The calf took a breath.It was alive.Thank, God.
I’m not a farm vet, but I’d done that.I had turned the baby and helped it deliver safely.I crouched next to the calf, removed gunk from its face, and palpated everywhere to make sure all legs and hips were intact.Everything checked out normal.
I stood up and stared at Josh, who wouldn’t look me in the eyes.He remained fixated on the calf.
I waited for him to say I'd done a great job to make his part easy.
Where was the credit I deserved for over an hour of pain?
He unhooked the calf from the puller, wiped the baby down again, and massaged the calf into movement.
I wanted to scream, “I can’t feel my arms and you can’t even say thank you?”
“So glad you could get the little lady set straight,” the elder Sawyer drawled behind us.“She sure was struggling.All in the ears, ain't that right, Doc?”
“The ears?”I echoed.I glared at Josh, waiting for him to correct Mr.Sawyer’s misconception.
Josh still didn’t make eye contact with me.Nothing had changed.The war was still on.Josh would continue to do whatever he could to one-up me.
I didn’t need to suffer any further in this cold, miserable muck while Dr.It’s-all-in-the-earstook credit for my work.
Of course, my big mouth wasn’t about to let this go unrecognized.“The calf didn’t deliver because of ear rubbing.I repositioned it and got everything placed to pull.Got anything to add,DoctorHurst?”I removed the soiled shoulder-length plastic sleeve from my arm and dropped it into the muddy straw.
Silence from Josh.
I glared at the embodiment of my disgust.“You can’t think of a single thing to say?You show up for the easy part and take all the credit?”I threw up my arms and muttered, “Nothing’s changed.”
He gave me a slight widening of his eyes before he went back to rubbing down the newborn calf.
My gaze bounced to Drew and the elder Sawyer.Drew shrugged, commiserating with me in silence.He could’ve said something out loud, the coward.
“Ya’ll believe this baloney about the ears?”My Southern accent came hard, like it always did when I was furious.I glared at all three men who remained silent.“I busted my ass out here for over an hour.It’s because ofmethat your calf is alive, not Doc Voodoo Ears.Let me warn you, if you don’t call for help when your cow is stuck and instead stand there rubbing the cow’s ears, the calf will die.”
All three men stared at me like I was a feral dog, fearing if they so much as twitched I’d attack.
I was angry enough to kick Josh in the balls—for stealing credit for my work, for forcing me into the miserable cold, and for saddling me with a debt that wasn’t mine.Mostly, I was angry at Dad for dying.All of this was his fault.
“We're just glad Doc here could come by and get it done.”Elder Sawyer nodded to Josh.He launched a big brown spit into the straw.Gross.
“I’m so glad he had time in his busy schedule to stop by andget it done.It couldn’t possibly have been born because of what I did for the past hour.”I rinsed off the calf puller under a nearby cold-water faucet.Before I left, I glanced at the used sleeve I’d discarded nearDr.Hurst.For a moment guilt shredded me.My father's words ripped through my mind,“Always take the trash.Never leave a mess.”
Screw it.Dr.Magic Ears could clean it up.
I cast one last glare at Josh to give him a final chance to say thethank youI deserved.He gave me nothing but a wide-eyed deer-in-headlights stare.
Damn him.Damn them all.I deserved at least a word of sympathy acknowledging my father’s death.
“Tracker, let’s go.”The dog trotted at my side back to the truck.
I would find a way to crush Josh.
ChapterThree
JOSH
I dropped my head,kneeled, and fisted the muddied straw bedding next to the calf.
The woman I had sacrificed everything for walked away down the frozen road.She was leaving me—again.I’d somehow managed to ruin our first meeting in eight years.
