CHAPTER THIRTY
Amber~
The sun had found her windows. The cabin was flooded with light. She was late. That would never do. The horses were used to their routines and morning stables had been underway for half an hour. Her phone alarm had not gone off because she had not turned it back on after she got home.
She scrambled into her clothes, ignored her coffee pot and laid table, and headed for the stable block as fast as the freshly fallen snow would permit. Even so, she took note that all around her cabin, the snowfall her nose had predicted the night before was unmarred. No one had been prowling around while she slept.
She had already made sure a snake couldn’t come slithering through a gap around the plumbing or electrical wires. The cabin was caulked as tight as a drum against critters and winter. It had triple-glazed windows which she wasn’t opening until it got a lot warmer. The doors fit snugly, and her wood stove might be banked during her absence, but the chimney was still a death trap for anything that tried to use it as an entrance.
She sniffed the air. A coyote had been hunting nearby and had caught a rabbit. And someone was adding horse apples to the manure pile out by the barn. She was super late. She dashed into the empty tack room stripping off her parka as she went. She grabbed her gear and headed for Sissy’s stall.
The mare was chomping busily at the remnants in her hay net. Sissy barely lifted her head when Amber came into her stall with broom and pitchfork. Beneath her glossy coat Amber could see ripples as the foal tried to turn in what had undoubtedly become tight quarters. This morning Sissy smelled pungent. Amber figured that meant the mare was now even closer to impending motherhood.
From out in the aisles she could hear two masculine voices rumbling back and forth. Carlos and Calvin. What was he doing here? She had thought he and Jeremy were going back to Denver to do whatever stuff those two big shots did for B&B Oil. It’s none of your fricking business, she reminded herself as she got busy changing Sissy’s straw and making sure the mare had fresh rations and water.
The rumbling continued. Both voices sounded tense. She strained her ears, but even her sensitive bear hearing could not make out full sentences. She dumped her wheelbarrow out by the barn and went back to finish grooming Sissy, who was even less cooperative than usual. She was humming to quiet the mare when she became aware she was being watched.
Calvin stood in the doorway, arms folded across his burly chest. His fancy suit was gone. A plaid work shirt was rolled up to reveal muscular forearms and wrists. His faded denim jeans were snug and frayed. His tooled leather boots were clean and shiny, but the toes were scuffed and the heels worn down. For once he looked like he belonged on the Double B. And like a bear. A tame bear. But still a bear. Made a pleasant change.
“Good morning.” She tried to be natural, but her voice came out stiff.
“Sleep well?” he asked. Despite his smile, there was a subtle question in his tone. What was he driving at? Oh, right. She was late.
“I overslept,” she said curtly, brushing Sissy’s already shiny rump. “I’m not used to standing watch. I’ll make up the lost time.” Damned if she would ask what he was doing here.
“Steve took Laura to the hospital this morning,” he continued, just as if they often chatted idly in the mornings.
Her neck cramped. She stared at him over Sissy’s back. “That’s early,” she said. “Is she okay?”
“Seems to be.” His shoulders strained the seams of his flannel shirt as he shrugged. “Of course she’s still in labor. But no news is probably good news.”
Under his aura of masculine assurance, he was genuinely worried about his sister. Unwillingly she felt sympathy and tried to be reassuring. “Laura is strong and healthy. The hospital in Acton is first rate. She’ll be fine and so will her babies.”
“Thank you, Dr. Dupré,” he drawled.
Amber controlled an urge to bite. “Childbirth is a normal process,” she said gently. “Laura has had no problems so far, don’t worry until you have to.”
He grunted, leaned against the door frame and watched her comb out Sissy’s mane. “That mare is about to drop her foal,” he announced as she moved to the long-braided tail.
Amber left Sissy’s plait as it was and just combed out the loose end. “Probably. She has more discharge than yesterday, and it smells stronger.”
“Hmm. They usually wait until dark, but not always. I’ll get Carlos to examine her.” He vanished with surprising speed for such a big man. But no more quietly than any of her big cousins back home would have done. Like Joey and Gideon, and his own cousin Patrick, Calvin was in the Reserves. He had been trained to move silently and fast, as they had.
He returned just as swiftly and noiselessly with Carlos. “Morning, Amber,” Carlos said genially. “How’s it going, Sissy?” He scratched the mare’s muzzle.
Calvin held the mare’s bridle while the older man ran his latex gloved hands all over Sissy’s belly and flanks. “She’s having contractions all right. You want to stay with her, Cal?”
“I can. But I had expected to get cracking on those records today.”
Carlos stripped off the blue gloves and stuffed them into his hip pocket. “I know. Now do you see what I mean about Laura being spread too thin these days? She’s doing her own job as well as every dang thing Clive used to do. And she never used to be married and about to have her own babies.” The elderly foreman sounded exasperated as well as worried. Amber knew he was fond of Laura.
“Where’s Dad?” asked Calvin.
“He’s out stitching up a heifer that tangled with a barbed wire fence.” In Carlos’ drawl ‘barbed wire’ came out ‘bob war’.
“Maybe the Double B could use another veterinarian as well as an archivist,” Cal suggested.
“Laura and Dr. Freddie hired themselves a couple of veterinarians last month,” Carlos said. “But they don’t start for another two weeks.”
“And then they will have to be taught everything,” finished Calvin.
“Well, no. Both Dr. Franklin and Dr. Arruta did a practicum on the Double B a couple years back — before they qualified. They know our ways. It’s just that they are both working out their notice and can’t just drop everything to come ten days early.”
“I guess that’s something. You guys hire yourselves an archivist too?”
Carlos shook his head. “Laura is mighty choosy and she finds fault with every person we interview.”
Calvin chuckled. “She doesn’t really want to hire one.”
“Nope.”
Amber pulled a few strands of hair from the curry comb. “Should I turn out Gerty next, Carlos?”
“You should,” the foreman told her. “And then you come back here and give Calvin a hand with Sissy. He can explain the process to you.” He turned to Calvin. “She’s never seen a birth.”
The last thing Amber wanted was to share tight quarters under Calvin Bascom’s disapproving eye. But Carlos was the foreman. “Yes, sir. I’ll see to Gerty and then I’ll come back to Sissy.”
She made sure her best smile was pasted in place and got cracking on Gerty, who was in truth Fescue’s Great and Good Delux Delight. Like all the other mares, she was hugely pregnant. Amber nudged her aside and began the chore of clearing out the soiled bedding.