Once and for All (9 page)

“No problem.” He set his equipment down and Jodie backed away from the paneled corral as if to give him room to work, putting her gloved hands deep into her coat pockets.

Sam seemed to be in no hurry to do anything. He walked from one heifer pen to the other, then stood back and watched the two animals deal with impending birth in their own way. In turn, Jodie studied the strong angles of his profile, wondering what it had been like for him to be plunged headlong into single fatherhood.

It couldn’t have been easy….

“Are Beau and Tyler here?” she asked casually.

“They’re already on their way to Samuels Creek.”

“It’s weird to think of them riding. They seem like such jocks.”

“Lots of kids around here cowboy and play sports. My dad had a little ranch before he and my mom moved to the coast. The boys rode right up until he sold the ranch.”

“Why’d your parents move?”

“My mom has asthma and couldn’t take the desert allergens anymore.”

“Oh.” His mother had also lost a son.

Sam didn’t get into the pen, but instead just watched the heifer, as Jodie had been doing. The only difference was that he probably had an idea of what to do if something did go wrong. He walked over to the pen where the second heifer stood breathing heavily, but other than that gave no sign that she was in labor.

And then the cow started to strain.

“She’s standing up.” Jodie stated the obvious, glancing at Sam and wondering what he was going to do about it.

“Some give birth that way.”

“I see.” Jodie swallowed. After all the hoopla about early calves and hard times for heifers, well, she just didn’t know if she was ready to watch. So she didn’t. She wandered over to visit Bronson in his stall. He hung his nose over the half door and Jodie stroked it. She heard Sam climb the panels and hoped it was for some routine reason.

“Jodie, I’m going to need some help here.”

“Does it involve blood?” she asked. She was already on the move, willing to do her part, even if she threw up, but she wanted to steel herself.

“No.”

“Be right there.”

There was a tiny reddish calf lying in the straw, and Sam was peeling away the sac surrounding it. The cow was still standing, facing in the other direction. Sam handed Jodie a towel. “Rub,” he said.

She took the towel and started gently rubbing it over the calf’s long damp hair. The little guy was all bones and sharp edges. His head lay on the straw and his pink tongue was hanging out.

“No. Like this.” Sam put his warm, weather-roughened hands over hers and began to briskly massage the calf. Jodie didn’t know about the calf’s circulation, but hers took an upswing. He smelled so damned good, and feeling his chest against her back…it was unfair that she had these reactions.

“This doesn’t hurt him?”

“Gets her blood flowing and helps warm her.”

Her.
Okay. Jodie tried to keep up the movements as he went back to the cow, who was once again straining.

“Twins?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he grunted. She didn’t want to think about where his hands were right now. “But I don’t believe this one is alive.”

“Oh.” Jodie rubbed harder and the calf’s head started jerking around.

She kept her back turned as Sam continued to work. The calf started to wiggle more as Jodie rubbed it, trying to ignore what was going on behind her.

Finally she heard the sound of something hitting the ground.

“Is it alive?”

“No.”

Jodie chanced a look over her shoulder, saw the cord hanging from the cow and instantly turned back to the calf. “Daisy,” she said in an effort to distract herself. “We’ll call you Daisy.”

Sam continued to do whatever it was he did. She heard the sounds of something being dragged under the panel rails, and knew it was the stillborn animal.

She continued to rub until the calf made an effort to get her feet under her, and the mama cow started moving behind them.

“Better get out of the way,” Sam said. Jodie stood up and, still clutching the towel with both hands, stepped back from the little reddish-orange baby. Sam climbed out of the pen and she followed. He reached for her, taking her forearms and helping her down.

The cow lowered her nose and sniffed at the calf now that she had the pen to herself. She sniffed again and then licked.

“Are we done here?” Jodie asked, glancing over at the other pen, where the cow was still going through the same routine as before. Up. Down. Up.

“I might have to tube the calf just in case it’s too weak to nurse.”

“Tube?”

“You probably don’t want to know.”

“Probably not,” Jodie agreed. “What will you do with the twin?”

The stillborn calf was lying in the straw several yards away from the pen.

“Lucas will take care of it when he gets back.”

“You see a lot of death in this job, don’t you?”

He looked down at her, an unreadable expression in his gray eyes. “I see a lot of life, too.”

The mother cow was licking enthusiastically now and the calf responded, first bobbing its head and then trying to struggle to its feet.

Sam and Jodie stood with their hands on the rails of the pen, so close that she could feel the warmth of his body, the solid muscles of his arm and shoulder against hers. She felt like leaning nearer, but couldn’t.

“I may not have to tube, after all,” he said.

As they watched, the baby managed to make it up to her feet, her tiny hooves wobbling on the straw-covered floor. The mama started nudging her toward the food source. The newborn stumbled, but managed to get her legs back under herself and totter a few steps toward the udder.

“Time for me to go to work.” Sam turned his attention to the other cow. Sure enough, tiny hooves were showing.

“Please be alive,” Jodie murmured.

“This is a normal presentation,” Sam said as he climbed into the pen. “It’s probably fine.” He was right. Five minutes later a calf was on the ground, obviously alive and well. Sam climbed back out of the pen and let the mama figure out what to do next.

The barn door opened and they both turned to see Margarite hovering in the doorway.

“The boys just called. They found the cattle.”

“Alive?” Jodie asked.

“Yeah. The culvert drifted shut only on one side. The herd couldn’t get back through to the pasture. Lucas is on his way over with the tractor to help dig it out and move the cows back. Any calves yet?”

“Two,” Jodie said.

“That’ll make your dad happy,” Margarite said. “I have hot drinks ready whenever you’re done here.” She shut the door, leaving Sam and Jodie alone once more. Jodie picked up the gloves she’d dropped before giving Daisy her rubdown.

“You do a lot to keep your dad happy, don’t you?” Sam asked quietly as he began to pack up his equipment.

She slowly turned to look at him. “I’m trying to run this ranch to the best of my ability while he’s gone, if that’s what you’re getting at.” But she didn’t think it was.

“What happens if you don’t? What happens if you make a mistake? You know…leave a gate open. Injure a horse.”

Jodie slapped the gloves on her thigh to remove the bits of straw and dust clinging to the leather. “He’s going to be angry. He’ll get over it.” Eventually. After he’d had time to stew, then cool down.

Sam just shook his head and continued packing his equipment.

“Don’t judge me or my family, Sam.”

Jodie shoved the gloves into her coat pockets. She’d told her father the ranch would be fine in her care, and she fully intended to live up to that promise. Nothing wrong with that. So why was Sam questioning her?

“What’s the deal, Sam? Why are you asking about my dad?”

His eyes were serious when he said, “I saw a different side of you when we played basketball.”

“Yeah?” And what did that have to do with her dad?

“Yeah. You’re nothing like you first came off.”

She twisted her lips into a half smile, half smirk. She was slightly shocked at what he’d just said, but wasn’t about to show it. “How did I first come off?”

He smiled slightly. “As someone who sees herself a step above the rubes who live here.”

Her eyebrows rose. “You don’t have to flatter me.”

“I can’t help myself,” Sam said. “I’m a charmer through and through.”

“I’m not a rube hater.”

“No.” He spoke gently, which somehow put her back up even more. “But what really bugs me is that you seem almost afraid to have your father come home to reality. This is a ranch, Jodie. Things happen. Emergencies are a way of life and, yeah, we try to avert them, but Joe’s in this business. He knows what happens. Or he should. But you’re desperately trying to hold things together.”

This was pissing her off.

Leave it.

She couldn’t. “Do you want to know how I first saw
you?
”

“No.”

“I thought you were good-looking,” she continued matter-of-factly. “And steady. You know…someone a person could depend on.” His expression didn’t change, but she had a feeling she was disconcerting him. Good.

“I thought you saw me as the incompetent vet who killed an expensive horse.”

“That, too,” she agreed.

“How about now?” he asked. “Right now?” He echoed her own words.

“I paid you a retainer, didn’t I?”

“But you’ve never told me you thought I was competent,” he pointed out.

Jodie smiled blandly. She’d had enough of this conversation. “Well, if you have everything under control here, I have to go wrestle a printer into submission.”

She walked to the door, pushed it open and stepped out into the overly bright sunlight, pulling her coat around her as the cold air hit her.

Why was she so ticked off? It didn’t matter what Sam Hyatt thought of her. In fact, it might be best if he did think poorly of her.

She removed the installation disk, reinserted it and started loading. Again. And once again, after ten minutes of screens flashing on and off and green bars filling to show progress, the damned thing stalled out at 96% installation. “
Damn
it!” Between printers, cows and vets… Jodie was about to fling the manual on the floor when she heard a noise in the doorway and looked up to see one of Sam’s nephews—Beau, maybe?—staring at her. Color rose in her cheeks. Bartons didn’t get caught throwing tantrums.

“Problem?” he asked matter-of-factly.

His expression was so earnest that Jodie squelched the impulse to snap, “No!” Instead she studied the boy’s handsome face for a few seconds, wondering briefly if he looked like his dad, before she chased the thought out of her mind. “You could say that,” she said in a defeated tone. “I can’t get this printer to load and the other one’s shot. I need it so I can finish some work.”

“You want me to take a look?”

He was already halfway across the room and she had a feeling it didn’t matter if she said yes or no.

She nodded and stepped back. “I would love it.”

“Oh, yeah,” Beau said after taking a quick look. “If the initial installation doesn’t load on an Alto printer, then you’re screwed.”

“Great,” Jodie said flatly. “I’m screwed.” She didn’t mind buying another printer, but she didn’t want to wait the usual weeks for delivery out in the boonies, or to drive to Elko and pick one up, only to find that the new printer did the exact same thing.

“Not totally screwed,” Beau said, tapping the keys. “I’ll see what I can do. The problem is that you have this uncompleted command messing things up….” His voice trailed off as his fingers moved over the keyboard, his eyes glued to the screen.

“This is a nice computer,” he finally said. “You must have satellite Internet out here.”

“Yes.”

“It took us a long time to get Sam up to speed with his computer system. He fought us—” he smiled at the screen reminiscently “—but we eventually wore him down.”

This kid was cute. Intense and yet somehow sweet. And standing behind him, watching him work, Jodie felt a whisper of guilt. She instantly tamped it down. What had happened was regretful. End of story.

“You want me to install these updates when I’m done?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.”

“Okay.” He stopped typing and shrugged out of the heavy coat he wore.

“Where’s your brother?”

“Waiting for me to come back to the barn. I came in to use the john.”

“Do you think you should—”

“He’s fine,” Beau assured her. “Lucas had some stuff he needed help with while we’re here. Grain to move and stuff. Sam’s there, too.”

Beau leaned closer to the screen to read a pop-up menu. He was so unconcerned about what he was supposed to be doing, while he rescued her…. Had to love him for that.

And again she felt a twist of guilt.

She had not orphaned this kid.
Get a grip!

“Got it!” Beau sat back and stared proudly at the printer, which was now spitting out a test page.

“Thank you.”

“Let me take care of this other stuff….” There was a commotion in the kitchen, male voices and stamping of feet on the mat as Margarite insisted that all snow and mud stay outside.

“Busted,” Beau said when Tyler stuck his head in the office.

“Where the he…heck have you been?”

“Jodie needed help with her printer.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” Tyler grumbled, disappearing again. Beau stood up, looking satisfied.

“I think Margarite is going to feed you,” Jodie said.

“Good. I hate cooking and it’s my turn today.”

“You guys take turns?”

“Sam says it’s fair, since none of us like doing it too much.” Beau picked up his heavy canvas coat and headed for the smell of roast beef fresh out of the oven. “Hey, if you ever need more computer help, just call me. I can probably talk you through stuff on the phone. Or I can until your dad comes home. Sam says we won’t be out here any more then.”

“I don’t imagine you will,” Jodie agreed.
Out of the mouths of babes…
“And thanks. I may take you up on that offer.”

Everyone ate in the kitchen, leaning against the counters and talking. Or rather the boys were talking and Lucas was talking. Even Margarite tossed in the occasional comment. Sam and Jodie stayed at opposite ends of the kitchen, as far from each other as they could get.

“Hey, Jodie,” Beau said at one point, “if you won’t let us drive your car, can we ride in it? When the roads are clear?”

“And can we go fast?” Tyler added with mock eagerness.

“When
will
the roads be clear?” she asked, looking out the window to her left. “June?”

“Yeah, probably,” Beau said. “But we can wait.”

“I don’t think I’ll be here in June.” Jodie gave a half smile. “But if you’re ever down in my country, look me up.”

Beau’s expression instantly shuttered. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

Good one, Jo.
His parents had died in her part of the country.

Margarite jumped into the conversation then, asking the boys whether the team would be going to the state tourney this year. The mood changed as Beau happily explained that he’d just passed a crucial math test and would soon be back on the team, so hell yes, they were going to state. Jodie stayed out of this conversation, choosing instead to listen and not make another faux pas.

Finally Sam brought his plate to the sink, next to where Jodie was standing. She ignored him as he set it in the basin of soapy water, and felt relieved when he told the boys that they had to get going. She needed some time to think things through, regain her perspective.

“Thanks for coming,” Lucas said. “I appreciate the help finding the cattle and clearing the culvert.”

“Hey, it was good exercise,” Beau said with a grin.

“Glad we could help,” Tyler added, and then the three of them went out the door. Both boys waved at Jodie when she stepped out to the glassed-in porch and watched them leave. All she got from Sam was his profile.

She folded her arms across her chest as the bronze truck disappeared over the snowy hill. This situation with Sam and his brother was bugging the hell out of her, and that wasn’t good.

If she lost her objectivity, then she might as well quit her job now.