Chapter 4 #2
"Captain and Maple don't need any special care," he told Tessa. "Just twice a day feeding. They like to eat together. Put down their bowls in the feed room and close the door until they're finished or else the chickens will chase them off and eat all of Captain and Maple's food."
He bit his lips not to smile as Tessa typed furiously on her cell phone, taking notes.
He checked the horses next. Biscuit, was the larger of the two draft horses, a gelding with arthritic hocks. June, the Belgian mare, had a heart murmur that required monitoring. Both were ancient, sweet-tempered, and in reasonable shape considering they hadn't had a vet visit in over a week.
"Biscuit needs Bute daily for his joints," Dillon said, running his hands down the gelding's legs.
"What's that?" Tessa asked.
"Phenylbutazone. It's a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory that controls pain and inflammation.
" He closed the stall door behind himself and headed for the feed room with Tessa trailing along behind him.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he noted a faint hitch in her git-along Probably from that crooked boot heel of hers.
He showed Tessa the shelf by the window with its row of small plastic bins, labeled with the names of various animals. He reached into Biscuit's bin and pulled out a large tube syringe. "This is Biscuit's Bute. It's dosed based on the horse's weight. He weighs right at two-thousand pounds, so—"
"He weighs a literal ton?" Tessa exclaimed.
"Have you looked at the size of him? He's a big boy.
Although, I have seen Belgians considerably bigger than—" he broke off.
"As I was saying. He gets two grams of paste twice a day with food.
This stuff tastes bitter, so he'll make faces and try to spit it out.
That's why it's paste. It'll stick to the surfaces in his mouth and he'll be forced to swallow it as he eats. "
More furious typing by Tessa on her phone.
He continued his lecture. "June has a heart murmur and needs daily heart meds.
" He pulled out the little bin with her name on it and lifted out three oversized pill bottles.
"Technically, you could just give her a double dose of each of these medications once a day, but it's better for her if you two smaller doses twice a day. "
"Twice a day, it is, then," Tessa answered immediately.
Good for her. She was completely floundering out here, but she hadn't hesitated to prioritize June's health over her convenience.
"You can just mix the pills in with her feed.
Be sure to check her grain bucket after she's done eating, though, and make sure she ate her pills.
Now and then she gets tricksy and eats everything but the pills.
In that case, just mix the pills into a handful of grain with a big glob of molasses. She'll chow them right down."
He waited patiently while Tessa typed all that down.
"Next up is the llama."
"Dolly."
He glanced up. There was something in the set of Tessa's jaw that reminded him of first-year vet students when they realized exactly how much they didn't know. She was totally overwhelmed but refusing to show it.
He led Tessa to the llama's stall. She stayed outside the half-door while he examined Dolly's coat.
Rats. The llama was losing hair and had patches of red, inflamed skin and the beginnings of a few scaly, yellow scabs around her ears and behind her elbows—the junction where her front legs met her ribcage.
"As I feared," he murmured, stepping out of the stall and stripping off his surgical gloves.
"Dolly has a skin condition called mange.
I won't go into the scientific details, but hers is the kind that comes back if she's stressed or her immune system is weakened.
Unfortunately, Fern's passing has clearly stressed her out, and the mange is starting to flare up again.
The good news is we've caught it early, and Dolly's case responds well to treatment.
The bad news is she needs to be isolated in this stall away from any of the other animals, and you'll need to completely disinfect the stall every week. "
"How do I do that?" Tessa blurted.
"I did it for Arlo last week, so you're good for a few more days. I'll come back next week—say, Tuesday or Wednesday—and show you how to do it."
"Thank you," she said with genuine relief.
She wouldn't be feeling so grateful when she found out she had to scrape the stall down to the dirt and wash down the whole thing, floor, walls, and ceiling with bleach.
"Meanwhile, you'll need to swab down the affected areas every day with a medicated wash. Twice a day would be even better. I'll show you how right now."
He put on a new pair of gloves, opened the bottle of topical medication, and sponged it onto Dolly's affected areas. She commenced making a humming sound much like a person saying, "Mmm."
"What's she doing?" Tessa asked.
"Humming. That means she's happy. This medicine eases her itchiness and she's telling me she likes it."
"Oh." A pause. "Can I do the medicine more often that twice a day?"
"It won't hurt her. Why?"
"Well, if she's uncomfortable, shouldn't I help her?"
Huh. Tessa Lawrence was a big ole' softy under all that prickly armor of hers? He hadn't seen that one coming.
Loretta the donkey chose that moment to let out an ear-splitting bray. Tessa flinched. Dillon didn't.
"I don't know what she wants," Tessa confessed with a hint of desperation.
She looked around the barn with the expression a first-time parent completely overwhelmed by the responsibility of caring for a newborn baby.
Except she'd just inherited a dozen high maintenance babies she knew nothing about caring for.
A frisson of sympathy for her washed over him.
"It's not distress," he said calmly. "Loretta just has opinions."
"About what?"
"Everything. She's a donkey."
The faintest ghost of a smile crossed Tessa's face. It was there and gone so fast he almost missed it. He looked away before she caught him noticing.
A small voice said, "Are they going to be okay?"
Dillon turned. Tessa's daughter, Makayla, stood at the barn door, hugging herself. She was a mini-me of her mother with long dark hair and brown eyes that were currently huge with worry.
He frowned faintly as he registered that she wore a floral dress, leotards, and ballet flats.
Apparently, that was the closest thing to casual wear she owned.
It was wildly impractical for a barn, let alone for a kid who should be running around climbing and playing in a barn.
A piece of hay was stuck to the hem of her dress and there was a small down feather in her hair.
"Is who going to be okay?" he asked.
"All of them."
"They’ll be fine," he said.
"Can I learn how to give shots?"
He glanced at Tessa, whose startled expression suggested she had not anticipated her daughter volunteering for needle duty.
"If your mom says it's okay, I'll teach you both."
Makayla turned to Tessa with desperate, yearning hope. "Mom. Please."
Tessa sighed. "Fine.”
Makayla's face split into a grin so wide it rearranged her whole face from miniature socialite into a kid standing in a barn full of animals and over the moon about it, looking at Dillon like he'd just handed her the world.
He'd always wanted kids—a big family. Yet another subject he and Lexi had turned out to disagree on. She wasn't even sure she wanted children. If she did get pregnant, it would be, to quote her, "in her late thirties when she no longer cared how she looked in a bikini."
He ignored the old, familiar longing for family twisting in his gut.
Or at least he tried to, as he spent the next half hour walking Tessa and Makayla through every animal on the property.
He went over each critter's medical needs, feeding schedule, and basic information about that species' temperament and personality.
Tessa took notes on her phone with the intensity of a woman preparing for an IRS audit.
Makayla trailed behind them, petting every animal, whispering their names like she was memorizing a prayer.
They finished with the horses, who had wandered out of their stall into the paddock beside the barn.
It might have been a wee bit mean, but he tromped out through the melting snow and mud to stand beside the chestnut pair, forcing Tessa in her ridiculous boots and Makayla in her equally ridiculous ballet slippers to pick through the puddles and mud slicks to join him.
How else was he going to demonstrate to Tessa that she and her daughter needed an entirely new and different wardrobe if they were going to live and work out here.
The horses were the only animals Makayla didn't go right up to and pet.
She stood near them, close enough to feel their warmth, but kept her hands at her sides.
It was the same careful distance he'd seen from her at the funeral when she'd watched the farrier trimming a horse in the pasture next to the church parking lot.
"You can pet her," Dillon said, nodding toward June. "She's as gentle as they come."
Makayla looked at her mother.
Tessa hesitated. Something complicated moved across her face—fear, protectiveness, and something else he couldn't name. But eventually, she nodded.
Makayla reached out and laid her palm gently on June's neck. The mare lowered her head and breathed warm air onto the girl's arm. Makayla's breath caught audibly.
"She's so warm," she whispered.
"They run about a hundred degrees," Dillon said. "Like giant, furry space heaters."
Makayla leaned her forehead against June's neck and closed her eyes, and Dillon had to look away because the expression on that kid's face was doing something to him he wasn't prepared for.
This kid didn't own a pair of jeans. She was wearing ballet flats in a barn. And she was leaning into that horse like she'd been waiting her whole life for this exact moment.
Not your kid. Not your business.