Chapter 22
Hayes
Getting back to normal felt good. After the upheaval of Granddad dying, moving back to the estate, and getting married, going back to work was a breath of fresh air.
I sat back as I scrolled through the latest market predictions for beef and milk, as well as a rumor mill report on expected hikes for export taxes and tariffs. Nothing like guys in suits fucking with the global food supply chain.
A knock on the glass panes of the study doors startled me. I glanced up from the endless charts and graphs and spotted Catherine peering in from the other side.
“Hey, do you have a sec?” she asked as I waved her in. She came in, not closing the door behind her. It must not be one of those “we need to talk” doomsday conversations.
“Of course. Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” she said with a bright smile as she rocked from her heels to her toes, then back again. “I just need a little favor.” She flashed a cheesy, hopeful grin and crossed fingers. “Can I borrow your SUV?”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Dream car not dreamy enough?”
“Oh, she’s dreamy, alright. She’s just a little lacking in cargo space.” Catherine pulled a handwritten list from her pocket. “I need to head into town and do some serious damage at the ag supply store.”
“Social initiative?”
Catherine nodded. “I’ve spent the last few days walking the ten acres you gave me and snooping around the old cabin up there. I’ve got a game plan, a shopping list, and a big money donor.”
“A donor, huh?” I crossed my arms. “Who do I have to fight?”
Catherine laughed. “Not a big big one. But apparently being a Wilder has its perks.” She smiled at my scowl, braced her hands on the edge of the desk, and leaned over my laptop. “Are you jealous?”
I was a lot of things, and jealous was definitely one of them.
I was jealous of anything that her eyes gazed upon.
Jealous of anything that was touched by her fingers.
I was jealous of the damn coffee cup she had been sipping from when I came down to the kitchen this morning.
And I was definitely jealous of the bed that held her over the last few nights.
After our little “performance” on our wedding night, Lewis had been nowhere to be seen, which meant the two of us went back to sleeping in our separate rooms.
I hated it.
I tossed and turned each night, all while wondering if she was doing the same. But each morning she looked prettier and brighter than the previous day.
“Yes,” I said matter-of-factly.
“Good,” she teased in a whisper. Her lips were a breath’s distance from mine. But instead of kissing me, her mouth parted in a victorious smile. “So, can I borrow your SUV?”
I reached into the pocket of my slacks and handed her the keys. “On one condition.”
“Shoot.”
“If the Moo Brew is parked near the ag supply, will you bring me one of those banana drinks?”
Catherine snatched my keys away. “I accept your terms. Nice doing business with you, Mr. Wilder.”
“Mrs. Wilder,” I called after her, making Catherine stop dead in her tracks.
She turned, trying to hide the blush on her cheeks.
I crooked a finger, beckoning her back, then handed her my credit card.
“Save your donor money for something else and see how close you can get to my daily limit. You remember the PIN?”
Catherine trapped her lip between her teeth and nodded as she gingerly took the card from me.
“Good girl,” I said as she turned to leave.
I watched her ass swing as she sashayed out of the study, winking through the glass as she pulled the doors closed behind her.
That ass…Damn.
I stared at the glass doors after the rumble of my SUV had faded with the image of Catherine in those little denim shorts burned into my memory.
Not long after Catherine left, I spotted Mason cutting through the rose garden. He walked to his truck that had been parked next to Hallie’s van and headed off the estate too.
Work carried on as usual. The house was blissfully quiet. After the upheaval of life after my granddad died, then funeral preparations that turned into wedding preparations, it felt like things were finally reaching a new normal.
I wondered if Catherine felt the same. She hid her grief well, masking it with a packed schedule and constant motion.
I liked being swept up in her whirlwind, but it was the moments when she was still that captivated me most. Sometimes, I was afraid to approach her in those moments, preferring to watch from a distance as she held her heart in her hands.
But instead of locking it away in her rib cage the way I did, she carried it out in the open for all to see.
Life is a beast with soft eyes and a gentle purr that lures you in with promises of warmth and comfort. Its claws and fangs are never hidden far behind that velvet facade.
Still, Catherine approached the monster with her heart extended as an offering.
I wondered what it was like to stay breakable after putting the pieces back together time and time again.
There was a special place in hell for anyone who broke a heart like hers. I just needed to finish making the reservation for the one who had.
I clocked out at five on the dot and glanced out the window. My SUV still wasn’t back. Neither was Mason’s truck.
I closed my laptop and made my rounds through the house.
No Catherine.
I checked the stables and ran into Levi.
According to him, he hadn’t seen Catherine or Mason for hours.
I poked my head through the thick trees that hid the pond, but dragonflies were the only ones enjoying the mountain stream.
When I cut back through the kitchen, Hallie confirmed that Catherine hadn’t come back to the house yet.
Which left just one spot to check.
The walk up to the gates wasn’t impossible, but it was long and winding.
My leather loafers weren’t the best walking shoes.
I donned the hat Catherine had given me as a wedding present and saddled up Maisey.
Her long legs ate up the hills as she broke into a gallop the moment I was on her back.
The jolt knocked the air out of my lungs, but I breathed a little easier when I saw my SUV parked beside the old cabin.
Mason’s truck, with a trailer attached, was beside it.
Fencing had been erected, lining the property that now belonged to Catherine. My SUV was backed up to the brand-new gate.
And there was Catherine, coaxing a little black-and-white calf out of the passenger seat.
I blinked to make sure my eyes weren’t deceiving me.
Nope. There was a cow in my car.
“Sweetheart,” I said sternly as I dismounted. “Mind explaining what you’re doing, transporting livestock in my very expensive, very clean vehicle when we have trailers for that?”
Mason snickered as he jogged out of the cabin and continued to unload paint, lumber, and flooring from the flatbed trailer. “Tried to tell her I could come back for a stock trailer to get her.”
“Come on,” Catherine cooed as she wrapped her arms around the little thing and lifted it from the seat. “You’re gonna love it here.” The calf was no bigger than a large dog, but still. There was a cow in my front seat.
“Catherine,” I said as I came into her line of sight. “What happened to going into town for supplies?”
Her cherry cheeks rose in a smile, making those Blue Ridge eyes sparkle with delight. “Isn’t she adorable?”
“You let her ride in my front seat,” I said in disbelief.
Catherine waffled back and forth. “Technically, it’s our front seat.” Her smile was infectious. “Scale of one to ten. How mad are you?”
“How mad am I that you apparently bought a cow? Zero. How mad am I that you let it ride in my vehicle? About a five.”
“What if I told you there’s a banana bread latte waiting for you in the cup holder?” she grunted as she eased the little thing down into the grass.
“Did the cow drink from it?”
“Of course not,” she said. “That would be ridiculous. I got her a pup cup.”
“Of course you did…” I muttered under my breath as I reached across the driver’s seat and grabbed the cup that still had part of the wrapper covering the straw opening. “Where’s its mother?”
Catherine closed the gate and went back to unloading supplies for the cabin out of the back of the SUV. “Not sure,” she said as she hefted bags of soil out of the trunk like they weighed nothing.
“Let me get that,” I said as I set the drink on top of the hood and took the bag from her, stacking it up where Mason had been unloading his. “And why did you buy dirt? There’s no shortage of it around here.”
There was that damn smile again. “They’re different kinds of soil. I want kids to be able to experiment with growing conditions to learn what type of dirt benefits which kinds of crops and how it affects growing speeds, plant hardiness, and harvest outcomes.”
“And the cow?”
Catherine wiped her hands on the front of her shorts and leaned against the fence, watching as the calf took stock of its new surroundings.
“She was abandoned at the ag supply. Marsha Garrison went to open up this morning and found her in a dog crate by the front door. No cameras, so they’re not sure who dumped her. ”
Footsteps approached. Mason shoved his phone into his pocket. “I called Grey. He’s got some colostrum to spare. Said he’ll leave it down at the stables.”
“Yes!” Catherine said with a fist pump and a happy dance.
“So, you’re fostering a calf until you find it a home?” I assumed.
“I was thinking more like…this is her home now!” she said cheerily.
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “And what on earth are you going to do with a single cow?”
Catherine beamed. “Get her a friend.”
I wanted to be mad. My god, I wanted to be furious. I loved my SUV. I kept it pristine. But one look at Catherine’s sheer giddiness over giving an orphaned calf a home and I was done for.
“You and your bleeding heart,” I murmured as I tapped a single finger to the center of her chest. “Take a trailer next time.”
Catherine peered over at the calf, who was snoozing in the sun like it didn’t have a care in the world. “I didn’t want to keep her in that crate or for her to get scared in the back of Mason’s truck.”
“Did she get scared riding shotgun?”
Catherine laughed. “Nope. She stuck her head out the window like a dog.” She chewed on her lip. “Are you mad?”
“No,” I said honestly. “I said you could do whatever you want with the land. Who am I to say you can’t rescue cows?”
“That’s the thing…” Catherine hedged. “I can’t exactly keep her up here. She needs to be dry and have shelter, and the cabin is a mess.”
“You know, when you butter someone up for a favor, you’re supposed to compliment them. Not give them a laundry list of problems.”
Catherine shot me a winning smile meant to schmooze. “I was hoping I could keep her in one of the spare stalls in the stable for now.”
“For how long?”
She glanced at Mason. “What do you think?”
He shrugged as he unloaded the last of his trailer. “I’d work on getting that second cow before you bring her back up here. And she’s gonna need a lot of attention. I’ll call the vet and have her come down here to check your girl out.”
“Do you mind taking her down to the stables and getting her set up?” I asked Mason, hoping he’d catch on that I wanted to have a little one-on-one conversation with my wife.
Catherine opened her mouth to protest, but Mason nudged her with his elbow. “She can ride up front with me.”
I waited until Mason had loaded the calf into his truck and was heading down the lane before turning to Catherine. “Do you know what the average lifespan of a cow is?”
“Production life or life life?”
“Life life,” I said. “Because I’m assuming you’re not going to breed her, milk her for five to six years, and then send her to slaughter.”
“Twenty years,” she said without skipping a beat.
“Twenty years of teaching kids about livestock care, getting them familiar and comfortable with large animals and excited to do the work. Twenty years of helping them fall in love with these incredible creatures, teaching them to honor the way they fit into our food chain, and making them passionate about ethical and sustainable farming and ranching.”
“And you plan on staying here for twenty years?”
Her eyes cut away from me. “Ideally, I’ll have a few full-time staff and some volunteers to run the program in a few years. You said the land was mine. There was no end date on our agreement.”
I had been married to Catherine Foster—well, Catherine Wilder—for less than a week. And yet I already knew it was going to hurt like hell when she was no longer mine.
“It’s yours. I’m a man of my word.”