скачать книгу бесплатно
He reached to place his hand over her eyes. “I’ll wake you when we get there.”
“I never fall asleep in the daytime,” she said scornfully. And promptly did just that.
* * *
TUCKER LOVED DRIVING. It would be fine with him to just keep going until they reached Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where one of the satellite plants of Llewellyn’s Lures was. He flew up there sometimes, if the visit was urgent, but he preferred the drive. It would be a great place to show Libby, even in the dead of winter. They both had their passports with them, so they could go on into Canada whenever they liked. But she would panic if they did that. She was okay with spending the night somewhere, but she needed to be back by Tuesday morning—Seven Pillars was as much a safe haven for her as driving was for him.
Adventure. He’d promised her that, but he had no idea how to deliver on the promise. The lunch back at the Albatross had been great, but he hadn’t made up his mind where to go from there.
While Libby slept, he thought about the young woman she’d introduced him to that morning. In all fairness, Allison had been both attractive and pleasant—he’d enjoyed what little conversation they shared. He didn’t mind her kid being bratty, either. In his experience, most of them were at one time or another. Charlie, Jack’s precocious and hilarious twelve-year-old son, had gone AWOL from his grandparents’ home a few weeks ago—during an ice storm, no less—and had the family and everyone else at the lake in an uproar. Of course, the kid was still grounded. Jack insisted puberty would be a nonissue because Charlie was going to spend the duration in his room.
But, as Tucker had told Libby, the chemistry hadn’t been there with Allison. It was too bad. Really, it was. He’d meant what he said—he honestly did want a wife. A family. A home. But he wanted what Jack and Arlie had, too, that click between them that was both indefinable and undeniable.
He looked over at where Libby slept with her head tucked into the pillow he kept in the car. It would be nice if they could develop that chemistry, because she was pretty close to being his favorite person. But, regardless of what happened in some of the movies she’d dragged him to and he’d pretended he didn’t like, he didn’t believe friends necessarily made good lovers.
As he drove, the sky appeared more and more as if it was filling up with snow to dump on them. Winter had been an ongoing progression of record-breaking badness so far, each snowfall or ice storm heavier than the one before it. Buying the new Farmer’s Almanac had done nothing to prepare him for the unpredictable weather.
It had promised a cold but clear day today, but no one who lived in the Midwest ever took promises like that seriously.
Taunting him, the clouds opened and began the process of dropping their contents. They weren’t on the interstate, which made driving through the snow in a Camaro even more of a challenge than it might have been otherwise.
Two inches of snow later, the clock in the car insisted it was four, but the lowering sky indicated it was lying. The wind speed had increased at least ten miles per hour, making the thick white stuff even more impenetrable. Libby came abruptly awake. “Where are we?”
“The North Pole. I took a wrong turn.”
She called him a mildly profane name in a pleasant voice, then reached back between their seats. “Coffee?”
“Please.”
She found the thermos and filled their cups. “I’m sorry.”
He sipped, welcoming the warmth, and arrowed her a quick glance. “For what?”
“If we weren’t going on an adventure, we wouldn’t be driving through a snowstorm.”
He laughed, reaching over to give her hair a tug. “It’s not the first one we’ve driven through.”
“That’s true.” She peered through the windshield. “Are we near a town?”
He nodded. “About six more miles, I think, judging by that sign about an hour ago that said it was eleven miles away.”
She punched his arm lightly. “Do we exaggerate much?”
His cell phone made a percolator sound that signaled a text. Tucker sighed. “There’s my brother, telling me to get off the road. He’s so predictable.”
“Do you want me to check it?”
“Yeah, you’d better. The last time I drove in a storm, the plant had a fire and Charlie ran away.”
“But the Colts won that day, so it wasn’t a total loss.” Libby tapped his phone to read the message. “You’re right. It is Jack. He says if you’re driving to get off the road, you—” Her eyes widened. “I don’t think that was a very nice thing for him to call you.”
“You’re just mad because you didn’t think of it first.”
“There is that.”
They laughed together, their timing as on as it always was. “Man,” he said, “look at that truck coming. No headlights and he’s flying.” The other driver had no intention at all of sharing his landing strip, either. Tucker stretched his arm out in front of her. “Hang on, Lib.” He edged over as far as he could, praying the right-side wheels of the Camaro wouldn’t slide into the ditch.
The petition went unanswered when the car not only went into the ditch, but hit a culvert that was under an unseen driveway. The truck went on by, going fast enough the Camaro trembled—Tucker thought probably with rage—when it passed. His hand, shaking, went to her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Her fingers covered his. “Are you?”
He nodded, searching for and finding the emergency blinkers. The car wasn’t going anywhere. As far as he could tell, they were mostly off the road. He squinted, peering through the driving snow at the farmhouse at the other end of the lane they were blocking. “I hope whoever lives here wants company. Why don’t you stay in the car while I go for help?”
“Why don’t you not be an idiot?” She shrugged into her coat and pulled on her gloves, flashing him a smile. “Quite the adventure so far, Llewellyn. I’m impressed, but I’m really scared to ask what’s next.”
“Good thinking. At least wait there until I come around to help you.”
“Okay, my hero.”
As he inched his way around the front of the car, he found a spot of ice under the snow. His feet, still clad in the slick-soled shoes he’d worn to church, went out from under him. He landed flat on his back, coming to rest jammed against the bumper of the car, which was all that kept him from sliding under the engine as if he were on a mechanic’s creeper.
The passenger door opened and closed, and a few seconds later, Libby knelt beside him. Good Lord, she’s wearing a dress. He hadn’t even realized that.
“Are you okay?”
He met her eyes as her face hovered close to his. “You’re laughing, aren’t you?”
“Give me a little credit here. I’m trying not to.”
She didn’t try hard enough, and by the time she’d helped him to his feet and was brushing snow off him, they were both laughing so hard they could barely stand.
“Come on.” He tucked his arm around her and they started toward the farmhouse. “If we stay in one spot too long, they’ll find us frozen in place when everything thaws.” He squinted into the snow. “Is anyone home? I know it’s early, but it’s dark enough there should be lights on and I don’t see any.”
She pointed. “In the barn. I’d say it was milking time, but I don’t see any signs of dairy.”
They plodded through the snow, growing more breathless as they discussed the combined lack of foresight that resulted in her dress and his slick shoes. When they got to the white barn, Tucker rapped sharply on the tall door before pushing it open enough for them to slip inside the hay storage area. “Hello?” he called, keeping Libby’s hand in his as they moved toward the light source.
“In the stable.” The voice was muffled, but they were able to follow it.
The scene they walked into was one Tucker thought he’d only seen on television. A man stood in a roomy stall with his arm around a boy who looked about eleven or twelve. A woman, visibly pregnant, was outside the stall with a little girl who was probably five beside her. The little girl was holding a cat.
The adults looked helpless. The boy was trying not to cry, leaning his head into the man’s chest and wiping his nose on his sleeve.
Tucker remembered being that age, when for whatever reason it wasn’t okay to cry anymore. The dog he and Jack had shared had died. His mother and Libby and the Gallagher girls had been in tears, but he and Jack and Jesse had toughed it out. They’d buried the dog under an elm tree in the woods around the Albatross without shedding a single tear. Instead, they’d used a lot of forbidden swear words and taken the rowboat out to one of the little islands in the middle of the lake. They’d stayed out there until Jack got hungry and Tucker got leery of being on the island after dark.
He didn’t think this kid had an island available to him right now, and he was losing the fight against tears. Also standing in the stall was a black-and-white cow—a Holstein like the Worths always had—who didn’t appear to be enjoying herself. Unless Tucker missed his guess, she was in labor, and it wasn’t going so well.
The man seemed to realize for the first time that the family was no longer alone in the barn. He shook himself a little, his hand stroking through his son’s hair. “I’m sorry. May I help you?”
“We slid off the road,” said Tucker. “I’m not sure you have anything to tow with, but I’m pretty sure we’d get too cold out there waiting for a truck. We’ve come to beg warmth.”
“I’ll pull you out soon. I hope you don’t mind waiting.” The man gestured toward the straining cow. “Joanna’s having some trouble.”
“Wow, she sure is.” Libby took off her coat and gloves and carried them over to the little girl. “Will you and your kitty watch these for me? I’m always losing things.”
The little girl nodded, her expression solemn.
“My name is Libby Worth, and my friend is Tucker Llewellyn. What’s yours?” Libby was looking around, smiling when her gaze encountered anyone else’s.
“I’m Mari,” said the little girl. She pointed at the boy. “That’s Gavin. He’s my brother.”
“And my name is Dan. This is my wife, Alice,” the man said, finishing the introductions. “Joanna is Gavin’s 4-H calf, all grown up.” He shook his head. “I’m afraid being midwife to a cow is outside all our skill sets.”
Libby nodded. “Do you have shoulder gloves?”
Gavin drew away from his father. “The vet gave us some, but we don’t know what to do with them.”
“Well, I do, and so does my friend Tucker here, although it’s been long enough for him he probably doesn’t remember. Do you have some chains for calving?”
“Yes. They were left here.” Gavin’s father looked apologetic. “I’m afraid I don’t know how to use them, either. Sometimes moving to the country from the suburbs seems to have been a mistake.”
“No, it’s not,” his wife protested softly. “We just haven’t learned everything yet. What do you need us to do, Ms. Worth?”
“It’s just Libby.” She smiled at the woman, who’d come to stand nearby, her hands resting on the large mound of her stomach.
Tucker thought the whole barn, even Joanna, relaxed in the glow of that smile.
“Okay. I need water, please. Warm, if you have it.” Libby pulled the long glove into place and stepped behind Joanna. “Gavin, this is your cow. Are you going to help her have this baby?”
The boy’s eyes were wide. Tucker thought his own probably were, too. “Yes, ma’am.”
“I was about your age when my cow Arletta had her first calf, and she took her time about it, too.” Libby nodded at Dan. “Will you hold her tail? If I make her mad—which I very well might—and she flips it around, she could knock me down.” She aimed a smile at Tucker. “You need to get your coat off if you’re going to help here.”
Which he obviously was, whether he wanted to or not. Her expression told him there’d be no good in arguing that point. Tucker took off his coat, gloves and the pullover sweater he’d worn to church. The shirt he’d worn under it was fairly expendable, but the sweater was cashmere and he really liked how it felt.
“My brother is a vet,” Libby explained to Gavin, “and we grew up on a dairy farm, so I really do know how to do this. Understand, I don’t like doing it, so you’ll probably have to do something wonderful for me after this, like make me some cookies or something.”
Holding the calving chains until she asked for them, Tucker listened to Libby as she spoke first to the worried boy and then to the frightened cow. “My friend delivers human babies, and she’s given me all kinds of new instructions I didn’t know about,” Libby said, her voice soothing and quiet. “You need to breathe just right, Joanna. Do the hoo-hoo, hee-hee thing like they show on television. I’ll bet Alice can tell you how. That way I can put the chains around your baby’s legs and help you out a little.”
“That’s right about the breathing, although I never considered it for a cow.” Alice was at the cow’s head but standing outside the stall, little Mari and her cat at her side. The woman stroked the side of Joanna’s neck. “You can do this, girl.” She looked over at where her husband stood holding firmly to a long and manure-encrusted tail. “We can do this, too, Dan Parsons.”
Her husband smiled at her, reminding Tucker of how Jack and Arlie looked at each other. He wanted that. Maybe he wanted the whole over-the-top part of it, too.
He didn’t think he wanted any cows, but if that came with the package, he guessed he could live with it.
He flinched as Libby slipped her arm into where it had to go, talking to the cow all the time. “Just be glad it’s me instead of Tuck or my brother, Joanna. They have big hands and arms and...ouch...let me get that...no, hold still.” She stopped for a moment, panting as Joanna did, biting down on her bottom lip. “Okay, let’s try that again. Let’s get this baby out for you so you can have a nice rest. Attagirl...oh, ouch, ouch, ouch, you’re not being very grateful, are you?”
Tucker stepped forward, but she shook her head at him. “I’m okay.” She smiled and patted the cow’s hindquarters with her free hand. “She is, too. She’s just tired.”
“Do you think it’s going to be all right?” Gavin’s tone was solemn. “Sometimes cows die giving birth. Their calves die, too.”
“You’re right.” Libby’s expression was as serious as the boy’s. “It seems as if there are risks in everything you do, but if you don’t risk anything, you don’t gain anything, either.” She grinned suddenly, her face lighting up. “And you’ll never have any adventures. Right, Tuck?”
“Right.” He sounded too hearty, he knew he did, but the boy’s face brightened, too, so it was okay.
“Okay, good. There we go. Tuck, you set to back me up? Dan, you want to be there to give Gavin a hand if he needs it? He probably won’t, but just in case.” Libby stepped away, holding the end of one of the chains and giving the other to Gavin. “Now, when she strains, we’re going to pull real slow and steady, working with her contraction. Don’t jerk and don’t pull too hard. Think you can do that?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He looked frightened, but no more so than his father.
“It scares me, too,” Tucker told the boy, moving into place behind Libby, “and I’ve done it before. I think you’re supposed to be worried about it.”
Gavin took a deep breath. “Well, if I am, I’ve got that part down. Now, ma’am?”
“Now.”
Rewarding the efforts of a small woman in a red dress, a determined young boy and an extremely tired Holstein, a large calf was born in a rush of fluid. Tucker stepped away from Libby in time to catch it, although he fell under its weight.
“You did it, Joanna! You did it!” Gavin dropped the chain and ran around to hug his cow’s neck. “It’s a...what is it, Dad?”
“A heifer,” said Dan, helping to rub the calf down with straw. “A big, strong girl.” He looked up at where Libby was shaking her arm to regain full feeling in it. “We can’t thank you enough.”
“Yes, you can,” she promised. “I know you don’t know us at all, but if you’ll let us take a bath and change our clothes, I think we’ll consider ourselves thanked.”
“I’m pretty sure we can accommodate that,” said Alice, “plus there’s a roast in the oven just crying out to be eaten.”
Tucker exchanged glances with Libby and shrugged slightly. “Sounds great.”
A few more inches of snow had fallen while they’d been in the barn. Drifts created whipped-cream mountains everywhere they looked, some of them all the way up to the eaves of the garage. “I have a tractor,” said Dan. “I’ll be able to get you out of the ditch, but you might want to plan on spending the night. I don’t think you’ll get far, especially without all-wheel drive.”
“We don’t want to put you out,” Libby protested.
Alice and Dan laughed together. “You haven’t been inside yet.”
Except for its fully finished and beautiful kitchen, the old farmhouse was a construction zone. “It will be wonderful someday,” said Alice.
Tucker looked around, at framework with doors but no walls, at the living room subfloor partially covered with area rugs, at the beautifully curved stairway without a rail. He saw where the children had hung their coats inside the back door in what would eventually be a mud/utility room. He watched as Dan Parsons patted his wife’s stomach, high-fived his son over the birth of the calf and knelt to talk seriously to little Mari about how the new baby would be all right sleeping in the barn with her mama.
It will be wonderful someday. “No.” Tucker met Libby’s eyes. This is it. This is what I want. “It’s wonderful now.”
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_e004e27d-b98b-571b-b6e9-f04cb41f03a7)
LIBBY SLEPT ON an inflatable mattress on the floor of Mari’s room. When Stripes, the kitten, crawled into bed with her, Mari followed, bringing her own pillow. The blow-up mattress was twin-size, so it didn’t leave a lot of room, but Libby slept well anyway, the little-girl scent and warmth of her roommate making for a comfortable night.
She woke before dawn, dressed in the clothes Tucker and Dan had brought in from the car last night, and plaited her hair into a messy braid. She tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, stopping on the landing to look through the window and find Venus, clearly visible in the post-storm sky. “Hi, Mom,” she whispered, and went down the rest of the stairs. She found her hostess at the table with a cozied pot of what smelled deliciously like Earl Grey. “Ah,” said Libby, keeping her tone hushed, “a girl after my own heart.”
Alice waved her to a chair. “And one after mine, who knows any voice over a whisper will wake my children at the crack of dawn on a snow day. We homeschool, but we adhere to the public-school schedule.”
By the time she and Alice had drunk two pots of tea and told each other most of their life stories, she’d constructed a quiche guaranteed to make the kids happy. “But don’t call it a quiche,” Libby warned. “Call it something else so they don’t know that’s what they’re eating. In the tearoom, we call it yellow junk with bugs in it. They all know it’s not really bugs, but they do love the whole gross-out part of the story.”
