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I’m shivering as I tuck the wool blanket around my bundle. I found the ewe who birthed her dead near the feed troughs, with this wee one bleating in the grass. I helped her feed from another ewe for a bit, but when the lightning started up in earnest, I knew it was time to head downhill.
I’ve got some ewe colostrum in the freezer at Grammy’s house. Also a thermal blanket. I wish I had stored those things down at the clinic, but…I didn’t. I’ll be dropping by and knocking, politely asking him if I might rummage through his freezer.
I cuddle Baby closer as I reach the ridge of rocks near Gammy’s cottage, over which I see the blurry lights of the settlement. With careful footwork, I make it past the stones, down the steepest part of the path, and into view of the house.
I see light through the windows. I hope that means he’s awake. It isn’t late, only about seven, although the storm has caused dark’s curtain to fall early.
“Almost there,” I murmur, blinking rain out of my eyes.
Baby bleats in repl
y, and I feel her rooting at my arm as I clomp through the mucky grass around the cottage. I shift her weight so I can work the key into the door. Then I remember I’ll need to knock.
I raise my hand and knock three times, loud and steady. Then I shut my eyes and steel myself for that face. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—but that face. I’ve never seen a man so handsome. If I’m being honest, I didn’t realize one existed. That he’s Declan Carnegie…well, it makes my heart sore. For so many reasons.
I paste a polite smile on my face and wait, my heart tap-dancing.
C’mon, Carnegie. I know you’re in there.
I look around the stoop, searching for mud tracks or other signs of life, but all I see are my own boot-prints and shadows.
Perhaps he’s not here. Perhaps someone took him home for dinner or he’s at the pub. A fellow like him—probably the pub. Dot is pouring him drinks, and Holly’s giving him that odd look I saw her give another tourist recently; she said it’s called a duck face. Dot and Holly are both young and unencumbered. Maybe he’ll sweep one of them away, across the ocean and—
Sod off, Finley.
I knock again, a wee bit louder. Maybe he can’t hear over the monsoon. Baby bleats, and after yet another minute, I knock as if I’d like to beat the door down. When it remains shut, I chew my lip and push my key into the lock and slowly turn the doorknob.
“Declan?”
Saying his name into the dark crevice between door and doorjamb makes my throat feel like it’s closing up. But Baby bleats again, and I’m not sure what choice I have. She needs warmth and sustenance. Wee ones must eat quite a lot quite quickly after birth. We’ve already lost a bit of ground on our walk.
I push the door open and, finding the living room dark, step inside.
“Declan?”
I should shout, but I can’t seem to speak above a murmur. I’m shivering as I glance down the hall. The bedroom door appears cracked, just as I left it. The place feels still. Likely it’s unoccupied.
“Declan?” Loudly this time. When I hear nothing, I release a long breath.
He’s not here, and why would he be? The entire island wants to take him home. They’re likely stuffing him with milk tarts.
I kick my sopping boots off gently by the door, wriggle out of my dripping coat, and creep into the kitchen. I grab a few colostrum bottles from the freezer, plunk them in a pot atop the stove. While they thaw, I’ll get some blankets from my old bedroom.
I move quietly down the hall, as if he might pop up at any moment. If he did, we could be stranded here together. Lunacy. How disappointing that I’m such a base creature. One fine-looking male specimen, and it’s farewell to Godly morals and good sense.
In the bedroom, I find the quilt a wee bit wrinkled, and I wonder if indeed he was here. Surely I’d have left it tidier than that. I move toward the bathroom, Baby squirming in my arms now.
“Shh,” I murmur. “Just a moment and I’ll get you fed, dear.”
I want to dry her off and get her wrapped more tightly. Then the bottle will be thawed, and I can feed her underneath the awning on the patio so I won’t be inside should he return. After that, it’s down the road and to the Patches for me. When it pours like this, the flocks end up stranded on the foothills near the fields where we grow potatoes and graze cattle, afraid of the flowing gulches, mired in the mud, or caught in flash floods. Since Uncle Ollie hurt his back last year, it’s been my job to tend them.
I step into the bathroom, my head filled with such thoughts, and stop dead in my tracks.
Stone the cows!
He’s in the tub.
I gape down at him, sprawled out in a bubble bath. His dark head rests against the tub’s rim, exposing his thick, tanned throat. His eyes are shut, so he can’t see me as I blink down at his massive shoulders, round biceps, and thick, hair-dusted forearms.
