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CHAPTER16
NICOLE
Weeks passed but Nicole felt like she was running in place and no matter how fast she ran, she simply couldn’t move any further. She had tried to call Brendan a couple of times that first day and when he hadn’t responded, she’d sent just one text asking him to please talk to her, to just let her explain. He had never responded, and Nicole had stopped trying. He had seen her attempts and refused to answer. Bombarding him, begging him to talk, it wasn’t going to help either of them.
He was right. She’d gotten exactly what she’d wanted; her stupid, selfish bout of sabotage had worked and now the farm was hers again, the deeds in a drawer and the keys in her pocket. The old version of herself would have been dancing for joy, elated at having ousted Brendan from the property. But right now Nicole only felt numb as she went through each day, focusing on working herself to exhaustion so that she didn’t have to think. Luckily for her, calving season was upon them and she didn’t really have any other choice.
Not so luckily there were still no farmhands around to be hired. Scott had called her, and she’d told him a watered-down version of what had happened. He knew the business side of things, that something had gone sour and Brendan had packed it in and moved back to Houston. She hadn’t mentioned the whole sleeping-together thing, or how she’d been a petty little idiot and gone behind his back to try and get rid of him. Nicole didn’t think she could physically say the words without snapping in half from the shame of it all. Her brother had called to see how she was doing now that the farm was miraculously back in the family again, and she’d lied through her teeth.
She can’t have lied very well, though, because Scott had turned up on her doorstep two weeks later, unannounced, saying he was there to stay for a month to help out now that calving season was kicking off and that she could throw as many tantrums as she pleased, but he wasn’t leaving till he had to go back to work.
That’s when Nicole had broken down for the first time since Brendan had left. Scott still didn’t know the particulars, he never was one for prying, but it was fairly obvious that it was more than just business.
Scott had been a saint, coming back to help. Nicole threw every ounce of herself into the farm as the cows began to give birth to tiny little babies with too-big eyes and floppy ears. It felt like the first time she had smiled in years, seeing them running around without a care in the world. But still it was hard when every time she looked at one of the cattle she could see remnants of Brendan, his handwriting spelling out individual names on their ear tags. She’d thought about erasing them but couldn’t bring herself to do it. That would somehow be worse.
Right now she was trying to reaffix some of the broom bristles that had come loose from the pole after an overzealous scratching session that morning, her drill working overtime to get them all back in place. Scott was heaping fresh bedding into the stalls for the cattle, spreading it out with a rake into even piles.
Nicole put the drill down on the ground, suddenly feeling cold, even though spring was finally here and the sun was warm above them. She hadn’t been well all week, just enough for it to be annoying, but now she was wondering if she needed to take a seat for a few minutes. She just didn’t feel…right.
Now the shed was spinning around her in slow, lazy circles, blurring at the edges… That wasn’t supposed to be happening. Why was everything in slow motion? The ground beneath her boots felt like it was moving too, but in the opposite direction of the spinning, like a fairground ride trying to set her off balance. And why was everything getting so dark in the middle of the day?
“Nicole?”
Scott was looking at her, calling her name, but even though he was right there, he sounded so far away, like she was under water and he was yelling at her from above the surface.
“Nicole?”
She shook her head, trying to make everything straighten out, but before she could answer Scott, say even one word, everything went black and the spinning stopped altogether.
* * *
“Hey, wake up! Nicole… you need to wake up!”
She opened her eyes to find Scott’s face very close to hers, looking panicked and pale, his eyes wide. Nicole blinked a couple of times but there was no darkness at the edge of her vision. She didn’t feel cold anymore either; if anything she was too hot, lying on her back in the middle of the milking shed. A few curious cows were standing around them, confused as to why their main caretaker was on the floor, but Scott shooed them away.
“Hey, you okay?” he asked, helping her to sit up.
“Yeah,” she said, though that wasn’t entirely true. “Yeah. Everything just started spinning. It was weird.” She pulled herself up to stand, brushing herself off.
“Maybe sit down, huh,” said Scott, sounding far more panicky than she felt.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not; you just fainted. I’m taking you to the hospital.”
“I don’t need a hospital—” Nicole started to say, before Scott rounded on her, his face ablaze with fury.
“Mom didn’t need a hospital either,” he said between his teeth, voice low and hard. “She said she was fine, everything was fine, the pain was just part of life and working hard. But maybe if she’d gone to a doctor, they would have caught the cancer sooner and she’d still be here. Dad never went to the hospital either, he was too tough for that, too strong; he didn’t need help — until he got old and sick andstillrefused to go, so he dropped dead from something that might have been avoided if he’d taken care of himself once in a while. I’m not doing this with you as well and watching you die young because you’re too damn stubborn for your own good, so you’re going to the hospital whether you like it or not. You don’t get a choice.”
He took a deep breath, his tirade of words drying up. Nicole was stunned into silence, and Scott looked pretty shocked with himself as well.
“Okay,” she said, nodding. “Okay, let’s go.”
“Sorry, Nicole,” he said, running a hand over his face. “Sorry, I—”
“No,” she said, stopping him right there. “No, you’re right. I should know better by now. It won’t hurt to get checked out.”
She started walking towards the truck, hating to admit how shaky her legs were still. Scott was by her side in an instant, his long arm wrapped around her, supporting her weight. Nicole leaned into him, grateful he was there, that he was making her look after herself, that he had come back from Tennessee to help her as much as he could. Though she didn’t know how to say it out loud, to get the words past her lips, he seemed to understand and held her just a little bit tighter.
