13. Nora
— ? —
Nora
The clinic was quiet, and I was pretending to review charts.
In reality I was staring at the yellow wildflower on my desk and thinking about forearms, which was pathetic and infuriating and entirely beside the point.
The mare from last night was stable at the Henderson farm, recovering better than I’d expected.
I’d already called to check on her twice. Professional interest. Nothing more.
Movement outside the window caught my eye.
Hunt was standing on the sidewalk, maybe ten feet from the clinic door, and he was clearly having a conversation with himself.
I watched him take a step toward the entrance, stop, run a hand through his hair, take a step back.
His lips were moving, rehearsing words I couldn’t hear, and every few seconds he’d square his shoulders as if he was about to march inside and then lose his nerve all over again.
I was not going to find this endearing.
He was a grown man who had broken my heart, and the fact that he apparently couldn’t figure out how to knock on a door was not cute or charming or anything other than mildly pathetic.
I was going to keep reviewing charts and ignore him until he either came in or went away, and I was definitely not going to watch the way his shirt pulled across his chest when he moved, or notice that he’d shaved, or think about the night before when he’d been covered in soot and murmuring to a frightened horse.
The radio on my desk crackled to life.
“Any available emergency unit, we’ve got a grass fire at the Henderson property perimeter. Livestock injury reported. Owner requesting veterinary assistance ASAP.”
The Hendersons again. They’d had a bad week.
My kit was in my hand before the dispatcher finished the sentence.
The clinic door slammed open and I was sprinting for my truck before I’d consciously decided to move. Fire calls didn’t wait. Animals in burning fields didn’t wait. And the Henderson place was fifteen minutes away if I drove like I was trying to kill someone, which I absolutely was.
I heard footsteps behind me.
“What’s happening?” Hunt’s voice, urgent, matching my pace.
“Grass fire at Henderson’s. Injured pig.”
He was at my passenger door before I could tell him not to be. The door opened. He swung inside. And then we were moving, my truck kicking up gravel as I floored it onto the main road.
“You’re going alone?” His voice was appalled. “Where’s your backup?”
“I’m the backup.” I didn’t look at him. “I’m the only emergency-certified vet in this county. Doc Hale’s too old for field calls. Has been for years.”
“Jesus Christ.” He was staring at me, I could feel it. “What happens when you need help? What happens if you get hurt?”
“Then I figure it out.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“That’s rural practice.” I took the turn onto the back road faster than I should’ve. “Welcome to Primrose, where the nearest hospital is forty minutes away and the nearest specialist is in Austin. You wanted to see what my life looks like now? This is it.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then: “I’m staying with you.”
The words landed in the space between us, heavy with meaning I didn’t want to examine.
“Do what you want.”
Closer to agreement than to no.
The smoke was visible from a mile out, a gray column rising into the morning sky. The grass fire had spread faster than the initial report suggested, and by the time we reached the Henderson property line, I could see flames licking at the edge of the pasture where they kept the pigs.
Tommy was waiting by the gate, his face pale with last night’s exhaustion and this morning’s fresh panic.
“It’s Butterbean.” His voice cracked. “She got spooked by the fire and crashed through a fence. There’s a gash on her side and she won’t let anyone near her.”
I knew that pig. Butterbean belonged to Bree Salazar-Grant, who must’ve been boarding her with the Hendersons, and she was exactly as mean and enormous as Bree had described. Also deeply intelligent, deeply stubborn, and deeply distrustful of everyone who wasn’t her person.
This was going to be a nightmare.
“Where is she?”
“Edge of the north pasture. The fire crew’s trying to keep the flames back but they’re losing ground.”
I was already moving. Hunt fell into step beside me, and I didn’t have the energy to tell him not to. The smoke was thicker here, stinging my eyes and coating my throat, and I pulled my shirt up over my mouth as we jogged toward the sounds of porcine distress.
Butterbean was exactly where Tommy had said, pressed against the far fence with blood running down her side and fury in her eyes. The gash was deep but clean, probably from a fence post, and it was going to need stitches and antibiotics and a sedative strong enough to knock out a draft horse.
“I need to get close enough to sedate her.” I was pulling supplies from my kit as I spoke. “She’s not going to let me.”
“What about a catch pole?”
“For a four-hundred-pound pig who’s already terrified? She’ll hurt herself worse trying to fight it.”
Hunt studied the animal for a moment. Then he started stripping off his overshirt, leaving just the thin undershirt that did absolutely nothing to hide the muscles underneath.
“What are you doing?”
“Creating a distraction.” He moved toward Butterbean slowly, the shirt held out in front of him, his voice dropping to the same low murmur I’d heard in the trailer last night. “Hey there, big girl. You’re having a bad day, aren’t you?”
The pig’s eyes tracked him, suspicious but curious.
“That’s it. Look at me. I’m much more interesting than the lady with the needles.”
He was circling slowly, keeping the pig’s attention, giving me a clear approach from her blind side. It was exactly the kind of coordinated maneuver we used to do together, wordless and seamless, and my body fell into the old rhythm on instinct.
I moved.
The sedative went in clean, the pig jerking with surprise but too focused on Hunt to fully register what had happened. Thirty seconds later she was swaying. A minute after that, she was down, her breathing evening out as the drugs took hold.
“Nice work.” I was already at her side, assessing the wound, pulling out suture supplies.
“You too.” Hunt crouched beside me, hands ready. “What do you need?”
“Hold this edge of the wound together. Steady pressure. Don’t let go.”
We worked in silence, the fire crackling somewhere behind us, the smoke getting thicker. I focused on the sutures, on the clean even stitches that would heal without scarring, on the steady rhythm of muscle memory that made my hands move without thought.
And then my vision went gray.
It happened fast. One second I was tying off a suture, and the next the world was tilting sideways, my hands fumbling, my balance disappearing. I heard Hunt say my name, sharp and scared, and then I was falling, and then I wasn’t.
His arms caught me before I hit the ground.
I was vaguely aware of being lifted, of his chest against my cheek, of his voice calling for help.
The smoke was thick in my lungs and my head was spinning and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, which was stupid, which was dangerous, which was exactly the kind of mistake I’d never made before.
The baby. I’d forgotten about the baby.
“Get a paramedic over here.” Hunt’s voice was distant and close at the same time. “Now. Right now.”
“I’m fine.” The words came out slurred. “Put me down.”
“You collapsed. You are absolutely not fine.” He was carrying me away from the smoke, toward the cluster of emergency vehicles, and his arms were shaking. “What’s wrong? What happened? Are you sick?”
“Low blood sugar. I forgot to eat.”
“You ran into a grass fire on an empty stomach,” he said, incredulous, verging on furious. “On purpose?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
“You passed out in my arms. It’s a pretty big deal.”
The paramedics met us at the edge of the cleared zone, and Hunt set me down on the tailgate of their truck with a gentleness that made my chest ache. He stepped back just far enough to let them work, but his eyes never left my face, and his hands were clenched at his sides.
“Blood sugar’s low but not dangerous.” The paramedic was young, efficient, clearly used to farmers who forgot to take care of themselves. “You need fluids and food and to sit down for at least thirty minutes.”
“I’ve got a patient.”
“The pig’s stable.” Hunt’s voice was hard. “I can finish the sutures.”
“You’re not a vet.”
“I’m certified in large-animal emergency care. I’ve assisted on a hundred procedures more complicated than wound closure. Let me finish it so you can recover.”
I wanted to argue. Wanted to insist I was fine, that I could do this myself, that I didn’t need him or anyone else. But my hands were still shaking and my vision was still spotty and the paramedic was already hooking me up to a fluid line.
“Fine. I’ll talk you through it from here.”
He was gone before I finished the sentence, jogging back toward Butterbean with the same focused urgency he’d brought to every emergency we’d ever worked together.
I watched him through the dispersing smoke, watched his hands move over the pig with careful precision, watched him complete the sutures exactly the way I’d have done them.
The paramedic handed me a granola bar and a bottle of blue electrolyte drink. “He your husband?”
“My what?”
“The guy who just carried you like you weighed nothing and then sprinted back to finish your surgery. That your husband?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Uh-huh.” The paramedic’s tone was skeptical. “Well, whatever he is, he went white as a sheet when you dropped. Thought he was going to pass out too.”
I didn’t respond.
Thirty minutes later, Butterbean was stable and being loaded into a trailer, the fire was contained, and I was back on my feet with strict instructions to eat a real meal and rest for the remainder of the day.
Hunt drove my truck back to the clinic, which I allowed because the alternative was admitting I still wasn’t steady enough to do it myself.
The clinic was quiet when we got there. He helped me inside, his hand hovering at my elbow without actually touching me, and then he planted himself in the doorway and refused to move.
“You should sit down.” He said it from the doorway, not moving from it, like he didn’t trust himself any closer.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re gray, Nora. You went down in the middle of a suture.” His hands were braced on either side of the doorframe, knuckles pale. “Sit. Let me get food into you. Please.”
I sat, because my knees were about to make the decision for me. “I’m fine, Hunt.”
“You collapsed.” His voice was ragged, the controlled calm finally cracking. “You collapsed and I caught you and for about thirty seconds I thought you were dying, so forgive me if I’m not willing to just walk away and leave you alone.”
“I collapsed because I forgot to eat breakfast. We covered this at the fire.”
“We covered the part you wanted to cover.” His voice dropped. “You’re not okay, and you’re not telling me why.”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“Nora.”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I heard my voice crack, heard the exhaustion and the fear and the weight of everything I’d been carrying alone for weeks. “I’m pregnant. It’s yours, so congratulations.”
The words fell into the silence between us.
Hunt’s face went blank. Then confused. Then an expression I’d never seen before, a crumbling of every wall he’d ever built, and he staggered like I’d hit him, his hand shooting out to grip the doorframe as his knees gave way.
“What?” The word was barely a sound.
“I’m pregnant, Hunt. It’s yours, and I found out about a week after I left.”
He made a noise I’d never heard from him, a noise torn straight down the middle, the sound of everything he thought he knew rearranging at once.
His eyes were wet, tears spilling down his cheeks without warning, and then he was moving, crossing the room in two strides and wrapping around me, his arms careful and desperate at the same time.
“A baby.” He was laughing into my hair, wet and giddy and un-Hunt-like. “We’re having a baby. You’re pregnant. There’s a baby.”
I stood rigid in his arms, braced for the pivot. For the custody talk, the demands, the rights and claims and legal considerations. This was Hunt Anderson, after all. He didn’t do anything without calculating the angles.
But the demands never came.
He pulled back, his hands cupping my face, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that made my breath catch. “Are you okay? Is the baby okay? Have you been to a doctor? Are you getting enough rest?”
“We’re both fine. Four months along.”
“Four whole months.” He was doing the math, I could see it in his face. “That means you were pregnant when you left. You’ve been carrying this alone for weeks.”
“Months, technically.”
“Alone, all that time.” He closed his eyes, and his expression changed.
The joy was still there, bright and unmistakable, but underneath it was a shadow, a dawning realization that seemed to drain the color from his face.
“Nora. Were you sick? Before you left, those weeks when you were so tired, were you sick then too?”
I hesitated. “Yes.”
He made a sound that was all grief and no air.
“You were tired. You were sick in the mornings, and you tried to hide it, and I let you.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“I have to tell you why I benched you.” His voice was wrecked. “I have to tell you right now, because you deserve to know, and I should’ve told you months ago.”
“Hunt, what are you talking about?”
He released me, stepped back, and I watched him rebuild his walls just enough to stay upright.
“Not like this, with me hanging onto a doorframe. Let me sit down. Please.”
I nodded at the chair beside mine.
He didn’t take it. He stayed standing, too wound up to rest, his hands opening and closing at his sides.
“I’m going to tell you everything,” he said. “And when I’m done, you’re probably going to hate me even more than you already do. But you deserve the truth. You’ve always deserved the truth.”
I waited.
And Hunt Anderson started talking.