“Burnt like my morning toast.”
Valentine put a hand to the base of her throat. “Not the cashmere.”
Cora closed her eyes. “Let’s not talk about it.”
“That’s the good stuff, right?” said Mac, who had pulled up a chair opposite Cora. She’d been trying to ignore the way he was listening to her, but it was difficult. It had been a long time since she’d had to ignore Mac Wildwood.
Cora nodded again, briefly. “I have two cashmere goats.”
“You’re kidding. How many pets do you have?”
Cora looked at Mac. “I have no pets. I have animals that work, that can be productive. Six goats, five Angora rabbits, and four Cormo sheep. Not to mention the chickens, which I just use for eggs.”
“So you take their fiber, and their eggs, but no using them for meat? What, are you chicken?” He grinned.
Cora’s back straightened. “I know how to kill one.” She did, she’d studied it and had made three pages of notes in her What-If book. “But I’m not that broke.”
Mac poked at his mashed potatoes as if something lurked beneath. “You manage to pay the bills with your little farm?”
Oooh, he got under her skin. “You have a problem with that?”
Valentine held up her napkin and waved it. “Darlings…”
“I make enough to get by,” said Cora, hating that she was automatically defending herself. She didn’t owe him this. She owed him nothing. “Just because you’re some fancy veterinarian, probably raking in money hand over paw, doesn’t mean you get to judge me. Why are you here, anyway? Doesn’t your job need you? Please don’t tell me you’re planning on staying.”
“Why not?” His voice was light. “Don’t y’all need another horse doctor in town?”
Was he serious? Cora swore as she dropped a stitch.
Good God. What would she do if he stayed?
CHAPTER FOUR
Simplicity is deceptively difficult to achieve. – E.C.
Cora stared at him. Mac had almost forgotten that direct gaze of hers, how nervous it had always made him. He buttered his bread slowly, deliberately. “I mean, all this ranch land? Gotta be call for a couple of vets, not just one.”
“Well,” Cora said, “most of us here in town still remember how you missed the shot when you were putting Logan’s horse down.”
Damn. Mac had also forgotten how she could toss him from amused to pissed in less than a heartbeat. “Someone had to shoot her. And Logan couldn’t, God knew. The second shot was true.”
“He had nightmares for years about that horse.”
“Logan couldn’t bear to do anything difficult. He never could.” He watched Cora flinch as it struck the nerve he’d aimed for.
Valentine tried to help. “Now, honey, bronc riding wasn’t easy, and Logan–”
But Cora struck back. “You’d know, wouldn’t you, Mac? Logan died, and you never said goodbye. You never came, even though I’d called to tell you it was the last chance you had. Tell me, who was squeamish then?”
It hurt as much as if she’d reached across the table and slapped him with all her might. And she was right. That was the worst part.
“Logan knew Mac loved him,” Aunt Valentine said in a low voice. “You have to know that, Mac.”
It made it worse that she defended him.
“You could come home for your father. Your grandfather. Why couldn’t you come home for my husband?” Cora asked.
Mac opened his mouth, but nothing came out. What was the right answer? His mother, thank God, chose that moment to bring out the last platter, heaped with roasted root vegetables. “Look at this balsamic glaze. Oh, Mac, you’re going to love this.”
He cleared his throat and looked at the tablecloth. “All homemade, right, Ma?”
“Oh, you know me,” Louisa said breezily. And he did. The food was catered, as usual. Louisa wouldn’t make anything from scratch, any more than he could forgive himself for failing Logan – and Cora – when it mattered most.
Seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room, Louisa went on, “How long will you stay, son?”
“As long as I can,” he said carefully.
“What does that mean, exactly?” Aunt Valentine leaned forward so that her bosom hung precariously over her mashed potatoes. From her lap, Lottie licked her elbow.
“I can’t tell yet,” said Mac. “I wish I could.”
Valentine said in a small voice, “I’m so glad you’re here. But we would have liked to see you more. You know that, right?”
Mac couldn’t help feeling defensive. “I’ve seen you every year. And I call Mom every week.”
“That’s right,” said Louisa proudly. “He does.”
“But I never talk to you,” said his aunt, almost apologetically. “And we only saw you because we came to see you. Cora, here, she never saw you at all. It would be nice if you could stay. Just a little while, at least. For your family.”
Was that a quiver in her voice? Oh, crap, he could take anything but that. Mac took a deep breath. “I think that sounds nice, I do. I missed all of you.” He didn’t meet Cora’s eyes. “I’m not guaranteeing anything. But there might be something happening soon that will help all of you. Us.”
Cora rolled her eyes. “You were working for Bay Gate Downs, right? Track vet?”
“Racetrack practitioner, yeah.” He hadn’t worked there for two years, not since he started working for his friend Royal full-time. But he’d kind of forgotten to keep the family apprised.
Her voice held a challenge. “Jim Younger’s the vet in town, and I hadn’t heard he was looking for help.”
“You know everything that goes on in Cypress Hollow?”
“Not everything,” said Cora. “But most of it. I run the farmers market, so I hear a lot.”
“Don’t you just have a booth there?”
“I do. I love it.” Maybe she forgot she was mad at him, maybe she let her guard down, but her blue eyes now sparkled in the candlelight. Mac had forgotten that trick of theirs. She went on, “But I also manage it, rent the space, collect the money for the Chamber of Commerce. I started it in town two years ago when we realized there was nothing like it for thirty miles, which was ridiculous given where we live, surrounded by farms.”
“And you’re so good at it,” said Aunt Valentine around a mouthful of green beans.
Cora pushed her plate away and pulled her knitting up out of her lap. She held the needles firmly. Determinedly.
“Always knitting,” said Louisa, and Mac was embarrassed by her dismissive tone.
“A girl’s gotta eat.” Cora’s voice was straightforward, and didn’t seem to be seeking sympathy as she clicked away sturdily. “But anyway, I’d know if Jim was looking for a new employee. So are you thinking about setting up your own practice? I’m not sure how Cypress Hollow would take to that. You might not remember but we’re pretty loyal ’round here.”
Cora’s right hand floated, pulling up the yarn and letting it drop. Her fingers moved slowly, beautifully, and at the same time, seemed to move at the speed of light, slipping stitches from one needle to the other. Mac felt hypnotized.
“That’s amazing,” he said, and immediately wanted to swallow the words. He felt like a child distracted by a pinwheel. Cora frowned and looked at her hands as if she didn’t recognize them.
“We don’t mean to push,” started Aunt Valentine. “Oh, what am I saying? We mean to. Tell us.”
“I have a couple of ideas.”
Louisa smiled and straightened, looking proud. “Cora, you can have your sheep tended to by the resident veterinarian. Oh, and Abigail MacArthur even has alpacas. Those things must need shots or something, right?”
Cora’s needles gave small, resolute clicks. “So you are setting up a private practice, then.”
“I suppose that’s what you’d call what I do.” It wasn’t the truth. Not the whole truth, anyway. “Keeping my options open.”
Her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t b
uying it. He should have known. Cora had always been able to read him. Ever since she’d arrived, flame-haired and sixteen years old, she’d had the ability to look at him and know exactly when he was about to get himself in trouble. The fact that she could tell he was going to cut his next class and hightail it to the stables never stopped him from doing it. In fact, it had always been that much more exciting, wondering if she’d show up, looking for a ride. She’d ask in that shy, quick, nervous way she used to have, pretending the answer didn’t matter, but he could tell it did, so much. His horse, Two-Pack, had loved her more than he’d loved Mac, he thought. Half the time, Logan was with them, doing roping tricks to try to impress her, but the other half, Mac had her to himself. Those had been the best times. The times he didn’t forget.
“You’re not telling us something. And it’s an important something.”
Yep, she still had it. Mac shrugged. “Guess you’ll know soon enough.”
Aunt Valentine said. “Oh, I love surprises!”
“I hate them.” His mother’s mouth twisted tightly.
Cora surprised him by laughing. She turned the work and started back the way she’d come. “He’ll tell us when he’s ready.”
Goddammit, she was still amazing. That mop of hair stuck up wildly and randomly all over her head, the burnt red of the iodine he carried in his bag. Her mouth was too big, and she still had that long, thin scar running parallel to her nose, the one she’d gotten when she’d tripped over a piece of driftwood and smacked her face on the rocks in the cave at Moonglass Beach. The shyness she used to have seemed all the way gone. She held herself relaxed, confidently. Her body was just that much wider and softer in all the places his past girlfriends prided themselves on being tiny. She was, he thought, perfectly proportioned. The way a real woman should be.
She was the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.
Mac felt that stab again, the one that had once been so familiar to him – the jolt of jealousy, that she wasn’t his, that she would never be, that Logan won her, that he was in second place, again. And since it was the most ludicrous, petty, small feeling he could possibly imagine having, he berated himself like he always had. Idiot. Get over it.
“This bread,” Mac said, holding his piece toward Cora. “It’s got a little something… extra to the crust, doesn’t it?”
Cora quirked her mouth to the left and then said, “Of course. Love is always the extra ingredient.”
CHAPTER FIVE
If you think it’s not going to fit, it probably isn’t. You can go two ways: continue knitting and give it to someone else, or throw it in the corner to think about its sins. Sadly, I usually use the latter method. But my corner nest is very, very well padded and good for naps. – E.C.
Something was very wrong with Mavis. When Cora had gone out to check the sheep before she started the spinning she needed to do, she’d noticed that she was one animal short. That wasn’t necessarily a problem. She only had four sheep, and Mavis was a diva who blatantly defied the sheep-stay-together rule. She liked to wander on her own, so much so that early one morning when Cora was fixing her coffee, she’d been surprised to see Mavis warming herself in front of the old stove, the kitchen door standing open. Sometimes she didn’t come in to the feed pen at night, preferring to stay snacking on the grassy slope above the house, and since they hadn’t had any predator problems in the last couple of years, Cora let her roam at will.
Tonight she looked around one more time before checking the pasture. And there was Mavis, hiding in the dark interior of the barn, standing awkwardly, legs braced apart. “Mavis, come on,” Cora said. She flipped the light switch and the bare bulb overhead blazed to life. Mavis bleated, but when she tried to move she only took one stiff-legged step and then stopped, panting.
“What’s wrong?” Cora moved closer, and Mavis, usually prone to joyful darting, stayed still, her mouth open, her eyes dull.
Cora touched her head softly, then her nose. Mavis breathed heavily. In the moonlight, Cora could see that the sheep’s left side was distended. “Dammit.”
Usually she had to decide if she could handle the problem herself or if she’d have to call Tony Fazule, the large-animal vet in Half-Moon Bay. She thought of her What-If notebook up at the house, the book she filled with her worries. She’d written carefully, What if a sheep gets sick? Her answer to herself had been Study until you know enough of the symptoms to diagnose whether or not you need to call a vet. So she’d studied. She knew the anatomy of a sheep – she knew, basically, what happened at the front end, and at the hind, and most of the parts in between.
Bloat. It wasn’t something she’d had to deal with much since she tried to keep the sheep off the meadows when the damp was still on the grass, but tonight had been so foggy that she would bet Mavis had eaten the alfalfa when it was wet. Bloat could kill and quickly, Cora knew, and she was out of Bloat Guard.
Jim Younger, the town vet, wasn’t an option – he was on vacation. She could call Tony Fazule. He’d be here in an hour, if he was available and drove fast.
But tonight Cora had one more option.
She could call Mac.
But – what if he thought she needed him? It wasn’t like that. She didn’t. But she needed a vet, any vet, and she needed one now. She took out her phone and dialed while her stomach knotted in protest.
“Cora?” His voice sounded surprised, and she didn’t blame him. How many years had it been since she’d called him? Five years ago, the night she’d called him to tell him to come see Logan one last time.
“I have a sick sheep. I think it’s bloat.”
“You’ve had a hell of a day, haven’t you?”
She sighed. “So far, yeah, it’s sucked. Can you just come?” The words felt heavier in her mouth than rocks.
“I’ll be right there.”
And he was. She thought he might walk since their properties adjoined each other, but instead, through the trees, she saw the car lights bouncing down his driveway, turning on the main road, then driving up her rutted path. He drove a beat-up older SUV, which surprised her. Cora would have guessed that by now he would have bought himself something new, something trendy and expensive.
Mac got out and nodded at her. Then he opened the back and pulled out a large bag. “This whole car is full. I could do field surgery on an unexpected army of sick yaks.”
“An army of sick yaks would be unexpected. You look like a country vet driving that old thing,” she said.
“That’s the point.”
“Ah, so it’s planned. I should have known. Like your outfit?”
He smoothed down his flannel shirt under his beat-up green jacket. “You’re lucky I pulled on jeans instead of coming over in my boxers.”
Cora had a sudden unwanted image of him hurrying through a bedroom, pulling up his jeans with one hand, reaching for his car keys with the other… Damn.
She spun. “Anyway. She’s over here.” The sooner he treated Mavis, the sooner he’d be driving away, back toward where he belonged. She held the flashlight behind her so he wouldn’t trip. She didn’t need its illumination. Cora knew this land, this path. She could run it blindfolded. She knew where each little ditch ran, where the rains had pushed rivulets through the sandy clay. She knew how many steps it took from her front door to get to the pasture gate, and she could undo the latch without glancing down. Home.
Mac wouldn’t know anything about that.
From behind her, she heard his footfall stumble and a muffled curse. Things sounded louder than normal to her in the crisp night air. Or was her hearing amplified because it was Mac behind her?
“Sorry, you want to hold the light?”
“I’m fine.”
“I know you work mostly with horses now, and this is… Anyway, here she is.” Cora led him into the barn.
Mavis still stood, but she looked as if she wouldn’t be up much longer. Her sides, even more distended, heaved, and she didn’t seem to care that a strange man was approaching he
r.
“Oh, you’re not feeling good, are you, honey?” Mac’s voice was so warm and soft Cora almost didn’t recognize it. He leaned forward, moving smoothly to his knees. In a matter of moments, Mavis had her eyes closed and was swaying as he palpated her stomach. “Good girl, such a beautiful girl,” Mac murmured as he kept his movements slow and easy.
Cora stood as close as she could. “What about Bloat Guard? That’s worked in the past.”
Mac didn’t look up at her. His hands moved over Mavis lightly. “She’s beyond that. We’d risk rupturing a lung from the pressure. I’m going to use the stomach tube instead.”
“Will she be okay?” Crap, her voice was shaking as much as Mavis’s legs. Mavis had been her first sheep, and her favorite. Something about the way Mavis never did anything the right ‘sheep’ way had always pleased Cora deeply.
Mac said, “Can you hold her for me? She needs to stay standing, and I’m not sure how much longer she’ll be able to do that.”
He hadn’t answered her question. Cora held Mavis as Mac did something that the sheep should have thoroughly hated. But Mavis hardly seemed to notice. When she did open her eyes now, they were blank, as if Mavis had checked out.
“Come on, baby girl,” Mac muttered. He was using his whole body, twisting the tube, using his thighs to help hold the sheep while his torso moved as much as Mavis’s didn’t. In the thin yellow light of the bare bulb that hung overhead, he had broken a sweat. Cora felt a wave of nausea roll through her as she realized how much pain Mavis was in. “Hang on, Mavis,” she said under her breath. “If anyone can do it, you can.”
The other three sheep were in their pen, watching nervously, their hooves scratching on the wooden floor underneath the bed of straw. The goats moved restlessly, blinking sideways at them. Thank God it wasn’t them again – Fred and Ethel had gotten sick six months ago, and it had almost drained her bank account getting them well.
Cora held tight, the scent of lanolin and dung and hay filling her nose. Please, she wanted to say, but didn’t. Mac looked up at her and their eyes met for one long second. Too long. The contact made Cora’s heart stutter, and she remembered – in that second – what she’d been trying to forget for a long time.
Cora's Heart: A Cypress Hollow Yarn Page 3
