Spring Valley

by T. L. Haddix

Walker bussed her cheek. “Dangerous ideas. Fences and puppies and kittens and flower gardens… rocking chairs. An old bachelor like me, my heart isn’t strong enough to survive such a thing. Why, I’m getting lightheaded just talking about it.”

  Her grin was the sweetest, most wicked thing he’d ever seen. “I think I can probably figure out a way to revive you if you pass out. I’m feeling a bit weak in the knees myself.”

  When she started to sink down, he grabbed her. “Oh, no. None of that. I can’t have you fainting in front of the horses.”

  With that, he stooped and scooped her up, lifting her so that he carried her across his shoulder in a fireman’s hold.

  “Caleb Walker, put me down!”

  Instead, he smacked her behind with the flat of his hand, making her shriek with outraged laughter. “Hell, no. I have to drag you off to my bed first, put you in your place. I can’t have you getting these ideas.”

  She was snorting she was laughing so hard. “You idiot, put me down.”

  He started for the door, barely able to contain his own amusement. “Don’t struggle now. I’d hate to drop you.”

  “You are going to be in so much trouble when I can get my hands on you.”

  “That’s what you said last night.”

  She smacked his behind. “Yeah, well, last night, you—”

  Walker came to an abrupt halt as he cleared the barn door, cutting off her words. “Oh. Hi, Dad.”

  “Ahem. Sorry to interrupt your conversation, Caleb.” Trent Wells grinned down at him from atop the horse he rode. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Caleb?” Brooke asked weakly.

  He let her down gently, holding on to her as she regained her balance. “Didn’t hear you ride up.”

  His father chuckled. “You were making too big of a racket harassing that girl. How do you do?” He tipped his hat to Brooke.

  “Very well, thank you.” She glowered at Walker, her face bright red from embarrassment as well as from having been upside down.

  Walker made the introductions. “Brooke Harrison, my father, Trent Wells. Brooke works at the clinic. We were just, um… how’s Mom?”

  Oh, Trent was obviously enjoying his discomfort. “Worried about her boy. We’ve not seen you in a while, and we were starting to wonder if you’d left town or died or something.”

  “Dad, I was up there Tuesday night.”

  “For five minutes! Of course, now that I’ve met Brooke, everything makes sense.” Trent winked at her. “Arlen’s your father, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He’s a good man. We went to high school together, you know. I knew your mother too. She was something else, kept Arlen on his toes. You look a lot like her.”

  Brooke smiled. “Yes, she did. Thank you.”

  Trent gave a sharp nod. “Food’s on up at the house. Why don’t you two join us?”

  Though the words were delivered as a request, Walker knew there was a bit of a concerned demand hidden inside them. He looked at Brooke, who gave an uncertain shrug. Accepting Trent’s invitation would be as good as announcing to the family that they were involved. He wasn’t sure either of them was ready for that, but with Trent sitting right there, saying “no, thanks” would have been the height of rudeness.

  “We’ll drive up, meet you there.”

  “Good. It’s a small crowd today, just us and Theo and his brood,” Trent said. “Oh, and Dad and Eliza too. See you at the house.” With that, he turned the horse and trotted back down the trail that led to his and Cora’s place.

  Walker was almost afraid to breathe as he watched Brooke.

  With a muted squeak, she turned and punched him lightly in the shoulder then buried her face in his coat. “Oh, my God. I’m really going to kill you, Caleb Walker. What a way to meet someone.”

  He wrapped her in a hug. “Are you kidding me? He’ll be telling his grandkids this story twenty years from now. Not my kids, you understand. I’m not having kids,” he said in a mock-stern voice when she looked up in surprise. But he couldn’t keep a straight face, and as laughter set in, he held her tighter. “That was priceless. And I’m teasing about him telling everyone. He will tell Mom, but that’s as far as it’ll go.”

  At least until Trent was sure Brooke was going to be a permanent part of the family, then all bets were off. The idea that she could be around years down the road to tease sent a wave of panic through Walker. That fast, everything had shifted for him.

  When she’d started talking about the kitchen, started laying out what sounded like a plan, he realized he was in trouble because if he closed his eyes, he could see what she described. Only, in his vision, she was padding barefoot around that kitchen, dark-haired children clamoring around her for a bite of whatever scrumptious concoction she was making. His children.

  The home he’d described to her was just that—a home. And he knew well enough that a home couldn’t exist without love and laughter and commitment. He also knew himself well enough to understand that by not running away at the first thought of such things, he was already in deep, well over his head. He just didn’t know what to do about that.

  Chapter Seven

  Brooke was so embarrassed she could almost literally have strangled Caleb. At the same time, the scene with Trent had unfolded into such a comedy of errors that it was hard not to laugh. For all the world, Caleb had looked like a deer caught in headlights.

  Meeting his family was something she’d never let herself seriously think about. When she’d made the casual remarks about the kitchen, she hadn’t intended to seem as though she were planning the space for her own. She never would have opened her mouth if she’d realized that was how the comments would come across. When Caleb had scowled so fiercely at her, before she’d seen the sparkle of amusement in his eyes, she was certain she’d just put paid to their relationship.

  Thank God he had a sense of humor and hadn’t been offended. The day could have turned into a real disaster if he had been.

  His family left her completely and utterly charmed. His parents, and there was no doubt in her mind they were his parents in every way that counted, clearly doted on him. His brother was enjoying Caleb’s discomfort at being in the hot seat with the glee only an older sibling could muster. And his nieces and nephews—two sets of twins all under six years old—climbed all over him from the moment they walked in the door until she and Caleb left four hours after dinner. Then there was his grandfather and Nonny, as Eliza Browning Wells had insisted Brooke call her.

  “I wish my dad could meet Nonny and Eli,” Brooke said as she and Caleb drove the short distance back to his house.

  “Why’s that?” he asked with a smile.

  “They might give him ideas, that’s why. They’re so adorable I just wanted to squeeze them. Honeymooners even at their ages. It’s inspiring, even if it does make for a somewhat complicated family tree.”

  Caleb grinned. “Yeah, it’s a bear to try to explain to strangers without making it sound incestuous.”

  His grandfather, Eli, had married Eliza a few months back in a beachside ceremony in Georgia. It was the second marriage for both of them, as they were both widowed. They’d met initially, briefly, in the early sixties, shortly after Eliza was widowed. Eli, who was a preacher, had been performing the marriage ceremony for his nephew, Owen, and Eliza’s daughter, Sarah. Eliza and Eli didn’t see each other again for thirty-some years, when Eliza moved back to Kentucky. By then, Eli’s wife, Amy, had passed, and the two connected as friends.

  “Then something just changed. Overnight, I saw him as a man, not just as Owen’s uncle. He felt the same way, and given that time’s getting short, we didn’t bother wasting what we had left,” Eliza had explained earlier. “Sometimes you just know, and we did.”

  “If you’re really interested, I’m sure we could try to set something up between them and your dad.
” Caleb slowed down for the turn into his driveway.

  Brooke could hardly believe he’d made the offer so casually. “I might take you up on that.”

  The look he sent her was warm, but before he could respond, her pager went off. She dug it out of her purse and frowned when she saw her father’s number. “Mind if I borrow your phone? It’s Dad.”

  “Of course not.” He led the way inside and pointed her toward the crate in the hall, where the cordless phone was docked.

  Arlen answered on the second ring. He didn’t even bother with hellos. “Brooke Denise, is this your idea of a joke?” Then he sneezed.

  “Dad? What are you talking about? What’s going on?” She sent Caleb a puzzled frown and shook her head.

  “There’s a box of kittens on my porch, that’s what! Three of them. Feisty little boogers too.” When he sneezed again, the sound of mewling was plain in the background.

  Struggling to keep a straight face, she cleared her throat. “Dad, I’ve not been in town since yesterday. What are you going to do with them?”

  He gave a heavy sigh. “They can’t stay here, obviously. You’d better come home. And I think one of them is sick. It’s sneezing as much as I am.”

  “Okay, I’ll head that way. Take your allergy pills.”

  This time, he growled. “I already have. Ask your friend if he wants them.” And he hung up with a clatter.

  As soon as she heard the dial tone, she started laughing. It was a full minute before she could even tell Caleb what was going on. “Someone left kittens on the porch. Poor Dad, he’s so allergic it’s not funny, even though he loves cats. I’ve got to go rescue him. And he said one’s sneezing, so I might be bringing them in to work with me tomorrow for an exam. Although what in the world I’ll do with them tonight, I don’t know. I might have to bring them back out here or take them to the clinic to board. He’s that allergic.”

  Caleb laughed. “Want me to follow you in, take a look at them? I can bring them back here for a little while. There’s no room at the inn, if you will. The clinic’s full.”

  She tilted her head. “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I know.” He winked. “Let’s go rescue the judge.”

  If she’d only suspected she was in love with him before, she knew for certain she was now. He’d not even blinked at the notion of taking on three kittens or at having to rescue her father.

  So many times since she’d started working at the clinic and gotten to know Caleb Walker, she’d seen the ease with which he donned a mantle of responsibility. The man was a born leader, even if he didn’t think so. And he never tried to make himself the hero of the story, but instead, he kept his head down and simply did what needed to be done. That kind of quiet self-assurance was attractive on so many levels it was nearly overwhelming.

  She couldn’t help but laugh as she drove to town, thinking about how they’d both be running the gauntlet somewhat today, unexpectedly meeting each other’s families outside professional situations. Depending on how things went with the kittens, she had every intention of inviting Caleb to dinner with her and her father.

  She also didn’t try to pretend she wasn’t half scared to death about that prospect.

  When she got to the house, she was a few minutes ahead of Caleb. Arlen met her on the porch, his eyes red and a bit swollen and a full scowl in place.

  “Why are cats so damned cute and so hard on a man’s allergies? Who decided that was fair, Brooke?” He looked toward the driveway behind her. “I figured you might bring Dr. Walker.”

  “He’ll be here in a few minutes. He wanted to stop and grab some antibiotics, as he said the sneezy kitten probably has an upper respiratory infection. Where are they?”

  Arlen headed inside. “I put them in the sunroom. How’s your weekend been?”

  As she went to check out the kittens, she told him about meeting Caleb’s family, though she left out the details of her introduction to Trent.

  “I wasn’t prepared to meet them, to be honest,” she said softly as she scooped the kittens out of their box and into her lap. They were tiny, probably only just weaned, a calico and two orange-striped tabbies. “I don’t think he was ready for me to either.”

  Arlen stayed in the door of the sunroom, arms crossed as he watched her pensively. “This is turning into something serious for you, isn’t it?”

  Brooke shrugged. “I think it always has been serious. I just pretended it wasn’t.”

  The doorbell rang, and he excused himself. She could hear low voices in the hallway, and a moment later, he led Caleb inside.

  “Oh, they’re really small,” he said in a hushed voice as he set down his bag. He settled in, cross-legged on the floor beside her, and one by one, he checked the kittens over. When he listened to the calico’s lungs, he frowned. “She’s got a pretty rough infection. Is she your sneezy girl?”

  Arlen nodded. “She knocked herself over she sneezed so much. How bad is she?”

  Caleb lifted a shoulder as he put his stethoscope back in the bag. “Time will tell. We’ll definitely need to start her on antibiotics and probably her brothers too. It’s a respiratory infection most likely, just like I thought, and if the boys don’t have it already in their systems, they will. That’s the breakdown, by the way. Two boys, one girl. Is this the box they were in?” He tapped the large cardboard box, the sides of which were high enough to keep the kittens safely inside.

  “It is,” Arlen said. “It’s a clean box, not ratty, and the towel they’re on is old but clean. Despite being left here as they were, I’d guess they were well cared for.”

  “I agree. Probably someone who knew you’d lost Belle and wanted to help.” Caleb sighed. “They’re well fed, and I’d guess they’re about eight weeks old. Cute as buttons too. It’s a shame you can’t keep them.”

  “Can you find them a home?” Arlen asked.

  “I can.” Caleb glanced at Brooke. “I’ll take them home with me and foster them until they’re well enough to give to someone. Have you tried to feed them?”

  “No. I didn’t want to do anything until I knew what we were dealing with,” her father said around a sniffle.

  The sneeze that followed made one of the orange kittens jump and hiss, his fur standing on end all over his body.

  Brooke couldn’t help it; she fell into howls of laughter. Her father’s scowl returned, which only made her laugh harder.

  “Insolent girl.” Arlen harrumphed, though he was smiling. “Walker, I’ll owe you for a house call.”

  Caleb shook his head. “Nah, I’ll give you the family discount. I should get them home though. I need to dose them, and I don’t want to give them medicine on an empty stomach. I grabbed some kitten food and supplies at the clinic. The list is on your desk,” he told Brooke.

  “I’ll take care of it first thing tomorrow.” Dr. Harvey, their boss, would expect to be reimbursed.

  “Why don’t you feed them here?” Arlen said. “If you have everything you need, that is. I’ve got a pot of soup on, and it’ll be ready shortly. Feeding you is the least I can do.”

  There was an ever-so-slight hesitation in Caleb’s movements as he put one of the boys back in the box. “I don’t want to impose.”

  Arlen waved. “It’s not an imposition. This old house is too empty these days.”

  “Okay, then. If you’re sure.”

  Brooke got to her feet. “What do you need to feed them? I’ll get that pulled together.”

  As they took care of the kittens, she kept a surreptitious eye on Caleb. Conversation was moving to more general topics, and to her immense relief, he seemed to be relaxing as he and Arlen discussed a local ordinance the county was considering.

  She was also relieved to discover their politics were similar, something she’d worried about. Given her father’s position, he could be quite forceful in voicing his op
inions, and if Caleb had leaned toward the opposition, things could have turned disastrous. It wouldn’t have turned her away from Caleb, but it was nice to know it wouldn’t be an issue.

  He didn’t linger after their meal though.

  “I should get them home, and I need to check in on Mane and Hoof. Thanks for having me,” he told Arlen as they all walked to the front door.

  Arlen shook his head. “Thanks for helping out with the kittens. I’ll owe you one.”

  Caleb glanced at Brooke with a half grin. “Nah, we’re good.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll clean up the kitchen. Take care, Walker. See you around.” He went down the hall whistling, leaving Brooke and Caleb by the door.

  “I’ll help you out,” she said, grabbing his coat and hers. “Thank you for doing this. What do you think you’ll do with them?”

  He shrugged into his coat then picked up the box. “I don’t know. We’ll see how they do. I’m a little concerned about the girl. Her lungs sound pretty rough.”

  Brooke tucked the soft towel in over the kittens to keep them warm, then she opened the door for him. “Do you think she’ll be okay?”

  “I hope so. She has a good appetite.” He handed her the keys to the truck so she could unlock the door. “I’ll set them up in the guest room for now so I can keep them corralled while I’m at work. Guess it’s a good thing I’ve not started the remodel, huh?”

  “Yep.” She stood back as he settled the kittens into the passenger seat, going so far as to wrap the seatbelt around their box. “You’re just a big softy, Caleb Walker.”

  He closed the door then pulled her into him. “Not me. I’m a tough guy.”

  She slid her arms around his waist with a sigh. “You’re that too. Thanks for today, this weekend. It’s been fun.”

  “It has been, if somewhat wild and unpredictable,” he said, pushing her hair off her ear. “My bed’s going to be very cold tonight. Very empty.”

  “So is mine,” she said saucily, then she groaned. “But we have to observe the proprieties at some point, and I’m sorely behind on laundry.”