Chapter 3 #4
He was speaking again. “. . . and Fern had some instructions for me. She left some money in a bank account for me that I can only have if I follow her instructions exactly. To the letter, she said. Mind you, it’s not a fortune, like she left Makayla. But it’s enough to make a difference to me.”
Tessa braced herself. “What were the instructions, Arlo?”
“I’m not to help you in any way for the next year.
I’m not supposed to answer any questions, do anything around her place to help out, or lift one finger to look after any of her critters.
She was crystal clear that you’re supposed to figure it out for yourself and take care of this place one-hundred-percent on your own. ”
Tessa swore under her breath for one of the few times in her adult life. Outmaneuvered by her wily mother-in-law. Again.
“I’m real sorry, Miz Tessa. But I live off my Social Security check. And with the price of everything going up so much these days, I need that nest egg Fern left for me. I gotta do what she said.”
“You can’t even tell me how much insulin the cat gets?”
“Nope. The letter was specific. I can’t give you any information—not even the time of day. Those were her exact words. Only reason I left that list in the barn was because I wrote it up before the will got read.”
Tessa blinked, unsure of what to say or do next. Good manners took over and she managed to choke out, “Umm, thank you for letting me know about the letter.”
“You bet.” A paused. “Good luck, ma’am.”
“Since it looks like we’re going to be neighbors for the next year, please just call me Tessa.”
“All right then. Tessa it is.” A longer pause this time. “Fern might have forbidden me to give you any help with the farm, but her letter didn’t say I couldn’t give you advice about other stuff.”
It was clear he was going somewhere with this, but she didn’t see where exactly.
He continued, saying casually, “If I were your age . . . and I was a woman . . . and a handsome young animal doc walked up to me somewhere public and was awkward with me, I might figure he was just shy around the ladies and give him a second chance.”
“Are you giving me dating advice, Arlo?” she blurted.
“I’m just sayin’. Second chances aren’t always a bad thing.” And with that, he hung up.
She stared at her cell phone, bemused. If she wasn’t mistaken, he’d just suggested to her obliquely that she give the obnoxious veterinarian from Fern’s funeral a call.
She closed her eyes, as anticipatory humiliation rolled through her. She was going to have to eat her words to the good doctor. Every last syllable, no matter how bitter they tasted to her pride.
She stood in the middle of Fern’s bright kitchen with its touches of yellow and sunflower magnets on the refrigerator and tried to talk herself into making the call. What was she even supposed to say to him after telling him outright that he was the last person in Montana she would call for help?
She tried composing a careful speech that was an almost-but-not-quite apology. But it rang hollow even to her reluctant ears.
Maybe she should just apologize and throw herself at his mercy. But then she remembered how he’d smirked as he’d told her she didn’t look local.
Without warning, something poked her—hard—in the back of her left calf. She yelped and spun around, startled. Hamlet the Pig scrabbled backward, startled as well. He looked up at her with bright brown eyes, his pink ears standing out from his head as if he was trying to tell her something.
Unfortunately, she didn’t speak a word of pig and had no idea what his expectant look meant.
His pink nose wiggled, and then he let out a grunt that even she could tell was exasperated.
“I’m sorry, Pig—uhh, Hamlet. I don’t know what you want. Are you hungry?”
His head jerked up, and he did a funny little dance, hopping from one tiny front hoof to the other.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she told him. “Small problem. I have no idea what to feed you.”
She opened the refrigerator and peered inside, searching for anything that looked like potential pig food.
She spotted a few apples in the produce drawer and pulled one out.
She remembered hearing once that apple seeds had arsenic or cyanide or something like that in them and weren’t good for people to eat.
She hunted through Fern’s kitchen drawers, found a paring knife, and commenced coring the apple. While she worked, she talked to the pig. “Are you even house-trained? You’d better be if you plan to sleep on my sofa day and night.”
She handed down the apple to the pig, who took it politely from her hand and then flopped down to the floor on its belly to chew the snack with happy little grunting noises.
“How much am I supposed to feed you, anyway? And what do you eat besides apples?”
She pulled out her cell phone and did a quick search on pig feeding. Whoops. Pigs were supposed to get pelletized pig feed supplemented with leafy green vegetables and high fiber, low calorie vegetables with only the occasional small serving of fruit.
“Well, I blew that, didn’t I? No more whole apples for you, buddy.”
She was completely out of her depth, here. She couldn’t figure out how to feed a single pig. And there were a dozen more animals waiting outside for her to feed, medicate, and clean up after.
She sighed and made the call.
He answered on the second ring. “Dillon Steele.”
She closed her eyes. “This is Tessa Lawrence. I need a veterinarian.”
A pause. Just long enough to be annoying.
“Huh,” he said, and she could literally hear him smiling, “I thought you were going to learn animal medicine yourself.”
She gripped the phone so hard the case creaked. “The cat needs insulin and I don’t know the dosage or how to administer it. Can you come to the farm or not?”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
He hung up. She set the phone on Mick’s kitchen table and stared out the window at the mountains and the lake and pondered the barn full of animals she was now responsible for.
Three hundred and sixty-five days. And then Makayla’s entire future is taken care of. She can go to whatever university she wants to, wherever she wants to go. She can travel. See the world. Never have to worry about money.
And she knew all too well how important that last one was.
She’d come from a life of extreme wealth where the cost of anything never even entered her mind and had gone to being a single parent with barely two nickels to rub together.
She was more acutely aware than most people of what a luxury it was not to have to worry about covering all the bills or fearing the next unexpected car repair or medical expense.
Were it not for her grandfather stepping in after Mick died and secretly sending her a small monthly allowance, she didn’t know how she would have survived that first year.
She’d used the money to pay for Mick’s funeral and to start her little clothing store.
Initially, she envisioned a chic little boutique that would raise the standard of dress among the ladies of Cobbler Cove.
But before long, she broke down and stocked reasonably priced clothing for women and men, children and adults.
The store didn’t make a ton of money, but it reliably covered her and Makayla’s living expenses, and it kept clothes on the backs of the local populace.
Nowadays, she used her grandfather’s monthly check to pay for Makayla’s violin lessons, an after-school tutor, and the occasional outing to a museum or a play over in Apple Pie Creek’s Community Theater.
She put the rest of it into a savings account for Makayla’s college education.
She heard a spit of gravel announcing that a vehicle had turned into her driveway. Might as well head out to the barn to talk to Dillon. Maybe Makayla’s presence out there would keep him from being too rude about rubbing her nose in her stupid pride.
She’d been so wrapped up in dreading facing Dillon that she made a grave tactical error as she headed for the barn. She forgot about the geese.
Bonnie and Clyde charged her as she headed out across the driveway toward the barn. Wings spread, and necks outstretched low and parallel to the ground, beaks aimed at her like cruise missiles, they were a fearsome sight racing toward her.
Terrified, she sprinted for the barn, running awkwardly in her high-heeled leather boots.
One of her stiletto heels landed on a rock and rolled off it, throwing her off balance as her ankle twisted beneath her.
She stumbled awkwardly, righted herself, and continued pumping her legs as fast as they’d go.
She made it to the barn door and threw it open, which apparently was the signal for the birds to call off their strafing run. They stopped in their tracks, straightened up and folded their wings with great dignity, and commenced strolling sedately back toward the front porch.
“Stupid cobra chickens,” she muttered at their retreating tails, which twitched in impertinent unison as they walked.
She prayed Dillon hadn’t seen her flee the geese and nearly face plant like that. She turned to face the rest of the menagerie of doom and stepped inside the barn.
Chairman Meow yowled at her in loud complaint from his perch in the rafters.
“I know, I know,” she told the cat. “I heard you the first time.”