CHAPTER EIGHT #2
“I’m fine, really.” And then, of course, my stomach decided to rumble like it’d never rumbled before.
Ugh!
Checking his phone, his brows hiked in surprise. “It is later than I thought.” Then he whistled. Not too high-pitched, but more melodic and soft. “Portia. Dolcezza!”
A snort at the door of the stall followed by a soft scrape of a trotter against the wood alerted us to the cheeky pig.
He opened the door, and Portia lifted her gaze to his.
“Sorry, my darling. You must be hungry. Come. Papa will feed you.” He spun around to face me. “Can you stay here with them? I will quickly make us something to eat. But I don’t want them to be alone. Come find me if something happens.”
I nodded. “O-of course.”
“Grazie.” Then the man and his pig were off down through the barn, happily chatting away with each other, and I stood there in the open door of the stall watching them with open fascination until they disappeared out into the wind and rain.
Several big heads with inquisitive eyes hung out into the barn, watching me. They all knew Angel was here, and probably Midnight too. I’m sure everyone could smell the blood, and held some level of concern and curiosity about the newcomers.
I didn’t want to let Midnight or Angel out of my sight. So I just wandered across the barn to the stall with Ginger, the white and brown splotched mare, and gave her some ear scratches—which she received with gusto.
However, my attention to Ginger was not lost on the others, and soon I had to say hello to everyone, while alternating between check-ins on Angel and Midnight.
Sandrine, the young, feisty female with a gold coat and white mane, was trying to playfully chew on my hair when the door opened and Tom—with Portia—came in, both of them dripping wet.
Portia picked up the pace until she reached her big plush bed beside Tom’s cot and proceeded to flop down in it and roll around to dry herself off.
I met Tom halfway and held out my hand. “Can I help carry something?”
The look he gave me made my cheeks get hot. “It is just soup and sandwich on a tray. What would you carry?”
“I don’t know. I was … I was just being polite.”
And awkward.
The soup bowls had covers on them, and the sandwiches appeared to be paninis that he wrapped in foil to keep from getting too wet. We sat down side by side on his cot, our knees touching since it wasn’t a very big cot to begin with.
“I am a vegetarian. I hope that is okay with you?” he said, handing me the first bowl of soup, along with what looked to be a handmade, sewn, padded bowl holder. It cradled the bowl perfectly and kept my hands from getting too hot to hold it.
“Sam is also a vegetarian. I rarely cook meat at home. I usually only eat it if I’m at my cousin’s and she’s cooking it.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything. “Did you know that pigs possess an intelligence level comparable to that of a three-year-old human child? They can solve problems, recognize themselves in mirrors, have great long-term memory, do mazes to find food, and even have emotional awareness. Some pigs even learn tricks and can play video games.”
I removed the cover from the soup and blew on the steam. “I knew they were intelligent, but wow.” Portia was already snoring in her bed. “How long have you had Portia?”
He cast his eyes over to his pet, snorted, and shook his head. “Who? That princess?”
A ridiculous sound burst from my throat.
Oh my god, did I just giggle?
“Yes. That princess.”
“Four years. From people who did not do their research. Then, because of their ignorance, she was supposed to pay that price with her life.”
“So, instead, you rescued her and brought her home to her castle. Because she is a princess.”
“Si. Her castle.” He took a gingerly sip of his soup, blowing on the spoon.
“Well, I think Princess Portia is one very lucky little pig. She rules the roost, but doesn’t seem to let the power go to her head too much.”
He snorted again. “Give her time. I’m the lucky one though. She is my … emotional support pig, I guess you could say.”
That made me smile. I took a small spoonful of the soup and moaned in delight at how deliciously herbaceous and blatantly Italian it tasted.
“You like?”
“This is very good. What is it called?”
“Vegetarian Italian Wedding Soup. Instead of meatballs, I use chickpeas.”
“Well, it’s very good. Warming me right up.
” I went in for another bite, hyper-aware of him watching me eat.
I could see the smile of amusement growing on his mouth from the corner of my eye, but did everything I could to ignore it because otherwise, I might do something stupid like spill soup on my lap, or choke on a chickpea.
“The paninis are vegetarian too. Mushroom, provolone, and pesto.”
“Yes, please.”
His raspy chuckle suddenly made the soup no longer necessary. I was more than warm enough. He opened up the folded-over tea towel and held it up for me to grab a triangle.
“Is it an insult in Italian or something to dip my sandwich in my soup? Will I be offending Leonardo di Vinci or something?”
His body jostled in amusement, and the way his eyes crinkled at the corner as he smiled had those pesky butterflies dancing among the soup in my belly. “No. Dip away. Leonardo will get over it.”
Grinning, I dipped the corner of the panini into the soup and brought it to my mouth, moaning again from all the wonderful flavors.
“Did you make the bread too?”
He was chewing his own panini and nodded, giving me a look like, how dare I ask such a silly question. “But, of course.”
But, of course.
A noise from inside the stall with Angel and Midnight pulled our attention. We set down our bowls on the cot and nearly collided shoulders as we tried to enter the stall at the same time.
He stopped and let me go first, my brain ready for my body to stop working and just let me die from embarrassment.
Angel was asleep, her breathing slow and slightly ragged, but it was little Mr. Midnight that was trying to stand up.
With his knees bent, and his chest off the ground, he did his very best to try to get to his hooves.
But he was still too weak and wobbled before he could get his hind legs up and behind him.
Tom dropped to his knees on the ground and helped Midnight a little, quietly encouraging him with a hand at his butt to support him.
Midnight tried a few more times, but grew too tired of the effort. I went to the cooler bag and grabbed another bottle. It was still a little warm.
“He might be hungry again.”
I went to hand it to Tom, but he shook his head.
“You should feed him. You are the reason he has food.” Tilting his head to the side, he encouraged me to sit down beside him.
Then he scooped up a hungry little Midnight and plunked the foal in my lap.
He already knew the sign of food and started waggling his lips, chasing the nipple until I brought it to his mouth where he greedily guzzled.
“There is more milk—frozen—in the back of my RAV,” I said. “I almost forgot. Do you have somewhere to put it?”
“Si.” Grunting, he pried himself off the floor and left the stall, leaving me there with a wide-eyed Midnight blinking up at me with his long lashes as he filled his little belly.
With my free hand, I stroked the little star-shaped white patch on his forehead. “Oh, sweet baby,” I whispered. “This isn’t fair at all. Your poor mama. And you. But you’re safe now. You’re safe, and Tom is going to take very good care of you.”
While I wasn’t entirely sure of the standard protocol when it came to mares and foals, if they were anything like other animals, something told me the mares licked the foals clean after they were born.
Angel had been too weak to do that, but it seemed that either Tom or Justine had wiped the little guy down because he was mostly dry now, and so soft.
“You really are a sweet little thing.”
He finished the bottle, and while groggy, wasn’t asleep. However, he made no effort to move out of my arms, and rather turned his face into the crook and stayed like that until his eyes closed.
“Well, don’t you two look comfortable,” came the thick, raspy accent of the handsome silver fox with the heart of gold.
“My butt is actually killing me on this concrete,” I murmured, shifting a little and inching backward until my back at least had the wall of the stall to support it. I glanced down at the foal for a moment, then back to Tom, but he was gone again.
Where the heck did he go?
“Tom?” Even though horses weren’t people, and waking up Midnight with a voice above a whisper wouldn’t keep him up all night the way it would a newborn, I still had that mindset and kept my voice low.
No answer.
“You’ll quickly learn that he is a very peculiar man,” I said to Midnight. Then I brought my voice down again, even lower. “A very handsome, peculiar man.”
Mesmerized by the hours old foal on my lap, I nearly jumped out of my skin when Tom was back standing beside me. “Here,” he said, with an olive-green velour pillow in his hand. “For your butt.”
Why did his saying “your butt” make my face get hot and my belly do a big flip?
I leaned far over to one side, and he slid the pillow under my butt, his finger just grazing the right cheek. “You need to eat.”
“I’m okay.”
“You need to eat,” he repeated, ducking out into the main barn for half a second before returning and handing me the panini wrapped in foil. It was still warm, and just the smell of it made my belly mimic a thunderstorm.
“Thank you,” I murmured as I chewed. “God, this is good.”
He had his own sandwich and was chewing. His gaze roamed over to Angel, and his face turned sad. “I want to be optimistic. But … she may not make the night.”
God, my heart hurt for this poor mama. Neglected and starved, yet still able to carry her baby to term, only not to get the chance to watch him grow up.
“She shouldn’t die alone,” I said. “So much of her life was spent alone. Her final hours shouldn’t be. Even if she’s not awake. She needs to be with her baby. She needs to feel loved.”
He nodded. “Si. I will not go anywhere.”
Swallowing the bit of sandwich in my mouth, I glanced down at Midnight and stroked the star on his forehead. “Can I stay too?”
“Of course. I will get more blankets.”
He left the stall again, and I leaned my head back against the wall, a weary sigh fleeing my nose.
This was certainly not how I saw my day going today when I woke up. And while Tom was the first thing on my mind when I claimed consciousness, I didn’t expect to spend this much time with him, or like this.
A shuffling in the straw drew my attention, and I opened my eyes. Angel was awake and, while weak, trying to reach her baby with her head.
I rose to my knees and painfully scooted over to her with Midnight, to rest him on the towel next to her. She nuzzled him, and he snuggled right into her.
My bottom lip wobbled as tears stung my eyes before tumbling down my cheeks. None of this was fair. None of this was right.
With my throat tight, I leaned my head back against the stall again and closed my eyes, letting the tears tumble as I silently mourned what this mother went through, and what this son would probably have to.
I’m not sure how long I sat there, quietly crying, but his footsteps were like he had clouds for shoes, because I didn’t hear him. I felt him though.
He startled me slightly, but only for a second, as the back of his finger slid across my cheek to sweep away the tears. “It is sad,” he simply said. “Very sad.”
Blinking my eyes open, I used the sleeve of my hoodie to wipe my cheeks better. “It’s not fair.”
His sigh was heavy, exhausted, and one I felt all the way down to my toes.
“No. It’s not. But life is not fair. So we need to make the most of the time we have, and the people we get to spend that time with.
” The sadness in his eyes spoke of something darker, something haunting, and I ached to ask more, but I wasn’t sure if it was my place.
We really didn’t know each other that well, and I didn’t want to trigger him to rush off the way he did that day at the pond.
So I simply nodded. “We do.”
“You should finish your soup.”
That made me smile, and I pried myself up off the ground and pillow, grunting. “Okay. I’ll go finish my soup.”
“Good girl,” he murmured, almost too quiet for me to hear.
But I heard it.
And the shiver that took hold of my entire body nearly made me fall over.