Chapter 6 #2
“For the steers. The heifers will be worth more than that. Charolais cows are highly desirable breeding stock in beef operations. Honestly, you might want to consider keeping the heifers to add to your herd.”
Jenna nodded, looked a bit dazed.
Gray continued, “The silver lining to this mess is that these calves may end up being worth significantly more than what you were expecting from a Hereford-cross crop.”
Jenna looked at Dillon for confirmation.
“Whoever mixed up the semen shipment may have accidentally done you a financial favor. Assuming we can save most or all of the cows and calves.”
“I still want compensation for the expense of having to keep a veterinarian here around the clock to oversee the birthing and do multiple C-Sections,” Jenna said firmly.
“You're absolutely entitled to that,” Gray declared.
Jenna told Dillon, “I expect you to charge top dollar for your time and effort.” She added tartly, “And I'm going to need the company to send me thirty-two apology gift baskets. That and about three months of free therapy for the trauma this calving season is causing me. I’m already having flashbacks to delivering Bobby. And his wasn’t even a hard delivery. ”
Gray made a note of her demands and stared down at them for a moment. “All of these expense look reasonable to me. They’ll probably consider themselves lucky if you don’t tack on a hefty damages settlement just for the heck of it.”
Jenna picked the plate again and resumed rinsing it. “Huh,” she said, which was, for Jenna, approximately the equivalent of a standing ovation.
The school bus arrived at the Foster Ranch at three-thirty.
Bonnie had texted Bray earlier to ask if it was okay for Cassidy and Noah to come to the ranch after school to see the new calves. He’d checked with Sully and Jenna and texted back that they should ride the bus to the ranch with Bobby.
Bonnie had responded, Noah has a million new questions for you. Fair warning.
Gray grinned and texted back, Can’t wait.
Oddly enough, that was the truth. He got a kick out of Noah’s boundless curiosity and out-of-the-box scientific thinking. Properly channeled and encouraged, he could see Noah becoming a talented researcher in whatever field of study he chose.
Gray was in the barn helping Sully do a quick stall cleaning, working around the cows and calves, when he heard the distinctive sound of Noah Watson moving at top speed.
The boy burst into the barn, causing the normally placid cows over by the hay to jerk their heads up in unison.
His backpack bounced off his shoulder, and he had his notebook out before he fully skidded to a stop in front of the first stall’s open door.
Noah asked without even a hello, “If a pine tree were crossed with a maple, would the needles turn—” Noah stopped dead, the question unfinished.
Gray looked up sharply at the boy.
Noah was frowning. “Gray, why is the calf that color?”
“Because her daddy is a Charolais bull and is this cream color. The trait is dominant over the black of their Angus mothers.”
“Shouldn’t the calf be gray? Black plus white equals gray.”
“Maybe in paint mixing,” Gray replied, grinning.
“But genetics don’t work that way. The dominant gene usually wins out, and the calf is one color or the other.
There are some breeds of cattle whose color genes are approximately equal in expression and when you mix two of those, you can get a mixed color calf that reflects the coloring of both parents.
But neither Charolais nor Angus are that way. ”
Noah's face cycled through astonishment, scientific recalibration, and something approaching religious awe. He wrote something in the notebook with the urgency of a man transcribing a revelatory vision.
Cassidy came through the barn door at a measured pace. She looked at the calf. Looked at Gray. Opened her observation notebook and wrote something down. She would make a killer private investigator. Or maybe a spy.
Bonnie came through the door last. She had come from the office to meet the kids here, and she was still in work clothes, her hair held back from her face by a pair of pretty comb-thingies.
She stopped in a sunbeam coming in one of the barn’s skylights, and it turned her hair the color of warm honey.
“Hi,” she said to gathering at large.
“Hi,” said everyone who wasn't a calf.
She crossed to where he was standing and looked over the wheelbarrow in the stall entrance at the baby Charolais standing beside its mama. The calf was three hours old and already the size of a small sofa.
“Oh my goodness,” she said softly.
“This cow has a polar bear cub!” Noah announced from down the aisle where he was peering into another one of the stalls.
Dillon, who was spreading fresh straw behind Gray, made a sound like a laugh suppressed with great effort.
Gray pushed the wheelbarrow out of the stall and Dillon closed the half door. Gray strolled down the alleyway to where Noah was peering at the alleged polar bear, and said, “That’s a heifer calf. Do you know what that is?”
“It’s a girl cow,” Noah replied.
“Correct,” he responded. “She was born this morning by C-section, which means Dr. Dillon had to cut open the mama’s tummy and take the calf out. Your polar bear cub weighs one hundred and twenty-two pounds.”
Noah stared back and forth between Gray and the calf. “That's bigger than me.”
Gray glanced sidelong at Bonnie, who was trying and failing to suppress a smile.
“CASSIDY, COME LOOK AT THIS ONE!” Noah hollered.
“Noah, Buddy?” Gray said. “Can you use your indoor voice? There are a bunch of newborn calves that startle easily in this barn, and a bunch of first-time mama cows who are still pretty nervous about the whole motherhood thing.”
Noah nodded, wide-eyed while Bonnie muttered under her breath, “Amen, Sisters. Motherhood’s rough.”
Cassidy duly looked in on the giant calf and said with the patient authority of an older sibling who had been managing Noah’s irrepressible energy for seven years, “C’mon. Let’s look at the rest of the calves.”
Bonnie watched her children head off with a tiny smile on her face. He felt the same unusual tightness in his chest that he'd been conscientiously ignoring for two weeks, now.
“Thank you for letting them come see the calves,” she said.
“They’re Jenna and Sully’s calves. I’m just helping get them born safely.”
“For which I happen to know Jenna is immensely grateful,” Bonnie replied.
“Family helps family. Not only is Sully my cousin by blood, but he and his brothers grew up next door to me and my brothers. Our mothers are twin sisters.”
“That’s so cool,” Bonnie murmured. “I can’t imagine raising three of Noah. It would kill me. One of him is almost more than I can handle.”
“You’re doing a great job with both your kids. They’re happy and bright and smart. You feed their curiosity but also keep order.”
Bonnie looked startled. “That’s a really nice thing to say.”
“It’s the truth,” he replied. “You’re a terrific mom.”
“It doesn’t feel that way sometimes. They’re growing up so fast, and I never feel ready for the next stage they’re about to hit.”
“I expect most parents feel that way,” he said mildly.
“Maybe. But it’s scary.”
An urge to be there for her, offer to help her with Cassidy and Noah long-term, to stand by her side, supporting her and telling her daily how great she was doing, rolled over him.
He stopped, arrested by the thought. Him? A family man? A husband and parent?
He’d never considered the possibility before. Ever. But now that it had occurred to him, it filled his whole brain with possibilities. Potential. An abrupt and compelling need to have a family of his own.
He resumed walking down the dirt alleyway in front of calving stalls, and Bonnie strolled along beside him. They followed Noah and Cassidy as the pair peered eagerly into every stall.
After a few minutes Gray commented, “Noah's good with animals. When he talks to them, it’s the calmest I’ve ever seen him.”
Bonnie retorted under her breath, “He talks to everything. Last week he had a no-kidding conversation with a traffic cone.”
“What was the upshot of it?” Gray asked, amused.
“Apparently the cone had a lot to say about road safety.” She tilted her head. “Did you know he’s picked up your obsession with fire science? He read two chapters of a book about combustion chemistry over the weekend. He's seven.”
Gray replied, “He’s a really smart kid. Every bit as smart as Cassidy. Just with a different kind of intelligence. She lives to gather facts and put them together. He lives to question facts and take them apart.”
Bonnie stared at him. She looked . . . surprised? Lord, he wished he could read her better.
“That’s an insightful description of my children.”
He shrugged modestly. “I like your kids a lot.”
“Well, you’re having quite an influence on them.”
“Is that good or bad?” he blurted. “I don’t want to intrude on your parenting.”
She smiled a little. “Never fear. I’ll let you know if you do.”
He nodded, relieved.
She continued, “Noah’s been reading at the dinner table,” she said. “He insists on reading interesting parts of his fire chemistry book aloud. Cassidy and I now know more about fire triangles and ignition cycles than either of us ever cared to.”
“Do you want me to steer him away from fire science?” Gray asked quickly. “You have good reason not to want him to become too interested in it.”
She was silent for a moment. “Thanks for thinking of that. It did cross my mind the first time Noah met you and all your fire textbooks.”
“I’ll steer him toward something more age approp—”
She cut him off gently. “It’s okay. If I were to make some topic forbidden to Noah, he would immediately become obsessed with it. I would rather have you answer his questions and hope he eventually tires of the subject and moves on to some other flavor of the week.”
Gray smiled. “He will. He’s got at least another dozen great passions ahead of him before he settles on his true calling.”