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Syrus frowned but gave Tono a two-finger salute as he walked through to the utility.
Cody raised an eyebrow. It wasn’t like the vet to be so brazen, but he was clearly steamed about something too if the look on his face was anything to go by.
Ezra, always the chirpy one, poured coffee and brought everyone a mug.
Sitting at the kitchen table, he grinned at the older man. “Thanks for the fish, Tono. Really saved our bacon last night, since Ellie didn’t bother doing the cooking.”
Tono just looked at Ezra with an uncharacteristically stony expression.
“Don’t rightly know why you’re thanking me. Ellie caught those fish, right here in the creek. She came in and got them all cleaned and prepared before coming out to help me with Blaze’s foal, since your mare got herself in a fair amount of trouble during the labor.”
Ezra jerked his head towards Tono just as quickly as he did and Syrus walked back in at the same time. The three of them talked over each other for a second or two.
“What do…”
“Ellie…”
“She gutted…”
Tono shook his head and held up his hand. “You’ve got a fine young colt, thanks to Ellie, I might add.”
“Blaze has had the foal?” Surprise there from Ezra.
“I see no one bothered to tell you then, and I know for a fact thatthatCora girl knew what was happening, since she stood right there getting her panties in a wad while Ellie telephoned me to comeout.”
“What kind of trouble?” This from Syrus.
Cody squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He was missing something.
Lifting his head, he looked Tono square in the eye and motioned to his brothers to stop with the questions.
Then he took a sip of his coffee to help him gather his thoughts.
“Okay, one thing at a time, and back to the fish.” Somehow that small point seemed to hold more significance than it should. “You didn’t bring them, but you know Ellie caught and cleaned and gutted them; how?”
“Because they were hung in the sink in the barn when I got here. She left them there when she went to check on Blaze, then forgot about them when she realized the mare was having birthing problems. When I arrived, they were in the way, so she brought them in the house to clean before she came back out to help me.”
Okay, so maybe he’d been a little hard on her yesterday after Cora said she’d been messing around all day and had skipped out on her responsibilities to make dinner, but…
“What do you mean, Cora knew?”
“I already told you once,” Tono said with a scowl. “That no good floozy was standing right there listening, giving Ellie a hard time, even though the girl told her it was an emergency and she needed to ring me. I could hear her in the background while Ellie was on the phone.”
“What phone?”
“Well, the office phone, of course. What did you think she was going to call me on?”
“I…” Cody paused and thought about it. “I assumed a cell phone,” he said slowly.
“And she may well have done that, but since she doesn’t have one, she had to use the landline and look up the number in your address book.”
There was silence for several long moments as all three brothers stared at Tono.
“Well shit!” Syrus cursed.
Cody hung his head and fisted his hands into his hair, thinking back to the conversation the previous evening.
“And let me tell you, you have that lass to thank for the fact that you still have two healthy animals out there, since she recognized Blaze was having birthing difficulties. Foal had its head retained. Lucky it wasn’t a tragedy all round.”
