Chapter 7 #3
“Cute.” I put my hands on my hips, glancing around for something to block the hen’s attack. My eye caught on Drake. Was he staring at my groin again? I considered shifting my position, but I didn’t. “Hey, Alex, could you bring me one of the cushions off the chairs on the porch, please?”
“On it.” He trotted up the steps to grab one. Then he sailed it through the air at me like a Frisbee. “I’ve got to record this!” He pulled out his phone again.
Ignoring him, I took the cushion, a solid red square—no flowery upholstery for Zeke—and went around the back of the coop to the larger door.
The coop itself was about five feet tall, and the door was around three feet wide by two feet tall.
I eyed Alex, who was hovering behind me, phone lifted high.
“You’d better watch out, or you’ll be a target too. ”
He winked. “You’re my human shield.”
Drake stood off to the side with a concerned expression on his face. Damn, those legs were something else.
Chicken first, legs later. I took a breath and leaned over to unlatch the coop door, pulling it wide in the same movement.
I thrust the cushion through the opening just in time to prevent the chicken from gouging my face with her claws.
She flapped and squawked, grabbing and pecking at the cushion.
I pushed her toward the other end of the coop, leaning my upper body inside.
The three chickens who’d been roosting on the beams took the opportunity to make their escape into the outdoor enclosure.
Mission accomplished.
Except now that the doorframe wasn’t helping to block her access to me, the chicken had more room to dodge around the cushion. I took a quick look around the coop as I tried to keep the cushion between me and her. Yep, there were five eggs in one of the nesting boxes.
“Drake, I’m about to try to grab the eggs, but I need something to put them in. Can you find a bowl?”
“Here you go.” He shoved his cowboy hat through the door next to my hips.
“Great. Hold it right there for a minute so I can put the eggs in.” The chicken flew up, and I barely got the cushion high enough to block her outstretched talons.
“Shit. Going for the eggs!” I reached out with my free hand and, angling the cushion to shield myself, I grabbed two of them as gently as I could.
Drake leaned farther in to get the hat closer to the nesting box, and I twisted my body to give him room.
I dropped the eggs in the hat, and then I grabbed two more.
I needed to be careful placing them with the others, but the chicken noticed what I was doing and launched a rapid-fire offensive that I could barely hold back.
“Shit! I don’t want to drop them on the others! ”
“Hand them to me.” Drake pushed his shoulders through the coop door, squeezing in alongside my waist, so he could put his other hand out to take the eggs.
“Pull back!” I managed to grab the last egg, then Drake and I backed out of the doorway. I blocked the opening with the cushion until Alex could slam the door shut.
The door rattled as the hen hurled herself at it. I exhaled in relief as I placed the last egg in Drake’s hat. “She definitely needs a coop of her own.”
“Fuck, yes.” Drake looked me over. “Are you hurt?”
“I don’t think so. Oh, there.” I had one nasty scratch on my forearm. I turned the cushion over to see the side the chicken had attacked.
“Holy fuck!” Drake took a step back to make room for Alex to get a close-up with his phone.
The cushion was, well, a lost cause. The fabric was torn in multiple places, with stuffing peeking out.
“Shit, that could’ve been you!”
I smiled at Drake. “I’ve faced down worse, I promise.” He chewed his bottom lip as he examined the cushion. It was adorable. I mentally slapped myself. “Are the eggs okay?”
He tilted his hat toward me so I could see. “They look fine to me.”
“Good. Now you have two options. Option one is you put the eggs in the kitchen and have them for breakfast.”
“Okay?”
“Option two is, before you do that, we find out if they’re fertilized or not.”
He frowned down at the eggs. “You can tell?”
I nodded. “It’s easy. But what’s your stance on baby chicks?”
He met my eyes and grinned. “Zeke’ll love them.”
I laughed. “Good point.”
As if she knew we were talking about her, the Cochin hen hurled herself down the ramp into the outdoor run, squawking all the way.
“Shit, let’s get inside.” Trying not to ogle Drake’s ass—and failing—I followed him over the fence and up the steps to the porch. I put the cushion back on the chair, destroyed side down. “You can barely tell anything happened.”
Drake snorted. “Until someone shows Zeke the video Alex is making.” He pointed behind me where, yes, Alex still had his phone aimed at us.
I rolled my eyes and went inside. Drake set his hat down on the kitchen table. My arm had stopped bleeding, so I decided to check the eggs before dealing with my wound.
I picked up the hat. “I’m going to the bathroom to see if the eggs are viable.”
Drake and Alex both stared at me with their heads cocked to the side, identical expressions of confusion on their faces.
I heaved a sigh and held up my phone. “I need a dark room.”
Drake and Alex looked at each other with raised eyebrows, then simultaneously looked back at me.
I gestured between them with my phone. “This is seriously disturbing. Stop it. You can come with me if you’re that curious.”
Drake laughed, and Alex, who was still filming, grinned. “Lead the way.”
It was a tight fit in the half-bath off Zeke’s living room, but we managed it. I handed the hatful of eggs to Drake, then I asked Alex—who was closest—to shut the door and turn off the light.
He flipped the switch. “I didn’t have bathroom threesome on my to-do list for this morning, but I’m here for it.”
“Shut up.” I turned on my phone’s flashlight, then I picked up one of the eggs. Touching the narrowest end of the egg to the lens where the light emitted from the phone, I showed the other two the glowing orb. “See the veins? This egg will hatch a chick.”
They both Ooohed , and Alex got a close-up for his video. The other four eggs were also fertilized.
Alex opened the door, and we returned to the kitchen.
I put Drake’s hat on the kitchen table again. “Does Zeke have a heating pad or something, do you know? They just need to be warm until we relocate their mom.
“I’ll text Zeke about the heating pad.” He eyed my arm. “And to see if he’s got a first aid kit.”
I went over to the sink to wash my arm. The bowl we’d used for Mabel’s dinner last night was sitting on the counter. “Do you go get this every morning?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “I don’t want to be late with her next meal and have her find an empty bowl.”
Yeah, okay. A rampaging cryptid—or bear, or whatever was eating the food—wasn’t anything I wanted to deal with either.
The scratch wasn’t deep. It had oozed some blood initially, but that had stopped by the time we got to the kitchen. Zeke texted back, so Drake went to get the antibiotic cream along with the heating pad. “He says there’s a picnic basket in the pantry we can use for the eggs.”
“Thanks. That’ll work great.”
After cleaning the dust off the picnic basket, we put the heating pad in the bottom with a towel over it.
Then we wrapped the eggs in the towel and set it on top of the heating pad.
Alex, who’d been filming us off and on this entire time, got a close-up before we shut the lid of the basket.
Then he sat at Zeke’s kitchen table and started messing with his phone.
Following Drake over to the sink, I gestured toward Dolores’ pen. “I’ve got to work all day, so I can’t help you with a new coop.”
He waved this off. “I’ll figure it out. Is there a farm supply store around here? Zeke went into Burlington to get that big coop, but we don’t need anything fancy.”
“Yeah, just on the east side of town. Once you get it set up, put the eggs in the new coop and shove the hen in there with them. She’ll do the rest.”
“Great. I can’t wait to try to move her.” I snickered, and he pretended to hit me in the arm. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask. Why don’t you have any pets? Isn’t it like a rule that vets have a ton of animals?”
I rubbed my jaw. “My dog, Maisie, got cancer last year.” He made a consoling noise.
“Yeah, it was bad, but at least she went quickly. I was starting to think about getting another dog when Charles came to live with me.” I smiled.
“He’s been badgering me for a pet. If a stray or abandoned animal doesn’t come our way in the next couple of months, I’ll get him one for his birthday in August.”
He nodded, his eyes on his hat as he rinsed out the inside. “Um, can I ask...? Charles is obviously related to you, but how?”
I crossed my arms. “He’s my biological son.
” Drake whipped his head around to stare at me with wide eyes.
I shrugged. “It was the summer before our freshman year in college. Noelle had been accepted to the University of Washington, and I was going to Cornell. When she got pregnant, she wanted to keep the baby, but she still wanted to move to Seattle. I signed away my parental rights, but we kept in touch, and as soon as I opened my practice I started donating to Charles’ college fund. ”
Drake raised his eyebrows. “Wow. A lot of guys would’ve walked away and not looked back.”
“No. Signing away my rights was the best decision for Charles and Noelle. It wasn’t because I didn’t care.
Noelle married Jin when Charles was two years old.
He was a great guy.” I stopped talking to swallow down the wave of grief.
“Jin adopted Charles, but their wills stated that I was to be his guardian if something happened to both of them. They brought Charles to visit Noelle’s parents in Maplewood at least once a year, so he knew who I was and how we were related.
But losing his parents has been rough on him. ”
Drake nodded. “I bet. But what about you? It has to have been rough on you too.”
I frowned. “What do you mean? Having Charles live with me? It’s been an adjustment, but we’re doing okay.”
He set the hat on the counter to dry and wiped his hands off on a dish towel. “I meant you lost your friends. Have you let yourself grieve for them?” Then he held up his hands, looking contrite. “Tell me to mind my own business, sorry.” He bit his lower lip.
I shook my head. “That’s... I think only Alex has asked me that.
” I glanced over at the kitchen table, where the man in question had stopped pretending not to listen.
I glared at him, and he held up his phone with the time displayed.
“Shit!” I started walking toward the door.
“Sorry, I’ve got to get to work. I’ll see you this evening! ”
Alex followed as I jogged down the porch steps. “You won’t be that late.”
“I will by the time I get changed. I’ll call Nova from the car.”
When I got hold of her, she told me not to worry. “Al can take vitals and patient history. You’ve got time.” I collapsed back in the seat in relief. Al was our most senior vet tech, and he was worth his weight in gold.
After a few minutes, Alex cleared his throat. “So,” he started in a way-too-casual tone. “That was a pretty deep conversation to have with someone who’s just a hookup.”
Fuck.