Chapter Thirty
Allie
I was woken up early the next morning by a light knock on the door. Curtis was standing outside framed against a gray sky, clutching his cast-iron skillet in one hand and a silver spatula in the other. Behind him, in the east, the darkness was blushing with the first faint light of day.
“What’re you doin’ over here so early?” I asked him, yawning. “Cats ain’t even up yet. I had to push ‘em off of me to get to the door.”
“I didn’t know they ever went to sleep,” said Curtis. “Anyway, I figured, seeing as how it’s Sunday morning, instead of getting up and coming to breakfast, you might stay in bed and let breakfast come to you.”
I laughed. “Is that what the skillet’s for? I’m just glad you’re not going to kill me.” I led him into the tiny house, where he set the skillet down on the countertop in the kitchen area. “You sure you got everything you need?”
“Do you have eggs?” Curtis asked. “If not, I can probably slip into Mama’s house and get some.”
“Isn’t that what you got hens for?” I asked with my hands on my hips. “Why do you need my eggs?”
Curtis held up his hands in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, fine. But if you’re telling me you’d rather eat Mama’s farm-fresh eggs rather than whatever junk you’ve got sitting in your fridge, well, then don’t blame if this breakfast turns out to be the best you’ve ever had.”
He turned and went out to the house, returning a few minutes later with about half a dozen eggs in his apron. “Shouldn’t need more than this,” he said tersely as he set them down on the counter.
“What are you planning on making?” I asked him. “Or is it a secret?”
“It is a secret,” said Curtis, “but there is one person I think I can trust with it, if she’ll give me a kiss.”
I thought the bargain over for a second, then said, “Nah, I’ll just wait.” Curtis’ face fell; he looked both surprised and disappointed. “I’m kidding!” I ran over and gave him a quick peck on the mouth. “Now you have to tell me.”
“I am making us,” said Curtis, drawing out each word, “a bacon, cheddar, and chives omelet. You’ve had bacon before, I know. And you’ve had omelets. The question I want to ask you is: have you ever had bacon and omelets in the same bite?”
I shook my head. “No, although you’d think I would have tried that at some point.”
“Well, today,” said Curtis grandly, then paused and lowered his voice. “You wouldn’t happen to have any bacon in your fridge?”
I shook my head, smirking irresistibly. “I’m fresh out of bacon.”
“Be right back.”
Again, Curtis left. While I was waiting for him to return with the bacon, my phone buzzed. Thinking he might be trying to call me, I picked it up and immediately let out a loud sigh. It was Dave.
I answered on the third buzz. “Hey, what’s up?”
“Hey!” I could barely hear him over the roar of what sounded like a helicopter. “Sorry to bother you on Sunday morning, but you have to get dressed! We have work to do!”
My stomach sank: the day I had planned with Curtis was about to be interrupted. At the same time, I had an odd feeling like he was the doctor, and I was one of his companions being dragged along on a dangerous adventure. “Can’t it wait until after breakfast?” I asked him.
“Meet me at the clinic in exactly one hour!” he shouted. “We have a baby horse to deliver!”
He hung up. I swore at the phone and slammed it down on the counter, raking my fingers through my hair in exasperation.
Just then Curtis came back into the house, looking alarmed. “What was that all about?”
“It’s my boss. A horse is pregnant, and he needs me to help him deliver it. Looks like we won’t able to go riding today. I’m so sorry.”
Curtis’ face fell, but he made a game attempt to look supportive. “Well, at least we’ll get to enjoy a fabulous breakfast first. Look, I found fresh bacon in Mama’s fridge and some maple breakfast sausage.” He threw the packages down on the counter. Even uncooked, they had a delicious aroma.
We spent so much of the next hour cooking and having food fights that by the time the sausage was finished, I only had a few minutes to eat it. Tossing the last of my omelette into a Tupperware container to eat on the way, I gave Curtis a quick smooch on the cheek and dashed out the door.
Weirdly, the horse-birthing ended up being not the worst part of my day. Once we drove out to the farm, once I was crouched in the barn with my hands on the mare’s legs, I remembered why I had taken this job in the first place. “It’s a mystery to me how you got her to calm down,” Mrs. Dalton told me. “She’s been moaning all morning, miserable. Then the second you stepped into the stall and put your hands on her, she became as still as a whisper.”
No, the worst of it came once the foal had been delivered, when Dave and I were kneeling together waiting for Mrs. Dalton to return with a hot water bottle.
“Look, I know this probably isn’t the best time,” said Dave, and I knew at once it almost certainly wasn’t, “but I hope there are no hard feelings about our date the other night.”
From the way he was staring at the ground, awaiting my response, I had the prickly feeling he had been lying awake at night reliving the humiliation of that dinner for the last couple of nights. “Dave, don’t blame yourself for what happened,” I said. “Things were never going to work out between us, and that didn’t become clear to me until we sat down to dinner.”
“I guess not, but I still feel terrible for badgering you to go out with me.”
“Well, let that feeling guide you to make better choices in the future. You’re my boss, so I really shouldn’t be working for you anyway. Let’s agree never to talk again about what happened between us, and promise me—promise me you’ll never hit on me again.”
Dave nodded reluctantly. “Yes,” he said, half to himself. “I suppose it’s best.”
“It is,” I said. “We could never be happy together because we have nothing in common. Even if you were dating me, you would still feel lonely and frustrated. You would be miserable. Trust me on this.”
Luckily, at that moment Mrs. Dalton returned with the hot water bottle, rescuing me from what might have been a prolonged and tortuous conversation. Dave seemed listless and unfocused for the rest of our visit, only speaking when he was asked a question, and even then only in whispers. It was with a feeling of immense relief that I watched him climb into his car at the end and wave goodbye to Mrs. Dalton, but he drove past me as if I wasn’t there.