He must sense my presence because he stills, his muscles tensing. He turns, and his eyes widen in surprise when he sees me standing there, dripping wet and shivering in the doorway.
“What are you doing up?” he growls. “You should be in bed.”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I say, my voice a little shaky. “What are you doing out here?”
He gestures to the tarp, to the stacks of hay. “Tarping the pens. And putting out extra hay. To keep the calves warm.”
He turns back to his work, but I can tell he’s still aware of me, his senses on high alert.
“Where are the mothers?” I ask, my veterinary mind kicking in, the professional concern overriding everything else.
He lets out a long, weary sigh. “They moved them to the south pasture. The CDC wants to study the two groups separately. See if the parasite presents differently.”
There’s a frustration in his voice that mirrors my own, a shared helplessness in the face of this scientific invasion.
“I can help,” I say, the words coming out before I even think them. I need to do something. I need to feel useful, to escape the suffocating helplessness of being a patient.
“No,” he says, leaving no room for argument. He turns to face me fully, and I can see the concern etched in the lines around his eyes. “It’s late. And you’re sick.”
“I feel fine,” I lie, my chin jutting out in defiance. “And I’m not going back to bed, so I might as well do something useful.”
He walks toward me, his boots squelching on the wet concrete floor. He stops just a few feet away, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin, can smell the familiar scent of pine smoke and rain.
He studies me, his gaze intense and searching, sweeping over my face, my damp hair. He sees the stubborn set of my jaw, the defiant glint in my eyes.
“You’re still the most stubborn person I have ever known,” he says, but there’s no anger in his voice. Just a sort of weary, grudging admiration.
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I say, a small, defiant smile touching my lips.
He can’t help it. A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth, a fleeting, almost involuntary twitch that’s there and gone in a second.
It’s the first crack in the icy façade he’s worn since I got back, and it sends a strange, warming flutter through my chest.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks again, softer this time, the concern overriding everything else.
I meet his gaze, my own unwavering. “Put me to work, Billy.”
He studies me for a long moment, his gaze a mix of frustration and something else, something softer, something that looks dangerously like concern. Finally, he lets out a long, resigned sigh.
“Fine,” he grunts, turning back to the tarp. “But you do the light stuff. No heavy lifting. You try to lift a hay bale, and I’m carrying you back to the bunkhouse myself. Understand?”
“Understood,” I say, unable to hide my triumphant smile.
He puts me to work, but true to his word, he does most of the heavy lifting. My job is to unroll the tarps while he drapes them over the pens, creating makeshift roofs to keep the driving rain out.
I help him spread extra hay along the edges, creating a thick, warm bed for the shivering calves. We work in a strange, companionable silence, the only sounds the storm raging outside and the distressed sounds of the animals.
He moves with a powerful grace, his body a study in controlled strength. I watch him, the way his muscles bunch and flex as he lifts a heavy bale, the way his brow furrows in concentration.
It’s a familiar sight, one I thought I’d forgotten, but my body remembers. My body remembers the feel of those arms, the safety of that strength.
When the last pen is secured, we stand back, admiring our handiwork. The calves are already burrowing into the fresh hay, their lowing quieted to a soft, contented murmur.
A particularly loud clap of thunder rattles the barn walls, and the lights flicker for a second.
“Thanks,” he finally says. “For the help.”
“Despite what you think, I’m not a monster,” I tell him, the words coming out sharper than I intend. “I don’t like seeing animals suffer any more than you do.”
