed up again; the fact that I had to deal with all the work my father would normally do on the farm was a bit of a downer but it would be worth it to have the house to myself for two whole weeks.

            The first part of the week started out as normal; Jon was getting into more of a routine and I didn’t have to help him with as much which was a good thing seeing all the things I had to deal with in the office all day. I would spend most of my off time hanging out with Jon in his apartment; since my mom wasn’t around to cook for us and I had no interest in cooking we went to town everyday for most of our meals. The more I got to know Jon the more I liked him; he was a really nice person to hang out with and we seemed to get along with each other like we had know each other for years instead of just over a week. We had a lot in common with each other too; he was a lot like his dad so it wasn’t hard to fall into easy conversation with him about the things that Bubba and I used to talk about.

            By the time Wednesday rolled around I decided to start trying some training with Talon, a two year old stallion; he was pig headed and stubborn, one of the hardest horses I have ever had to break. Ginger hadn’t been cooperating with her breaking in either earlier during the week so I thought moving on to another horse for a while would take my mind off of her; I knew that Talon wasn’t going to be much better than Ginger but seeing as how he was three times her size I decided to take a few precautions with him before training. I latched the shin guards which were basically just a thin piece of metal wrapped in padding around my legs and changed to a longer lead rope so that I would have some slack if he decided to rear up on me like he normally does.

            Walking out into the enclosure I had put him in earlier with a saddle in my hands he started to pace back and forth nervously; by two years old I would have normally had him broke into the saddle by now but like I said he was pig headed and just refused the idea of the thing sitting on his back. I talked to him for a while after placing the saddle on the fence and finally got him calmed down enough to allow me to hook the lead rope onto his bridle; after he was hooked up I ran him around the enclosure for about ten minutes to help him get out some energy and calm down a little more before I attempted to saddle him.

            I pulled him over next to the fence and allowed him to sniff at the saddle a little before I picked it up off the fence and tried to get it on his back; the moment the leather touched his skin he reared up knocking it out of my hands and it fell to the ground with a thud; I sighed and went to pick up the saddle so that I could try again. I just brought the saddle up into my arms when all of a sudden he spun around and kicked out behind him; his hoof slammed into the upper part of my left leg and sent me flying back across the enclosure on my ass. I instantly let out a cry of pain as my leg started throbbing in pain; Talon started freaking out and bucking around the enclosure as I tried to make my way towards the edge of the pen. My leg hurt too bad to be able to stand up and hold my weight on it and I could only hope that it wasn’t broken; I managed to crawl my way over to the edge of the fence when I heard someone calling out my name.

“Lina! Shit, Lina are you ok?” Jon yelled as he ran up to the enclosure and jumped over the fence to create a barrier between me and Talon who was still bucking around like crazy.

“Yeah, just help me out of here would ya’?” I asked holding onto my hurt leg and watching Talon closely so that if he got too close I could warn Jon to move; Jon picked me up in his arms and carefully made his way back over the fence. I have no idea how he managed to climb the fence while holding me but I was relieved that we were at least out of danger now that the angry stallion couldn’t get to us anymore.

“Shit, what happened?” Jon asked looking down at me holding my leg as he continued to carry me towards the main barn.

“I got kicked.” I spit out through my gritted teeth from all the pain in my leg.

“Should I call the ambulance?” He asked looking worried.

“No, just umm… just take me to your apartment so that I can look at it first.” I said wanting to assess the damage to see if I really needed to go to the hospital; it really hurt like hell but I was pretty sure that my leg wasn’t broken so there shouldn’t be a need to go get it checked out, all they would do is want to pump me full of pain meds that would most likely make me sick.

“Are you sure? I think we should go to the hospital.” Jon paused at the bottom of the stairs like he was debating if he was doing the right thing.

“Just take me upstairs Jon.” I almost shouted; I felt bad for yelling but shit my leg hurt like hell and I just wanted to get the shin brace off so I could look at it.

“Ok, ok.” He mumbled taking the stairs two at a time; when we reached the top I turned the handle for him because he was currently holding me with his hands.

            He carried me into his room and laid me down on the bed before stepping back and looking me over nervously; he looked like he wanted to help but had absolutely no idea what to do. I just laid back on the bed for a few minutes taking deep breaths as I straightened out my leg and tried to fight back the tears that were pooling at the edges of my eyes from the pain; Jon paced back and forth next to the bed repeatedly running his hand through his hair and repeating something under his breath that sounded like ‘I should have just taken her to the hospital, stupid, stupid, god I’m so stupid.’. I let out a little chuckle as I watched him and he stopped pacing to look at me with a confused expression.

“Help me get these off would ya’?” I asked motioning my hand towards the shin guards; now that I had my leg straight I didn’t want to sit up and bend over to take them off in fear of the pain that would no doubt shoot through my leg if I moved it again.

“Umm… ok… umm… what do I do?” He asked as his hands hovered over my legs but didn’t touch me once.

“Just un-strap ‘em genius!” I said lifting my right uninjured leg for him to do that one first; he did as I asked and had it off in a second then he just stared at the other leg and his hands were shaking as he tried to think of the best way to get it off.

“Shit!” He spit out and stood up and started pacing the room again.

“Come on Jon, just take it off.” I encouraged him to come back over so that he could get the damn thing off me.

“I don’t want to hurt you Lina, maybe we should just take you to the hospital.” He offered while kneeling by the bed again.

“I’m not goin’ until I see what it looks like. Now take it off!” I ordered, I was in too much pain to sit here and argue over this and if he didn’t hurry up and get the damn thing off then I would just do it myself regardless of the pain.

“Ok.” He huffed out before running a hand through his hair again; he gently lifted my leg so that he could get at the strap that ran across the back and I bit my lip to stop myself from screaming out in pain from the movement.

“Shit, I’m sorry.” He apologized taking in my expression as he managed to get the strap off and pull the guard away from my leg.

“It’s fine.” I said as the pressure from the guard was released my leg started throbbing again but it dulled some of the pain that was radiating through the leg.

“Now help me with these.” I said as I unbuttoned my pants; I had to take them off to be able to see what my leg looked like, they were too tight to be able to roll up from the bottom.

“What?” He asked raising his eyebrows at me like he couldn’t believe what I just asked him to do.

“I can’t see my leg unless I have ‘em off Jon; stop being a pussy and help me.” I growled, now was not the time to be shy about taking a womans pants off.

“I’m not a pussy.” He mumbled under his breath as his hands made their way to my waist and he gently started to pull down my pants; as much pain as I was in I still couldn’t help but enjoy the feeling of his slightly calloused hands against the skin of my thighs.

“Oh fuck Lina, its bad.” Jon said as he got the jean fabric low enough to be able to see the top of my leg when Talon had kicked me.

“Just get ‘em all the way off and hand me some boxers or somethin’ so I can look at it.” I said without moving; I was laid back on the bed with my eyes closed as I tried my best to fight back the pain in my leg. The pressure that my jeans were holding on my leg was actually doing a lot to keep the pain in check and now that they were removed I felt like screaming it hurt so bad.

“Ok.” Jon said swallowing hard as he gently pulled the jeans off and turned around to get some boxers out of his drawer; he pulled them up my legs and his hand slipped under my back to lift my hips when he got to the top to pull them over my ass.

“What does it look like?” I asked still not opening my eyes; I knew seeing it would just make the pain worse, its like when you cut yourself and don’t really feel any pain until you see the blood.

“Bad.” He replied and I opened my eyes to see him staring down at my leg with wide eyes.

“Thanks, that really helps.” I joked rolling my eyes.

“Sorry.” He replied rubbing his forehead in frustration.

“Help me sit up would ya’?” He came up towards my head and slipped an arm under my back to pull me up to a sitting position; I gritted my teeth and let out a little groan of pain as he stacked pillows behind my back to keep me sitting and mumbled a sorry for the pain.

            I opened my eyes again once the pain settled and looked down at my leg for the first time; Jon was right, it was bad. There was an almost perfect imprint of a hoof that was already a blackish-blue color and the skin surrounding that was already turning yellow from the bruising. I felt around on the back of my legs running my hands up and down the bone to make sure that I didn’t feel any cracks or breaks; when I was satisfied that I for sure hadn’t broken my leg I leaned back on the pillows with a sigh.

“Ready to go to the hospital yet?” Jon asked looking down at my leg again.

“No, it’s not broken I’ll be fine.” I countered.

“Are you fucking crazy woman? You need to go to the hospital for that!” He pointed to my leg as if to make a point.

“Why? All they will do is pump me full of pain meds and send me on my way. I’m not goin’.” I declared causing him to roll his eyes at me.

“How do you know it’s not broke?”

“I can feel it, it will be fine Jon. Stop worryin’ so much.” I said smacking his arm the best I could from my position on the bed.

“I’m calling your dad.” He said going to leave the room.

“No!” I almost shouted: my dad didn’t need to know I got hurt, I knew that he and my mom would cut their trip short and come back to make sure that I was ok.

“Lina he needs to know that you got hurt.” Jon said standing in the door frame of the room.

“Jon please don’t call him, just let me deal with this on my own.” I almost begged.

“Then let me take you to the hospital.” He offered.

“Let’s make a deal.” I said trying to think of a way I could get out of him calling my dad and going to the hospital.

“Like what?” He asked raising his eyebrows at me like he thought I was crazy.

“You get me some pain pills and don’t call my dad; I will spend the night here and if I can’t stand on my leg by mornin’ then you can take me to the hospital.” I offered hoping that he would accept.

“Lina…” I could tell that he was about to tell me no so I did the only other thing I could think of doing, I begged.

“Please Jon! Please don’t make me go or call my dad.” I stuck out my lower lip and gave him my best puppy dog eyes; I could almost see his resolve melting in front of me so I laid it on a little thicker to make sure that he would break. “Please Jon just do this one thing for me, please, I’m beggin’ you.” I blinked my eyes repeatedly looking up at him through my lashes; his shoulders slumped and I had to fight back the smile that was trying to make its way onto my lips knowing that I won.

“Fine!” He said running a hand through his hair again. “But I swear that if you are not back on your feet in the morning we are heading straight to the hospital and I’m calling your dad on the way there!” He threatened and I offered him a smile in return.

“Thanks Jon! Now about those pills.” I said leaning back on the pillow wall that he built behind me; he left the room and returned minutes later with two pain pills and a bottle of water for me.