Chapter Nineteen
“Did you tell her?” Bailey asked. She’d come out of Addie’s cabin and was heading across the yard before they’d even parked his truck.
Sawyer climbed out, gave her a little shake of his head, and saw her breathe a little sigh of relief.
“Tell me what?” Sunny asked, as she hopped down from the passenger side.
“Nice,” Bailey said, pointing down at her hiking boots.
Sunny smiled and pointed one toe, turning the ankle-high leather boot one way, then the other. “Thanks. I figure I should be ready for anything up here at this point.”
“They won’t last one winter up here,” she said. “You need something waterproof.”
Sunny’s smile drooped. “Huh. Well, maybe when you come visit me, we can go boot shopping.”
Sawyer watched the two and thought what a difference six weeks had made, for both Bailey and Sunny. Bailey was still Bailey, and he noted she remained quiet and watchful when she was around most folks, but with him, Addie, Seth, and now Sunny, she’d clearly opted to start sharing her observations rather than keep them all inside her head.
“Hey, Bailey,” Sawyer said, motioning her over to the back of the truck. They’d gone to the mill first and left Sunny’s car there. Since they had to go right by it on the way to his cabin, and because they’d already spent most of the day in separate cars, they’d opted to take the trip up to Addie’s in his truck. He lowered the tailgate and opened the door to the cap he’d put on the back after the last snow. “Can you help me with this?”
She came right over. “With what?” Her face lit up and he liked that she was also starting to be as open about revealing her emotions as she was about her thoughts. It made her seem more like a kid, even if she was still ten going on thirty. “Did you get the mesh wire to put around the rest of the pasture fencing?”
He nodded. “I did. And Seth is going to bring over more board fencing he had left over, too, so we can make the space even bigger. He motioned into the bed of the truck.
Bailey peeked inside, then saw the two crates. Her mouth dropped open and her eyebrows climbed halfway up her tanned little foreheard.
“Addie thought that since sheep are flock animals, it would be better for—what did you name her again?”
Bailey was still staring, slack-jawed, into the back of the truck. “Peep.” She finally tore her gaze away and looked at Sawyer. “Sunny said she was a triplet. Are these the other two?”
“One is her sister, but the other female isn’t related. Distant cousin, maybe.” The third lamb had been a male, and Sawyer didn’t want to get into a discussion on breeding or the differences in male/female sheep relationships. Although, on second thought, given all the farms she’d lived on, he suspected Bailey could probably tell him a thing or three about that. She was at least one live goat birth ahead of him, at any rate.
“Addie knows?” she asked, and he could see she was banking her hope against any possibility that this might not actually be happening.
“It was her idea,” Sunny said, walking over. “I guess I should have thought of it when I got Peep.” She grinned at Bailey. “I like the name.”
Bailey nodded, but looked pleased that Sunny liked her idea. “I think I’ll call that one Red,” she said, pointing to the other triplet. “And since that one’s a girl, too, it can’t be Wolfie. Or Thor. Since she’s older . . .” She looked at Sawyer and a mischievous light twinkled in her eyes. “How about Grandma?”
“I like it,” Sawyer said, though he planned on letting Bailey tell Addie about her naming strategy.
“Addie said she’s already got plans for the wool when it comes time to shear them,” Sunny told her. “Apparently, they turn more gray and red when they get older.” She laughed. “Which actually makes their names that much more perfect.” She put her hand up to high-five Bailey, but instead she opted to give Sunny a quick hug.
“Thank you,” she told Sunny. Then she turned to Sawyer, and hugged him full out. “Thanks, Sawyer. Thanks for going to get them.” She looked up at him, put her hand up next to her mouth, and whispered, “And thanks for getting her here.” She pointed surreptitiously to Sunny.
Sawyer could see Sunny’s ears prick up at that, but he smiled over Bailey’s head and shrugged, as if to say, “crazy kids.” But he could tell Sunny knew something was up.
“My pleasure, kiddo,” he said, and gave her braid a tug. “Go ahead and hop up in there and help move the crates to the gate.”
* * *
The next two hours were spent unloading, then getting the critters down the hill and to the fenced-in former-garden-turned-paddock area. Fortunately, the sun had been shining and temperatures had been up in the fifties all week, so the better part of the snow had melted. It made for a muddy, mucky mess, but it was far easier to traverse the downhill path that way than in the slippery, icy snow.
Peep began bleating the moment she laid eyes on the other two lambs. Sawyer didn’t know if sheep siblings could recognize one another, and there was a fair amount of head butting and general trouncing of each other going on, but nobody was getting hurt, so he thought things would work out okay. Seth showed up in the middle of it all, and he and Sawyer spent another hour shoring up the fence so it would be sturdy enough for when the sheep got bigger, and adding the taller mesh around the rest of the wood fencing so they could have a larger grazing area.
Bailey took Sunny over to the old stone crofter’s hut that had been built right into the side of the mountain, just at the edge of the small pasture. Addie had used the place for storage and a potting shed back when she’d had her vegetable garden there. Sawyer was working on the fencing just outside the open doorway, and he shamelessly listened in, curious whether Bailey would spill the beans, but not otherwise intruding on their time alone.
Bailey showed Sunny how Will and Hanford—he of oak barrel ice cream churn fame—had spent time earlier in the week gutting out the interior of the croft and patching up some of the stonework to turn it into a makeshift stable.
“This is amazing,” Sunny said, looking around. “Perfect, really. Will they all be okay in here together?”
Bailey nodded. “The goats did fine that way, except when they were pregnant or just had babies. I’ve been reading about these kinds of sheep. They should be fine.” She was quiet for a few moments while Sunny scoped out the place more closely, then asked, “Are you staying?”
Sunny nodded. “Tonight? Yep. I’m going to have to leave really early though, to get in to the city before it’s too awfully late, so I don’t think I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Oh,” Bailey said, sounding a little deflated.
“But you’re coming to see me in, what, five days? Addie and I worked it out to meet halfway on Friday after I get done working.”
“She told me,” Bailey said, politely enough, but there was no real enthusiasm either.
Sunny must have heard it, too, because she asked, “Do you still want to come?” sounding sincerely surprised by the apparent shift. There was another pause, and then she said, “Oh, you’re worried about the lambs, aren’t you?” She laughed. “I wish I could say you can just bring them with you, but I really don’t have anywhere for them to stay. I think they’d do a pretty good number on my garden.”
“Maybe you could bring me back on Sunday, and stay over to Monday. It’s a holiday, so you won’t have to get up so early. I could ask Sawyer if it’s okay for you to stay with him.”
Sawyer might have choked a little on that last part and hoped he didn’t give himself away, as he was now about a hair’s breadth from the open side window, no longer even trying to look like he wasn’t listening in.
“I’m sure he won’t mind,” Bailey went on.
“Well, I—”
“He likes you,” Bailey blurted out. “A lot.”
He heard Sunny’s soft laugh; then she said, “Well, that’s a good thing. I like him a lot, too. But, unfortunately, I’ve got some work to do at the conservatory that weekend for the presentation later the following week. I was sort of hoping you’d come and help me with it.”
“I can do that,” Bailey said, her polite tone back. Her enthusiasm meter was still around zero, however.
“I thought you were kind of excited to come,” Sunny said, her tone one of sincere curiosity. “It’s okay if you’d rather stay here. I know I’d probably feel the same if I had new little four-legged charges. I know it might sound funny, but how you feel about your lamb—lambs now—is how I feel about my orchids.”
“But they’re just plants,” Bailey said and Sawyer smiled, because she’d sounded just like Sunny. Not accusatory, but sincerely curious.
“Plants are living things, too,” Sunny said. “Not in the way animals are, but they need air, and they need food, and the right kind of temperature in order to survive.”
“I guess I never thought of it that way.” There was a pause; then she said, “So, you really love them. Your orchids?”
“I do,” Sunny said.
Sawyer could almost hear Bailey’s heart sink and his own took a bit of a hit as well.
Then Sunny said, “If you’d like, I could show you how to grow some. There are some species of North American orchids that grow wild in mountain areas like this. We could probably get some Showy Lady’s Slippers to grow on Addie’s property, not too far from the house.”
“Are they rare?”
“Some are, but I was thinking of starting off with something a little hardier.”
“That would be cool,” Bailey said, sounding sincere, but like she was still mulling it over. “When could we do that? You’d come up here to help, right?”
“I would, and we could do it as soon as the temperatures are right.”
“Not in the winter, then.”
There was another pause and Sawyer assumed Sunny was shaking her head no.
Then Bailey said, “You grow them all year in your greenhouses at work though, right?”
“We control the environment there, so yes. We can start yours there, then transplant them.”
“Okay, cool,” she said. “We should check on Sawyer and Seth. They’re probably done.” There was a definite spark in her voice now, and while Sunny might think it was about her orchid growing offer, Sawyer suspected it had a different source entirely.
He quickly moved away from the window and was staple-gunning mesh to a fence post when Bailey came around the corner of the croft.
“Sunny said she has to leave early tomorrow, so we need to go down to the mill now,” Bailey told him. She moved closer, and looked over her shoulder to see if Sunny had followed her. “I don’t think we can wait,” she said in a whisper. She glanced over her shoulder again, but Sunny had walked across to where the lambs were scrambling around and was laughing at their antics. Bailey sighed in relief, then looked back to Sawyer and said, “It’s all going to work out. I told her how much you liked her, and she said she liked you a lot, too. But we have to show her so she knows it will all work out.”
Sawyer’s heart had been yanked in so many directions since the two sisters had come into his life. He wondered if they had any idea how similar they were. Caretakers by nature, whether of flora or fauna, and survivors, both of them, sturdy and strong, but with hearts that were still very tender.
He finished stapling the last of the mesh and scooped up the leftover. “I think we can manage it. Hold up,” he said when Bailey looked like she was about to run off to tell Sunny and Seth they were leaving. “Bailey—” He started, then paused, because she’d turned back to him, and gone was that guarded ten-year-old who kept herself carefully apart. All the hope in the world was shining out of those big baby blues, and he wanted like hell to promise her the moon and the stars for being so damn brave. He wanted to tell her that it had in some part been her willingness to put herself out there with her newfound Blue Hollow Falls family that had pushed him to do the same with Sunny.
Instead, he was as honest as he could be. “What you’ve done, and Seth, Will, too—”
“You’ve helped, too,” she said, and he could see her bracing herself, pulling back behind that carefully guarded wall. He hated that.
“I have, and that’s because I think it’s a really great thing you did, are doing. It shows how gigantic your heart is. Big enough to fit all of us inside, those lambs over there, and who knows what else. I know you can’t comprehend what a good thing that is, but it shows what kind of person you are.”
“You’re going to tell me it won’t work. She won’t stay.”
“I’m going to tell you that we can’t make her stay. That’s not the same thing. Some people sit around and moan that life isn’t giving them what they want. You didn’t do that. You got up and figured out a solution. That’s damn impressive.” He didn’t apologize for the swear word, because she’d earned the accolade. “But it’s not a guarantee. That’s all I’m saying here. She’ll love you more for it, there’s not a single doubt in my mind. But the rest . . . it’s complicated.”
Bailey didn’t reply. She wasn’t pouting or anything, but her expression could only be described as stubborn. Privately, Sawyer thought that trait would likely end up serving her just as well as the others he’d mentioned. Maybe more. She didn’t like hearing something couldn’t be done. Most of the world’s biggest successes were motivated by that very same trait.
“I’m on your side,” he told her, walking over and putting a hand on her shoulder when she turned back to watch Sunny and Seth laughing over the lambs. “I want her here, too.”
Bailey looked up at him. “You really do?”
“I can make you one promise that I know I can keep.”
“What is that?”
“That I will always be honest with you.” He crouched down so they were at the same eye level and gently held on to both of her arms so she faced him. She held his gaze as directly as anyone he’d ever met. She’d put half the men in his unit to shame with her ability to maintain eye contact. He smiled at that. “I will do my best to give Sunny every reason there is to want to figure out a solution that will have her spending as much time in Blue Hollow Falls as she can. And I think she wants that, too. Not just for me, but for you, for Addie. Her biggest concern when we decided to—” He faltered for a moment.
“Start dating?”
“Yes,” he said, relieved. Sometimes adults could so overcomplicate things. “She worried that if we decided at some point we didn’t want to date anymore, it might make things awkward for you. She didn’t want that to happen.”
“Me, either,” Bailey said, quite bluntly. Equally bluntly, she added, “But you live here and she’s my sister, so it’s not like we couldn’t get over it if something happened.”
Sawyer laughed out loud at that, causing Sunny and Seth to look their way, both smiling.
He sent them a little wave, then looked back at Bailey. “Well, see, that’s what Seth said.”
“He’s a good friend,” she said. “He has my back.”
Sawyer chuckled. “Mine, too. And you couldn’t ask for a better person on your six.”
Her eyes brightened. “I know what that means. Seth told me it’s like if there is a huge clock lying flat on top of your head, and the twelve is in front of you, then the six is in back of you. So, having your back means he has your six o’clock.”
Sawyer grinned. “Exactly.”
She studied him with focused regard. “So, do you think you’ll ever stop liking Sunny?”
Sawyer glanced over at Sunny, who glanced up just then, as if feeling his gaze on her, and immediately smiled. “I don’t think so,” he said.
“Good. Then we just have to get her to say yes,” Bailey said, as if it was so obvious she didn’t get why the adults were being so lame. She grabbed his hand, pulled up. “So, let’s go. We’re burning daylight.”
“Did you get that from Seth, too?” he said, chuckling and letting her drag him along.
She shook her head. “Mr. Will says it. A lot.”
Sawyer nodded, smiled. “Sounds about right.”
“I’ll go up and make sure it’s okay with Miss Addie,” she said, all bottled energy now. “I’ll meet you at the truck.” She started to take off, then ran over to the lambs first. She entered the enclosure and went over to them, breaking them apart with absolute confidence that she wasn’t going to get nipped or bopped by an errant hoof, then proceeded to hug each lamb and give them all stern instructions on their expected behavior until she returned.
“I know I’d listen to her,” Seth said, coming to stand next to Sawyer.
Sunny and Sawyer both nodded, then watched as Bailey left the paddock, careful to exit through the double panel they’d set up to keep the sheep from inadvertently escaping when anyone entered or exited. And to their collective shock, all three lambs trotted over to the gate after she’d closed it, then wandered over to the water trough and began calmly sipping away, as if they’d been doing that the entire time.
“She’s the sheep whisperer,” Sunny said.
“Come on,” Bailey called out, already halfway up the steep trail that led to the house.
“And half mountain goat,” Sawyer added.
“Where are we going?” Sunny asked, as they began the climb back up the hill. “Does this have anything to do with whatever nefarious plans have been going on behind my back?” She laughed when both Seth and Sawyer instantly pasted on innocent expressions. “You’re about as subtle as Addie.”
Sawyer winced. “That transparent?”
“Like glass.”
“Well, the suspense will be over shortly,” Seth said, then jogged ahead and on up to the top like it was nothing more than a Sunday stroll in the park.
“You can see why the two of them get along so well,” Sawyer said, holding Sunny’s hand to help her over the slick, muddier parts.
“So, you’re not going to tell me? Not even a little hint?” She leaned in and batted her eyelashes.
“You drive a tough bargain,” he said, dropping a fast kiss on her mouth. “But I think I’m more afraid of the ten-year-old in this instance.”
Sunny laughed. “Good instincts.”
“They’ve kept me alive this long.” He led Sunny the rest of the way up the hill, wishing he had half of Bailey’s moxie. And trying like hell to keep the same hope from filling him that he’d seen filling her innocent, young baby blues.