Chapter 3 #3
As a man with a bunch of brothers, I understood this, even if I thought it was ridiculous that he needed me to be silent in order for him to see.
As a man who’d spent more than two weeks trying to have a civil conversation with Knox Sunday, I had no idea where this level of friendly adorableness was coming from.
I literally hadn’t known whether Knox—this version of Knox that had replaced the guy in the picture—had it in him.
“Knox!” Hawk hurried over, looking worried. “You and Webb aren’t answering your messages.”
“Huh?” Knox turned away from the dance floor and dug out his phone. “What’s going on? Shit. Four missed calls from Drew? Is Aiden okay? Is Drew?”
“Yes,” Hawk said firmly. “Everyone’s okay. Breathe. Murray got a little banged up, but he’s fine, too.”
I frowned. I was pretty sure Murray was the redhead who helped out with chores around the property part-time. I’d met most of the farm crew and the seasonal workers only once or twice, since they tended to work outdoors and be gone by supper.
“Banged up how?” Knox demanded. “I made sure the equipment was all put up for the night and the store was locked before I left. All he had to do was milk Pattie and Muriel, put the milk in the cold room fridge, and check Stella for signs of labor. Did Pattie kick him?”
“Nah.” Hawk shook his head. “Stella got him.”
“Stella?” Knox sounded confused. “But—”
I full-on gasped. “Stella’s gone rogue! Holy shit. Holy. Shit. I fucking knew it. It’s okay, you guys. I’ve been training my whole life for this. I’m gonna need some soap on a rope and a roll of aluminum foil to—”
“Shush,” Hawk chided, nudging my arm. “When Murray went to check her, he saw her water bag emerging. Because she’s almost ready to deliver,” he explained when I stared at him blankly. “Deliver her calf,” he added when I kept staring.
Ohhh.
“So Murray took out his phone to call Webb, but the field was all muddy from the rain earlier. Stella side-shuffled, Murray slipped, she head-butted him, then shouldered him into the wooden fence, and he went down hard. He’s okay,” Hawk reiterated.
“Sitting in the kitchen with Drew and Marco, eating leftover plum tart. But he’s never helped during calving before.
Drew can’t really get out there on his ankle, let alone help pull a calf if Stella needs help, and Marco says he’s allergic to unhygienic tasks, so they need reinforcements. ”
“Oh.” Knox straightened. “Yeah, I can handle that. Did Drew call Dr. Reemer? I don’t have her number.”
“No. Webb doesn’t call the vet in usually.
He says it’s an unnecessary expense since the cows don’t need it most of the time.
” Hawk hesitated. “He has it down to a science. I’d go myself, but Mrs. Hendelmann cornered me, and I promised I’d stay and help the cleanup crew. Maybe I should go get Webb—”
“Webb’s busy.” Knox tilted his head toward the dance floor. “So we’ll do it the Knox way—” He held up a hand to forestall argument. “I’ll get the job done.” He glanced at me. “And Goodman will come with me.”
I huffed out a slightly panicked laugh. “Goodman will go with you? What Goodman? This Goodman? Nooo. No way. For what possible reason would I put myself in the path of a cow on purpose? Knox, seriously. It’s probably hard to tell from my blinding smile and my joie de vivre, but I’m actually a fairly risk-averse, realistic person—”
“Call Drew,” Knox repeated to Hawk, ignoring my protests.
Hawk nodded. “On it.”
“Come on, Goodman. I needed to talk to you anyway.” Knox wrapped one big, warm hand around the back of my neck and squeezed gently, and I sucked in a shocked breath I couldn’t quite hide. Then he led me out of the gym and into the big Sunday Orchard pickup.
And that was how I came to spend my evening not finding a hookup but instead sitting on a metal rail inside the Sundays’ cow barn, watching the miracle of life happen right in front of me.
Sadly, the beauty and majesty of my fuck-me jeans were entirely lost on my companions in this endeavor.
Knox wouldn’t have noticed if I’d been wearing a cancan dress and fishnets just on principle.
Uncle Drew was busy trying to stay upright on his crutches.
Marco was busy muttering baleful warnings about how Drew’s FOMO would lead him to break his other ankle.
Murray the Farm Chore Guy was too young and too incredibly straight to appreciate my pants.
And Wendy Reemer, the vet, was too busy using a device called a calf-jack on Stella, who had a condition called dystocia and needed Wendy to help “pull” her calf.
She swore this process didn’t hurt Stella or the monster calf baby, but judging by the cow’s pissed-off expression, Stella would be staying away from the vet and from smooth-talking bulls for the foreseeable future.
The whole experience had been simultaneously miraculous and horrifying—maybe a little heavier on the horrifying—and even a half hour later, after the vet had left for her next emergency and Knox had driven Murray home just to be sure he was okay, I was still kinda stunned.
“They say zombie movies are gory.” I wrinkled my nose as Stella licked a bunch of viscous yuck juice from her calf’s coat. “Resident Evil’s got nothing on this.”
Drew laughed and leaned his weight more fully against the fence.
“I see you haven’t immediately been converted to the wonders of farm life, eh, Gage?
” He grinned. “Don’t feel bad. Marco’s lived next door for years now and he still doesn’t know if he likes it.
” He clapped Marco on the shoulder. “Do you, honey?”
Honey?
Oh. Huh.
I had not clocked that at all, but it sorta made sense when I thought about how they were with one another. I wondered why Marco didn’t live at Sunday Orchard, but I supposed that was none of my business.
Marco made a tsking noise. “Hush. I admit it took me maybe a year… and a couple gallons of stain remover… and an industrial snowblower… before I got on board with rural living, but I realized a long time ago that the beauty is the mess around here. Can’t have one without the other.
Fortunately, the beautiful parts more than make up for it. ”
As if on cue, Stella’s calf raised itself up on shaky legs, unaware that three grown men were holding their collective breath watching her.
“Oh my word, would you look at her?” Drew breathed. “Beautiful little girl.”
“This cuteness is how the cows lure you in to slay you later,” I reminded all of us.
Knox appeared on my other side just in time to hear my comment—because of course he did—and leaned both forearms on the gate to watch the mother and baby.
“Goodman, you cannot possibly be afraid of cows after watching one give birth,” he informed me.
“Oh, that’s where you’re wrong,” I said with confidence. “My capacity for cow-related fear is basically unlimited.”
But then the baby calf made a surprisingly loud bleating noise, like she was as pissed at the universe and all the useless humans in it as her mother was, and I felt a kind of kinship with her. After all, she hadn’t asked to be jacked out into the cold air, had she?
“She is pretty cute, though,” I admitted. “Just this one particular miniature cow. The rest are still killers just biding their time, but she might be the exception.”
We heard a car door slam outside, and running feet announced Emma’s arrival, with Webb’s measured tread coming up behind.
“Oh my gosh!” Emma whispered. She climbed up to sit on the rail beside me. “I can’t believe we missed it. Last time Pattie calved, it took hours and hours.”
I shuddered lightly. “This was plenty long enough. The veterinarian had to use a calf jack.”
“Wide shoulders on this baby,” Knox explained. “I wouldn’t have been able to deliver her myself, even if I weren’t so out of practice.”
“Gage, if you’re still here when Muriel calves in a couple months, you can help out next time,” she offered. “You and Knox.”
While I wasn’t opposed to spending more time with my moody roommate within stampeding distance of any number of bovine assassins, this plan didn’t sound like something worth noting on the calendar. “Mmmm, I’ll probably be down in Boston or New York by then, but you can text me about it.”
Meanwhile, Webb elbowed Knox hard. “Why didn’t you get me, fucker? I looked around the gym for you for half an hour before I tracked Hawk down and he told me what was going on. I would have come home, and you could have stayed. I wouldn’t have minded leaving.”
“Oh, I bet you wouldn’t.” Knox’s lips twitched. “How was your dance with Katey? Gosh, she really loves underprivileged athletes, huh?”
“Asshole.” Webb elbowed him again for good measure, then turned to Drew. “Aiden okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Perfect,” Drew assured him. “Not sure what his stomachache was about this morning, but he ate a huge dinner tonight.”
“And some plum tart,” Marco added. “I told him Sunday Sundaes would be too hard on his digestion. All those pretzels, you know?” He winked.
Webb smiled, gratitude in his eyes. “Was Wendy concerned about anything with Stella? Should I give her a call?”
“Nope,” Knox said. “Stella came through it like a champ. The doc got another callout, but she said to keep an eye on Stella for a couple hours, call her if you need her, and she’ll bill you.”
“And what about—”
“Murray’s fine,” Knox said. “His pride was injured more than anything.”
“Oh. Good. Great.” Webb nodded like he was trying to get his bearings. “Right. Well, I’ll go check on Aiden, I guess, and then I’ll come out and watch over Stella for a bit—”