Paige was doing much better with the goats this morning. Bribery, that was the ticket. Brett Hunter’s approach. Not jumping straight in with the bribe, either. Holding it just out of reach. She had to admit, she wondered what his “parcel” looked like. He knew how to tantalize, and it was effective.
Careless. Relaxed. Amused. No anxiety, and no stress. That was why she started in on her barnyard duties half an hour before she could expect Jace to appear, too—so she wouldn’t be subconsciously waiting for him. And possibly because she wanted to see him, and that was exactly why she needed to remove the opportunity for temptation.
This week wasn’t about her. It was about Lily. About protecting her sister, not causing more problems for her. That was her job. It had always been her job.
Her mother had told her, enough times that the story had grown old, that when the doctor had gone in to deliver the twins, he’d had to unwrap Paige’s arms from around her sister first. “You were hanging on,” her mom had always said, “like you were saying, ‘You want to mess with her, you’ll have to get through me first.’ That’s why I never worried about her being shy, because you were tough enough for both of you. You went through every door first like you were ready to take on whatever was on the other side. You did the stairs first so she could see how. I didn’t even worry when I put you two on the school bus the first time. You were that good.”
You could have called Paige’s approach “direct,” it was true. For all the years she could remember, and apparently for all the years she couldn’t as well. Now, though, she tried Hunter’s technique instead. She opened the gate, ignored the coyly scampering goats, went into the shed, opened the grain bin, and poured a handful into the stainless-steel bowl on the milking shelf with the maximum of rattling sounds.
Sure enough, she got a couple heads, the black one and the white one with its pirate’s eye patch, poking around the door of the shed. She ignored them, rattled a little more grain into the bowl, and saw, from the corner of her eye, Edelweiss making a break for it, out-scampering Tinkerbelle to the shelf, jumping on, and going straight for the grain.
“Ha,” Paige said, tying the goat’s collar to a rope hanging from the stanchion the way she should have done yesterday, the way she would have done if she’d assessed the situation first instead of allowing herself to first be overconfident, and then to be rattled by the goats and the Milker. “Yeah. This is how we do it. Who’s in charge? I’m in charge.”
She wiped the udder clean, then perched on the stool, took a cleansing breath in and out, and started practicing the milking technique she’d studied on YouTube. More a squeeze than a pull, starting as high up on the udder as she could reach. Which made perfect sense if you thought about it. That was where the milk was. And fortunately, she had strong hands. Who knew that milking a goat would be so much like holding a gun? She was clumsy, but she was getting it done.
Edelweiss apparently still found fault with her technique, because she shifted, then kicked out with a leg way too close to Paige’s head, as if Paige would flinch. Instead, Paige grabbed the leg, shoved it back down, got her forearm against the goat’s flank in case Edelweiss tried it again, and said, “Too bad for you that I know what it looks like when you start going for your weapon. You’re in custody, sister.”
It was silly, but the goats were silly. She’d call them “ridiculous,” in fact. Pint-sized drama queens. Right now, Tinkerbelle was chewing on some hay, looking at the milking shelf resentfully, and bleating in a complaining way, like she wanted her turn and it was no fair that Edelweiss got to go first. Like a goat who thought Paige might forget that she’d pretended getting milked was the most hideous fate known to Goatdom the morning before.
Edelweiss, though, was getting the message, or maybe she just got smug about her superior position, because she decided to settle down and let herself get milked. Which process was oddly relaxing, Paige found. Rhythmic. Physical. Soothing to the nerves.
The goats’ sibling rivalry made Paige wonder, though. Could there be a downside to sitting on the inside of the school bus seat every time so your big sister could sit on the outside, where she could react to any problem, could get there first? To being told you were a little bit helpless? Could it even make you choose the wrong guy, if you thought you couldn’t fight your own battles?
Maybe so. Maybe once, but Lily had proved that she could do it now, right? Paige wasn’t the one who owned demon-spawn goats, who lived in a cabin in the woods, who ran a business, who had a riding mower with a snowplow blade in her garage. Paige was helping, that was all, not holding her sister back. Just this one more time.
The barnyard was quiet when Jace walked up the drive except for the excited, high-pitched bleating of the three tiny kids, who were playing king-of-the-hill on a weathered picnic table this morning, racing to the top and trying to butt each other off. Nimble as otters, and just as playful. Tobias wagged his tail at the sight of them, but Jace was having a hard time being amused.
He’d told Lily he’d be here at eight. It was barely seven-thirty, but he’d wanted to make sure he caught her at home. And to catch her at a disadvantage, before she expected him. He went through the gate, shut it behind himself and Tobias, and walked soft-footed toward the shed. Just in case she was already there.
He paused just outside the door, put one hand out to warn Tobias back, and let his eyes adjust to the dim light and his nose to the not-unpleasant barnyard smell.
There she was. She’d had an early start herself. But this morning, she was milking. One goat, the black one, had been milked already, judging by the look of her udder. What the hell?
He’d been right. He acknowledged the lurch in his gut at the confirmation, then stepped inside and said, “Thought you’d sprained your hand.”
Lily whirled, the goat started and kicked out, and somehow, she’d caught its leg before it kicked over the pan. In her right hand. The “sprained” one.
She set the animal’s leg down, turned back to her task, and said, her voice measured, “I didn’t tell you the truth about that.”
That rocked him back for a split second, and then he advanced until he was beside her. Tobias trotted forward, touched noses with the free goat, then sat down beside Jace. Jace said, “That wasn’t all you lied about, I’m thinking.”
She froze. That was the only word for it. He could see the breath she took, the almost-instant readjustment before she said, “What are you talking about?”
Caught you, he thought, and wished he felt better about it. He asked, “What are you? I can’t wait to hear.”
The two streams of milk squirted into the pan, one after the other, as she said, “I was in the wrong, uh, space when I came back from my trip. The goats weren’t listening. I was embarrassed. And I did injure myself. Paragliding,” she added in an obvious afterthought. “So I thought of saying that about my hand. Maybe it’s not me, it’s you, did you think of that? Maybe you’re intimidating.”
“Except that I don’t intimidate you a bit. Try again.”
She finished off the goat, removed the pan of milk, stood up, and untied the halter rope, all without answering. When the goat had jumped down, she poured the milk through a funnel into a half-full quart jar, her hands steady, her face giving nothing away.
He knew what she was doing. Adjusting. Reconnoitering. Working out a new plan. His fists were clenching, his jaw bunching, and he relaxed both. Anticipate.
She turned to face him at last, her expression still neutral, her stance nothing but solid, and said, “I’ve got things to do here. You can talk to me while I do them, or you can go away. Makes no difference to me. If you want to hang around, though, you can go open the gate for the babies.”
She was wearing leggings again, black ones this time, and the same polka-dot apron. No sweater, just a close-fitting, long-sleeved purple knit shirt. She didn’t look one bit sweet to him this morning, maybe because he knew too much. Her body did look like the pictures, though, as much as you could tell from the angle and the closeness of the shots.
He hadn’t been wrong. He wasn’t wrong.
She didn’t wait obligingly for him to do his reassessment. She grabbed a wheelbarrow, trundled it over to one of the stalls, and began to muck it out with a pitchfork. Shoveling fast, but with an awkwardness to it all the same. He said, “You told the truth about your leg. You’re injured.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him and said, “I thought I asked you to open the gate for the babies.”
He did it, and told himself it didn’t put him at a disadvantage. Then he stood by the gate, barely noticing the excited mother/child reunion, took the backpack off his shoulders, ran a hand through his hair, and thought it through. When he went back into the shed, he said, “Here. Let me do that. It’s hurting.”
Why did he say it? Damned if he knew. It would have been better to have her off-balance, and pain and fear put you off balance like nothing else. It wasn’t just the mixed signals she was sending, either. It was his own mixed reactions. Getting soft. Getting too far away from the game. Which was dangerous.
She looked at him again, a measuring thing, laid the pitchfork against the stall wall, said, “Fine,” and unhooked a feed tray from the wall, fumbling with it. He could sense her frustration, but he didn’t offer to help. Instead, he waited for her to finish, then picked up the pitchfork and started in himself.
She didn’t say anything else, and it surprised him. Surely she’d explain. Excuse. But she didn’t. They worked in silence until the fresh straw was down, the hay and water containers cleaned out and refilled, and then she glanced at him and said, “Chickens.”
“Chickens,” he said gravely, and she almost smiled. She took a basket from the shelf, went to the coop, and opened the door to let them out, which happened in a flutter of wings and a rush of feathery orange and white bodies. She did it after the milking, the way she should have done the first time. Had she been hung over the day before? On something? What? How did she know how now when she hadn’t then?
She didn’t help him out. She just said, “Refill their water,” and he did it without a word. After she’d collected the eggs from the nesting box, she stood up and said, “You’re still here, for some reason, so you can help me carry everything to the house.”
“A woman as aware as you are,” he said, walking back to the shed with her, “and you’ve got no qualms about letting me into your house? Alone?”
“No,” she said, handing him the milking containers and funnel and taking the milk bottle and her basket of eggs. “I don’t. I’d say that you’re the one who should be worried.”
He picked up his backpack and followed her. Whatever her plan was, he outweighed her by a good sixty pounds, he’d had a wee bit of training, and he was armed and she wasn’t. Besides, he had a Ridgeback. She’d lost the element of surprise, and he had a lion hunter.
He’d say he was in pretty good shape.