by Juliet Chase
Nate flipped his gaze between the road in front of him and the clock on the dash. Time was running tight. He couldn’t afford to be late for the deposition, but his mother’s hassling had finally gotten to him. He still couldn’t believe he was risking his career for sixteen flats of primroses that had, just had, to be picked up before five o’clock. He had twenty minutes to drop them off and navigate to the other side’s law office. No way in hell was he showing up there towing flowers. If the weekender in front would just get out of the way, he stood a chance of making it, barely.
It was partly his own fault for getting a truck. It was not like he really needed to haul stuff; he could always borrow a friend’s beater for the rare times it came up. No, the black enamel and chrome represented his wild side, rebellion against the suits and ties and protocol that dogged his days. It was a safe kind of rebellion, though, and he knew it. No bumper stickers that might give offense or the appearance of a political opinion, no tattoos, no expressions of frustration while waiting around court rooms for other people when he could be getting some work done. Just a hemi engine and some zydeco, which seemed a small price to pay for sanity.
He tapped his fingers in time to the beat. Despite the fast tempo, it always made him feel relaxed and took some of the stress off. He still wanted to get going, though. Movement inside the car in front caught his attention. Through the fogged-up rear window he could just make out a black and white dog hanging its head over the back of the seat. It looked about as hound-dog sad as it could, except for the tail that was going a mile a minute. Nate laughed. Now that was a dog with character. He edged the truck closer to see if he could catch a glimpse of the driver in the car’s side mirror. He was pretty sure it was a woman from the driver’s build and dark hair, but he was curious to see who was paired up with that dog. Nothing doing, though. Whoever she was was bent too far forward over the steering wheel, probably trying to make out the faded lanes in the rain. She moved over into the left-hand turn lane, heading toward Oak Harbor, and Nate roared past, the woman and dog forgotten as he tried to make up lost time.
Tess didn’t much like the odds if that truck met her bumper, so she started looking for a gap in the left lane so she could get over, but nothing doing. The traffic just kept coming, and the traffic lights kept slowing everyone down enough to hinder her efforts. She tried to get a look at the driver in her rearview mirror, but all she could see was a man in his mid-thirties with a grim mouth, short hair and black sunglasses. Why was he wearing sunglasses when it was raining? And with the open window. Was he on drugs and thought he was in Florida? She decided to just focus on the road ahead and prayed he wouldn’t rear-end her at the next light. He didn’t, and the stacks of oil refineries came into view. She knew she didn’t have too much farther to go before she could get off the highway and onto more residential roads.
As expected, the truck roared past her when she pulled into the turn lane. She looked over, and could see that the driver was wearing a suit and tie. And that the tailgate was down and the truck was actually being used to haul something—flat after flat of multicolored primroses. Their bright colors were set off nicely by the black enamel of the truck bed. Tess just shook her head. What kind of man hauled primroses in a muscle truck while wearing an expensive suit, and seemed in a blazing hurry while doing it?
The rain was lightening to a drizzle, but that didn’t help much when it came to knowing which branch of an unmarked intersection to take. She had to backtrack a few times before something looked vaguely familiar. She was doing her best to recall how they’d gotten there the last time she’d visited, but that was so long ago that she hadn’t even been driving yet. Finally she could match Gran’s house number with the sign at the end of the drive. She headed down the long, rolling driveway that led to Walt’s house, and beyond to Gran’s cottage on the edge of the lake. They were here. She glanced at the clock on the dash. It was just five o’clock, which meant there were still a couple of hours of official daylight left with which to assess the situation.
Tess continued slowly down the long gravel driveway shared by the cottage and the bigger house on the right. She was tired and out of sorts—nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t fix, but first she had to check out these two or three or four cows. No lights were on in the cottage or Walt’s place. The heavy layer of grey clouds made it seem later than it was, and the two houses with their various outbuildings seemed desolate and abandoned. The driveway slanted down from the road, so Tess was able to catch glimpses of the lake beyond as she went. It didn’t seem that inviting in the rain, but she imagined that on a sunny day it would be delightful. She wished she’d made more of an effort to get up here earlier, but Gran had always claimed visiting her granddaughter gave her an excuse to travel and get out of the small town. Tess hadn’t thought too much about it at the time—yet another symptom of letting the world come to her instead of the other way round. She hadn’t realized how much time had passed since she’d last been here, and a little sliver of guilt entered. Maybe Gran really wasn’t capable of staying on her own. Daisy stirred and stuck her nose over Tess’s shoulder to get a better view. She whined slightly.
“I know, sweetie—almost there.”
Tess parked the car in front of Gran’s small cottage and immediately noticed two things. There were no other vehicles anywhere in the vicinity, and there was a cacophony of bawling and lowing coming from the large chartreuse barn situated between the two matching residences. But that was Walt’s barn. Gran had said she’d renovated the garage for her cows. But no noise was coming from that small building at all. Had she outgrown the garage and moved on to the barn without telling anyone? Obviously Walt would know, but the extended family?
Uh-oh. Her gut had told her something was off with this whole adventure—she should have told her mother no. But that hardly seemed fair, as there wasn’t much of anyone else in the family within a five-state radius. Well, she was here now. Might as well deal with it, and maybe the cows would force her into crafting a better redesign of her life. They sounded like they would cheerfully kill her, which wasn’t quite what she had in mind. The rest of the yard was neat: pale pink tulips drooped gracefully by the cottage steps, along with daffodils and hellebores that somehow worked with the rather shocking green of the buildings.
To the far right was Walt’s house. The sturdy two-story structure with large windows had clearly been the main farmhouse once upon a time. He and Gran were such fast friends that things had kind of merged between them over the years—Gran’s preferred color palette of acid green with white trim winning over everything within sight. Gran swore she and Walt were just friends, but Tess suspected that she had more romance in her life at eighty-six than Tess did at thirty—which wouldn’t take much, she acknowledged to herself. Her grandmother was definitely not someone who waited around for life to happen.
Gravel crunched under Tess’s feet as she got out of the car. Other than the bovine outrage coming from the barn, the scene was a pastoral delight, everything well cared for. What had possessed Gran and Walt to just up and leave?
She let Daisy out of the back seat to roam and explore, and contemplated her options. She could unload the car or face the cows first. But she was afraid if she started unpacking she wouldn’t have the energy to deal with the cows. Besides, it didn’t look like there was much daylight left. On the plus side, if she simply couldn’t take it or found Gran’s body trampled by the cows, she could still hightail it out of here with all her gear. Her mother was going to owe her big time for this. Speaking of… she fished her phone out of her jacket pocket, debating whether to call now or later. A glance at the screen gave her the answer: Searching… Searching…
Awesome.
CHAPTER THREE
Tess approached the large barn with trepidation. Those cows sounded angry—she knew they weren’t big. Gran always posted lots of pictures online, but if angry small dogs could do serious damage, than surely small cows could too. She had a sudden mental v
ision of the stereotypical young woman in a horror movie opening the door to her own doom, and paused. Surely…
Her paranoia dissipated with the sound of tires on the road gravel. Looking over her shoulder with eager hope that Gran had returned in the nick of time, she slumped in disappointment when it turned out to be a small white service truck. She frowned when a man in an official blue uniform emerged. He had the posture and haircut that suggested he’d been in the military, but his movements were unhurried. He was all business when he reached back in the truck for his hat and a clipboard and then started walking toward her.
“Evening, ma’am.”
“Hello.” This couldn’t be good. Never mind the ma’am part. When had she stopped being “miss” and become “ma’am,” anyway? She could see the words “Animal Control” embroidered on his breast pocket.
“Is Ms. Pinkney about?”
“No, she’s… missing?”
“Is she, now?” he asked dryly. He glanced toward the cottage, but Tess could tell he wasn’t really that surprised. “Do you mind my asking your relationship to Ms. Pinkney?”
“I’m her granddaughter.”
“Ah. Do you happen to know her general whereabouts?”
“No. Do you?”
“Unfortunately not. She was here two days ago when I came by to remind her. But with or without her presence, her deadline is up.”
“What deadline? What reminder? What are you talking about?”
He gestured to the barn door behind her. “The cattle. Ms.—?”
“Calhoun. Tessa Calhoun.” She knew it was rude, but she didn’t put out her hand. Not only was the volume of cows far greater than the expected handful, but now Animal Control was involved too. He looked about her age, but was being so formal and official that it made her nervous. Tess wasn’t so sure she could get Gran out of this on her own.
“Well, Ms. Calhoun, your grandmother is in some pretty serious legal trouble. The neighbors have been complaining about the smell and the noise for some time now. They’ve even hired attorneys and are threatening to sue for emotional distress. And despite her protestations the Right to Farm Act only applies to the first five cows—in her case, what she had for the year before the complaints started. She’s facing daily fines for that. But regardless, unless something major has changed behind that door, she’s in violation of the animal welfare codes. I’ll be impounding the herd, unless, like I’ve said, something major has changed for the better since the last time I was here. Which it doesn’t sound like it has,” he added wryly.
“Herd! I thought she just had a couple of cows.”
“She did. Ten years ago. They multiply, you know.” He looked at her like she was a little bit thick in the head.
Great, now she was going to get a birds-and-bees talk from Animal Control.
As though sensing their doom, the cows in the barn intensified their complaints, and Tess turned back to the door, finally opening it with a deep sense of dread. A long arm reached over her head from behind to fasten the door to the outside wall.
“Oh my God.” Tess thought she just might lose her lunch. The barn was dark, but waves of an acrid stench hit her full in the face. Tess stepped back and almost knocked the animal control guy down. Her eyes were stinging, but slowly they adjusted to the gloom inside the big building. “Bedlam” was the best description for the barn’s interior. Tiny cows were packed in like sardines. Tess wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this.
The heat from so many bodies warmed the smelly air a good twenty degrees above the comfortable springtime temperature in the driveway. Behind an internal metal barricade, the small cream-colored cows filled the barn to capacity, including a mezzanine level that had been built over the back half with a ramp along the far wall. None of the cows were more than waist high, but most of them had swollen udders and reproachful, dark eyes. A few calves intermingled and nosed about for stray food, but the feed bins were empty. Trampled manure lay everywhere, with some dirty hay mixed in. The cows had water, but that was it.
Tess was no farmer, but this just didn’t seem right. What could her Gran have been thinking? When had she left and how could she let things get like this? One small cow in front with a dark, heart-shaped blaze on her forehead made eye contact with Tess and then let out a bellow of epic proportions.
Like it was a bugle announcing a cavalry charge, the other cows in front began jostling each other and complaining louder. Tess turned back to the officer, whose face was grim and impassive. “Look, Mr.”—she glanced at his nametag—”O’Hearn, could we talk about the legal situation after we do something? This is horrible.”
“Well, I—”
“I don’t see you getting them into your vehicle more than two at a time, and they seem to need food… and the barn definitely needs cleaning. I don’t know much about cows, but that can’t be comfortable.” She pointed at the swollen udder of the cow in front. “I’ve been driving all day and I’m tired and I don’t know anything about cows. We”—she made a circling gesture with her hand, encompassing the cows and herself—”could really use some help. Besides, I’ve never milked a cow in my life.”
She tried to breath through her mouth, but the ammonia from the animal waste was still making her eyes water. She didn’t know how long it would take to clean this up, never mind finding Gran.
He took his hat off again to rub at his forehead, and sighed with frustration while nodding in agreement. “Fair enough—I really wish it hadn’t come to this, but you’re right. Let’s get them comfortable for now. And you might as well call me Mike—looks like we’re going to be spending some time together. Are you sure you have no idea where Callie is?”
Huh. He was on nickname basis with Gran—not that anyone actually called her Calliope. Why hadn’t Gran mentioned she was receiving regular visits from Animal Control? That just couldn’t be a good thing. “No, she told my mom something about Canada, but that’s all I know, and I’m not even sure that’s accurate.”
Mike quickly took charge and dropped his initial formality, as though he weren’t quite comfortable with it anyway. He set his hat and clipboard out of the way on a windowsill and then opened a gate in the interior fence that Tess hadn’t spotted. He rolled up his sleeves and efficiently separated the cow in the front from the others, and led her over to the door. Tess looked down and wondered how this was going to work. The cow was so short that she didn’t see how Mike was going to be able to reach down to milk her without falling over. But apparently Officer O’Hearn had prior experience with Gran’s mini cows, because he walked the cow over to the low table in the corner, and then Tess saw the ramps leading up and down from a platform about four feet off the ground. The cow headed up it happily and stood quietly while he got a small bucket from the interior room.
“Right now I’m seeing some sense in your grandmother’s crazy insistence on the raised milking platform. I won’t have to break my back, today at least. For now, since they’re not in the best of moods and we have some cleaning to do, you take each one when I’m done and lead her out to the pasture behind the barn. Then we’ll have to clean in here before bringing them back in. You get to start milking in the morning. This is not part of my job description.”
Tess gulped. There were an awful lot of cows. She tried to watch what he was doing, but she was too tired and the barn too dim to really study his motions.
When each cow was done, he led her back down the ramp and handed her off to Tess, who walked her out to the pasture. By the time she got back to the barn, he was usually just finishing the next one.
“Don’t they have machines that do this now?”
“Sure, but Callie likes things the old-fashioned way. She said milking was her quality time with each cow so they could bond. Maybe this would be easier if she hadn’t spent so much time talking to them. Takes all sorts, but she’s got to break a few of those emotional ties.”
They took a brief break while Tess helped him carry the full mi
lk buckets into the dairy room’s refrigerator and get empty clean ones. The remaining cows didn’t sound quite as angry, but were still quite insistent, and Tess couldn’t blame them. Darkness had descended outside, so now when she took a cow out, their eyes gleamed in the dark, like zombie beasts. The light was beginning to fade, so Mike flipped a switch near the door, turning on bright overhead lights. He also showed her the outside light switch, which helped. But it was still eerie, and she was more than a little freaked out.
“What was she doing with all this milk? That’s way more than two people can drink.”
“Didn’t you know? She and Walt were making ‘artisanal’ small-batch cheese and selling it to the restaurants in town—at a loss, I might add. Their profits don’t even cover half the feed costs.”
Tess shook her head. She was starting to think she didn’t know her grandmother at all. “No, she didn’t mention it. She talked about the cows, but generally, you know? And the pictures she posted were always just of one or two, and, well, they looked like the same cow to me…”
Mike smirked. “They won’t after you’ve milked them a few times.”
Clearly Mike did know his way around a cow, because he had them all milked in about three hours.
“Why can’t they stay in the pasture? Surely that would be more comfortable for them in the short term. Especially since it’s getting warmer now.”