Andy chuckled and shook his head. “Hey, at least I’m the kind of guy who asks instead of gossiping with the neighbors.”
Barrie laughed. “I’ll give you that. But there’s nothing to wonder about. Curtis is back in town long enough to sell the building I’m leasing. Then he’s leaving.”
“Oh, yeah?” Andy shot Curtis a questioning look. “You have something going on?”
“I’m buying a stud farm with a business partner,” Curtis replied.
“Have you seen anyone else from the old days?” Andy asked as they headed toward the barn door.
“Not really planning on sticking around for a reunion,” Curtis said with a short laugh. “Are any of the guys still in town?”
“A few.”
“Whatever happened to Dwight Petersen?” Curtis asked. Andy frowned, then caught Barrie’s eye.
“Drank himself into oblivion,” Barrie answered for him. “You can find him at the Honky Tonk pretty much any day of the week.”
“Anyone try to help him out?” Curtis asked.
“Who hasn’t?” Andy replied. “I’ve personally driven him to AA several times, but it never seems to stick. People have pretty much given up.” Andy pulled open the barn door. “Fifteen years changes a lot.”
Barrie had to admit that Andy had probably tried harder than most people to get Dwight some help, which was magnanimous considering the history his wife, Dakota, had with the guy. But Dwight was one of those people who, faced with two choices, would pick the wrong one every time.
Andy went into the barn first, and Curtis held the door for Barrie. She glanced up as she passed in front of him, the faint smell of musk tickling her nose. His dark gaze followed her, and he moved in close behind her as the door shut. Andy moved on ahead, and Curtis’s hand pressed against the small of her back, nudging her forward. She could feel the warmth emanating from his body, and his touch softened, turned more gentle and pliant...
She knew that touch... Her breath caught, and she shut her eyes for a moment, pushing back her familiar physical response. Why couldn’t fifteen years have changed that? She missed those warm touches, the smell of his cologne.
“Don’t do that,” she murmured, glancing back.
“Do what?” His dark eyes glittered in the low light, and her heart gave a flutter. His hand was still on her back, warm and solid.
“That. Be all gentlemanly.”
She had no right to miss him. He belonged in the past, and she’d worked too hard to get where she was to let herself romanticize a doomed relationship. Like Andy said, fifteen years changed a lot around here.
Curtis’s warm touch dropped away. “Sorry about that. Habit, I guess.”
Habit... They’d had a good long time to break those habits, but she understood what he meant. Curtis coming back seemed to conflate the time in some ways, bring back memories so solidly that they ached.
She picked up her pace and sucked in a deep, stabilizing breath. She’d rather do this job without Curtis here to distract her, but she’d take what she could right now.
The barn was warm and smelled of tangy hay. The white goat, Butter Cream, was now in a stall with a couple of new kids. The low moo of weaned calves echoed against the walls, and Barrie followed Andy’s lead toward the west side of the barn. Dakota was waiting, filling feed pails for the calves. When she turned toward them, Barrie was surprised at how large her belly had become. Petite Dakota was pregnant, too, but much further along. She was carrying the baby all in front, it seemed.
“Barrie!” Dakota shot her a grin. “Look at you! I haven’t seen you since you started to show. How far along are you now?”
Barrie glanced down at her own belly—much smaller than her friend’s.
“About five months,” she replied. “You?”
“Eight months. Ready to be done with this already.” She looked tired and a little wan.
Andy arrived at his wife’s side and reached for the pail of feed she held. Dakota shot him a look of warning. “I’ve got it, Andy. I’m fine.”
Andy put his hands up in retreat. “Just trying to help.”
“I don’t need help,” Dakota snapped. Then her cheeks flushed. “Sorry, I’m testy.”
“She is,” Andy confirmed. “But since I contributed to this pregnancy, I still keep trying to help.”
Andy grinned at his wife, and Dakota looked ready to smack him. It was the hormones—Barrie could recognize that straight away. Barrie was feeling the same way—irritable and ready to lambaste whoever tried to help her out. She knew it wasn’t a wise approach, but she couldn’t seem to help herself, either. Wasn’t motherhood supposed to soften her? Instead she was getting more frustrated, and the only way to make herself feel better was to prove that she didn’t need extra help. Judging from Dakota’s reaction, maybe she wasn’t alone in that.
Andy and Curtis moved off to check some of the new calves, leaving the women in privacy.
“So... Curtis?” Dakota asked quietly as Barrie set down her bag and opened it.
“Your husband already asked,” Barrie said with a bitter laugh. She pulled out some syringes and the bottles of vaccine fluid. “There’s nothing to tell. He’s selling the building I’m leasing and then leaving town. He feels like he owes me something. And he does.”
Dakota eyed her questioningly. “Is he the father?”
Barrie rolled her eyes. “No, he’s not the father. He’s just the idiot ex-husband who’s going to sell my office space to Palmer Berton.”
“Ouch.” Dakota shook her head. “‘Idiot’ is right.”
Barrie sighed. Except she could grudgingly understand why he was doing it—it just wasn’t convenient for her right now. But this pregnancy was her own fault...well, hers and the married vet who wanted nothing to do with her.
“Andy’s driving you crazy, is he?” Barrie asked.
“Oh, I’m going nuts...” Dakota sighed. “He keeps trying to take things out of my hands, or he’ll hand me little bites of food like I’m a squirrel or something—” She gritted her teeth. “It sounds stupid when I say it, but I feel huge, and my hormones are soaring and...”
“Yeah, I get it.” Barrie chuckled. “He’s a good guy, though.”
“I didn’t say I don’t love him,” Dakota said with a shake of her head. “I just want to kill him half the time. I really hope this improves once the baby arrives, because I don’t know how much longer he’ll be able to stand me.”
Barrie looked over to where Curtis and Andy stood together. Andy’s gentle green-eyed gaze was focused on his wife. Curtis’s dark gaze drilled into Barrie. He wasn’t flirting or teasing—she was well accustomed to both with Curtis. This was a different look, something slightly guarded but filled with painful longing. Her heart sped up, and she swallowed, breaking the eye contact.
“Andy still seems pretty smitten to me,” Barrie said.
“You sure Curtis’s only here to sell that property?” Dakota asked softly.
Barrie sighed. “I’m positive. We aren’t all as lucky as you are.”
Except that look he’d given her—he missed all of this, too. She knew better than to think it changed a single thing, but whatever it was that had drawn them together in the first place hadn’t gone away.
Barrie pulled her attention back to the job at hand. None of them had time to waste. This ranch wouldn’t run itself, and neither would the Porter ranch.
“Okay, so let’s get started,” Barrie said. “I’ve got the first vaccines ready. Let’s begin with this stall here, and we’ll work our way back.”
For Barrie, doing her job helped to soothe that rising anxiety inside her. She might not know how to balance everything as a single mother, but she did know how to give animals medical care. Sometimes it helped to just stick with her strengths and sort out her other fee
lings when she could be alone.
Chapter Seven
The mechanic had assured Barrie that her truck would be finished by noon the next day, and she was going to keep him to that. While she didn’t have any scheduled appointments, there was always the possibility of an emergency call. She needed her truck. Curtis had been kind to help her out yesterday, but she couldn’t allow that to get out of hand. She was still attracted to him—frustrating as that was—and the memory of his hand on her back warmed her. They’d always had chemistry, and that had been the problem. She hadn’t been thinking straight when she married Curtis; it had been a heady mix of passion and defiance that she’d lived to regret.
Earlier in the morning, Barrie’s father had called her during his break at work. She always had been Daddy’s girl, and even at the age of thirty-seven, she liked it when her father checked in.
“Just calling to make sure you’re okay, sweetheart,” he’d said. “And to see if you need me to talk to the mechanic for you.”
“Dad, I can do that alone.” She’d chuckled. “I’m not sixteen.”
“If you need me, though—”
“Dad, I’ll always need you,” she’d reassured him. “But not for the mechanic today. I’ll be fine.”
He’d grudgingly let her go and headed back to work, but she appreciated the thought. Her dad made her feel safe in that elemental way that fathers had.
When noon approached, Barrie locked up her clinic and headed down the street toward the garage. The day was overcast and little shards of snow spun down from the sky. The temperature had dropped overnight and she wrapped her scarf a little closer around her neck.
Hope’s downtown shops were decorated for Christmas, the lights in the windows glowing comfortingly into the snowy street. Their radiance was especially welcome since the low clouds kept the day darker than normal. Barrie walked past the drugstore’s display window, which had a faux fireplace with stockings hung. Some wrapped boxes sat in the far corner beside a plate of half-eaten cookies. The bookstore had books wrapped in colorful paper stacked in the shape of a Christmas tree. The bakery next door had chocolate yule logs on display, as well as plates of elegantly decorated shortbread cookies, and she paused at that window, her heart filling with sadness.
Mom, I miss you so much...
Barrie had been trying her hand at shortbread cookies for weeks now—a connection to her mother that she just couldn’t get right. They always ended up brittle and tasteless, and her cookie icing skills were amateur at best. Her fixation on recreating her mom’s cookies had been taking over her free time. She knew that she couldn’t replace her mom’s presence in her life with a plate of perfectly turned out shortbread cookies, but she had such cozy memories associated with them that she wanted to be able to do the same for her own child. Then she could say, “My mom used to bake these, too,” and Gwyneth wouldn’t be quite so far away...
Barrie’s veterinary practice was on the east end of Montana Avenue, and Hope Auto was on the west end, so her walk was a direct one—straight through downtown. Her toes were chilled through her boots by the time she reached the auto shop, and she pulled open the main door with a shiver.
No one was in the office. She let the door shut behind her, listening to the soft chime of the motion detector that let the mechanic know someone had come in. She shook the snow from her coat and waited for a few moments before the side door opened and Norm Reed came in, wiping his hands on an oil-stained cloth.
“Morning, Dr. Jones,” Norm said. “You here to pick up your truck?”
“I am,” she replied.
“I’ve got some bad news there,” Norm said, and her stomach sank.
“Is the fix worse than you thought?” she asked.
“No, not that,” he replied. “Brent’s kid is sick, so he couldn’t come in today. I’m on my own, and I haven’t gotten to your truck yet.”
“Oh...” She sighed. “Norm, I can’t run my practice without my vehicle.”
“I know, I know. And it’s top priority. I’ll have it done by morning. That’s a promise. I’ll stay here all night if I have to. Is that fair enough?”
“It’ll have to be,” she said with a tired smile. “Thanks, Norm. I appreciate it.”
Norm hooked a thumb toward the garage. “I’ll get back to it, then. I’ll call if it’s done early.”
Barrie exited the shop and started back down Montana Avenue. Everything seemed to be slipping lately, and that was part of her dedication to those blasted cookies. She was cautious by nature, and she didn’t do anything without a proper plan in place—she’d done well following that rule. But this baby hadn’t been planned, and neither had Curtis’s arrival in town. She’d worked so hard to get her life safe and orderly, and Curtis had breezed in, determined to sell her building. So yes, she needed to feel in control of something that mattered, something she could pass on.
Barrie’s stomach growled. She was always hungry lately, and she might as well stop at the Vanilla Bean for a Danish and a coffee. There wasn’t much else she could do today. At the very least, she could enjoy a few minutes in Hope’s only coffee shop.
When she got to the Vanilla Bean, she could smell the sweet scent of coffee from the sidewalk. Her stomach rumbled again, and she pulled open the door and stepped into the welcome warmth. The shop had a few patrons scattered inside, and as Barrie approached the counter to place her order, someone called her name.
She turned to see her good friend Mallory Cruise sitting by the window, her four-year-old son, Beau, opposite her. Barrie waved.
“I’m coming right over,” she said. “Let me just order.”
Mallory gave her a thumbs-up, and Barrie ordered a decaf mocha latte with a cherry Danish on the side. Then she crossed the room to Mallory’s table.
“How are you doing?” Mallory asked, moving her purse from the chair next to her so that Barrie could sit.
“I’m fine,” Barrie said. “How are you all?”
“Katie’s in school,” Beau, the four-year-old, announced. “And I’m having a treat without her.”
Barrie got herself settled, her latte and Danish in front of her. “You’re lucky, Beau.”
“Yup,” Beau agreed, biting into his chocolate muffin.
Mallory was married to Mike Cruise, one of the cops on the force here in Hope. She’d arrived in town only a few years ago, but she was already a solid part of the community. Barrie and Mallory had hit it off almost as soon as they met.
“We’re all fine,” Mallory said, answering her earlier question with a smile. “We’re going to Disneyland next month.”
“Are you really?” Barrie said, taking a sip of her latte. “When did this happen?”
“Mike surprised me for my birthday. Or he tried to...” Mallory chuckled. “The travel agent called our home to clarify which room we wanted yesterday.”
Barrie laughed. “He tried.”
“And I’m not complaining,” Mallory said with a grin. “You’re still coming to the Christmas party, aren’t you?”
The party... Barrie grimaced. She’d completely forgotten. She wasn’t in the mood to dress up and make nice—not with everything on her plate lately.
“I have nothing to wear,” Barrie said. And that was the truth. “I have some jeans, and I’ve got a few big sweaters, but I’m in no way set up for a party, Mal.”
“Let me take you shopping.” Mallory’s eyes lit up. “I never got to do that stuff, either. I was hiding the first half of my pregnancy and then I was on bedrest for the last half of it, so there were no cute maternity outfits for me.”
“I don’t know...” Barrie had never been into fashion, and shopping for new clothes had always been mildly intimidating.
“Trust me,” Mallory said. “You’ll feel better once you own something that fits properly. Let me take
you shopping, and there’s no pressure to buy.”
“This is more for you than it is for me, isn’t it?” Barrie asked with a small smile.
“Maybe.” Mallory chuckled.
Barrie’s phone rang, and she glanced down at the number. “Oh, it’s Leanne from 4-H. I’d better take this.”
Mallory nodded and turned her attention to Beau, who had slopped some hot chocolate onto the tabletop.
“Hi, Leanne,” Barrie said. “How are you doing?”
“Not too badly,” Leanne replied, but she sounded slightly nervous. “I needed to speak with you.”
“Oh?” Barrie turned away from the table and ducked her head for a bit more privacy. “What’s going on?”
“It’s delicate,” Leanne said, and there was apology in her tone. “First of all, I need you to know that this has nothing to do with me. When we voted, I voted for you, but a lot of the mothers have been raising concerns.”
“About what, exactly?” Barrie asked, misgivings rising up inside her.
“About you speaking to the girls next week,” Leanne said. “They’re concerned that your pregnancy might be a distraction.”
“From what?” Barrie couldn’t help the flatness that entered her tone. “I’ll be talking about veterinary care. I’m not doing a belly dance.”
“They’re young and impressionable,” Leanne said. “And your pregnancy has been the talk of the town for weeks now.”
“So I’m an unwed professional who happens to be pregnant, and that makes me a danger to their morals?” Barrie wasn’t even trying to hide her irritation now. They’d asked her to talk to the girls, and she’d agreed. She hadn’t gone looking for this.
“It’s not me!” Leanne insisted.
“Is it Jen Hartfield?” Barrie asked with a sigh. For all of her compassion for Jen’s history, she was getting really tired of being the target around here.
“Not only her,” Leanne said. “I got outvoted. I don’t think it should be an issue, but the other mothers do. They think you’re a bad example.”
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