Who Rescued Who

by Victoria Schade

  The sound of the mechanical shutter startled him awake. He snatched Elizabeth’s wrist, making her shriek and sending her phone clattering to the ground. Porter barked at the commotion.

  “No,” he said, holding on to her. “Not . . . fair.”

  His grip was a hot vise around her wrist, and Elizabeth couldn’t tell if he was serious. He looked up at her with his eyes at half mast and finally smiled. “You are so damn pretty, Bess.”

  “Thank you.” Elizabeth was sure her phone’s screen was cracked, which overshadowed the fact that James Holworthy was slowly pulling her closer to him. “Can I just grab my phone? It sounded like it hit the ground hard.”

  “No, you cannot.” He sat up. “Forget about your damn phone for a minute, would you? Look at me.”

  Elizabeth was hunched over awkwardly, still caught in his grip.

  “Sit, please.”

  She sat down on the cold tile in front of him and he finally let go of her.

  “You said something to me that night at the Tups, right as you were leaving. Do you remember it?” The short nap seemed to have cleaned some of the cobwebs from his brain.

  Elizabeth shook her head and blanched. How had she embarrassed herself in front of him? The night was a haze after her fourth ale, despite the breakthrough moments of clarity she experienced when James looked through her.

  “I didn’t think you’d remember, but I do. I’m not going to tell you what you said, but I will tell you that you were right. And that’s all I want to say on the subject right now.”

  Elizabeth tried to imagine what she might have said to James under the influence of the potent Lost Dog ales. That he was hot? That she’d dreamed about him? Stalked him? Every possibility was more embarrassing than the last.

  “Was it something awful?”

  “No, no, it was wonderful, actually.” He grinned at her, but it didn’t make her less mortified about what she might have revealed.

  They sat cross-legged on the floor staring at each other, neither one saying a word.

  “So beautiful,” he said under his breath.

  Elizabeth studied him back, admiring the dusting of stubble on his cheeks. His hair seemed to also have suffered the effects of his drinking, and she wanted to wrap one of his unruly curls around her fingertip. She couldn’t stop staring at his mouth. The full lower lip that was begging to be nibbled and kissed.

  It was time. Elizabeth leaned toward James and closed her eyes, ready for him to catch her if she tumbled off balance, but he cupped a gentle hand on her cheek, stopping her. She opened her eyes.

  “Don’t you want to . . .” She trailed off. “I mean, we were about to at Harriet’s . . .”

  “I know, and I’m so happy that we didn’t.”

  She frowned at him.

  “Bess, do you really want to kiss a drunken fool while you’re completely sober? Is that the kind of first kiss we should have?” He ran his thumb across her mouth, setting off sparks at the base of her spine, so ticklish that she arched her back to disperse them. “I don’t want to miss any of it. I didn’t let it happen last time and I won’t let it happen now.”

  “Last time?”

  He smiled at her. “You don’t remember a thing, huh? Let me take you to dinner tomorrow and I’ll tell you everything that happened at the Tups. And then . . .”

  She brushed her finger across his coarse cheek. “What if I don’t want to wait?”

  “I’m begging you.” He stifled a laugh like it was an inside joke. “Tomorrow.”

  He stood up and offered his hand to Elizabeth, pulling her to her feet with a dancer’s grace. Porter thumped his tail on the couch as they walked to the door.

  She was slow to leave, unsure if she should reach out and shake his hand to say good-bye, open her arms to ask for a hug, or just wave at him. James watched her with a bemused expression as she wrestled with her options.

  A familiar squawk sounded a few feet away.

  “Oh my God, my phone!”

  It was still where she’d dropped it, facedown on the floor.

  chapter twenty-eight

  Well, good early morning to you. Painting already?” Rowan asked as he walked into the Operculum, cup of tea in hand. Georgina ran over to leap on him, then settled into a quivering sit as he folded himself in half to pet her. Major waited for his turn like a patient old man.

  “You’ll never believe what happened last night.” Elizabeth herself still couldn’t believe everything that had occurred in the past twelve hours. “I don’t know what I was thinking; I agreed to an art show at HiveMind.”

  “How wonderful!” Rowan cheered, causing Georgina to leap-hop out of her sit. “When?”

  “We didn’t pick a date, but it obviously has to be soon so I’m trying to churn out as many as I can.” She turned her small canvas so he could see the happy cow face she was working on. She didn’t mention that staying busy also kept her from thinking about her date with James.

  “Well, you’re not leaving us for many weeks yet, so there’s time.”

  Rowan often talked about her stay as if it were indefinite. She didn’t have the heart to tell him that she’d finally managed to schedule a call with the elusive Carson Keller the next day. Everything was falling into place, which made the thought of leaving slightly less painful.

  Elizabeth cleared her throat. “I have a date tonight.”

  “Last night was busy indeed! With whom?”

  “James Holworthy. He was at your party, the beer guy.”

  “James! Oh, we like him, very much. Aren’t you the social butterfly?”

  And for the first time in her life she was. After the score-carding social life she thought was real in San Fran, the ease of connecting with people in Fargrove seemed too good to be true.

  “How do you know him?” Elizabeth asked.

  “How do we know James?” Rowan repeated back to her, stroking his chin. “He became friends with Reid when he moved into the area, and any friend of Reid’s is a friend of ours.”

  Rowan settled in front of his giant canvas with Major at his feet, sipping his tea and assessing his work. Elizabeth often watched him during their morning painting sessions, not only to pick up pointers but to giggle at his conversations with his canvases. He talked to them quietly as he painted, sometimes scolding when the work wasn’t coming together, other times offering encouragement and praise as a shadow or reflection took shape. Any time Elizabeth heard, Well, then! she knew Rowan was having a successful session.

  “It’s shearing day for the ladies,” he said as he got started. “I guess you would call it a makeover.”

  “They’re getting their hair cut today? I still haven’t painted Rosie and Blossom! Do I have enough photos to work from?” Elizabeth slapped her back pocket and realized that she’d left her phone on the kitchen table. The case had a giant scratch on it, her reminder that everything she thought she had dreamed about the night before had really happened.

  “It’ll grow back, you’ll have other opportunities.”

  Elizabeth didn’t know what the growing-out period was for fleece, but she knew it was probably months, not weeks.

  They painted for an hour, interrupted by Elizabeth’s alarm when it was time to get to the actual work. Even though inventorying his history in the Operculum had overwhelmed her at first, she’d discovered she was perfect for the job. The advanced spreadsheet she’d created helped streamline the process, enabling them to get through stacks of history faster than either would’ve preferred.

  They were assessing a pencil study from Rowan’s river period when Major let out a warning wuff. Georgina leapt up from a full sleep and tipped her head, trying to determine what Major was reacting to. A few seconds later they heard wheels on the gravel, and the barking kicked into high gear.

  “That’ll be David the shearer,” Rowan said, setting
his paintbrush down and dusting off his hands. “You can’t miss this, off we go.”

  Elizabeth looked around the barn at the remaining stacks as she followed Rowan out. Even though they worked diligently every day, they were nowhere near done.

  “David’s here,” Trudy said, pointing her cast to the man in a sleeveless black T-shirt unloading his truck.

  “Sorry for the delay, Mrs. Barnes,” he said as he pulled equipment from the bed. “Busy season.” Major ran barky laps around the man with Georgina on his heels.

  “Ah, well, a few extra days with the wind in their fleece was fine, I’m sure.” She turned to Elizabeth. “You’ll want to get close when he starts. That way you can take photos to show your friends in California.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t posted a picture in days, and shearing the ladies was sure to be a photogenic once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She followed Rowan, Trudy, and the dogs as David made his way into the barn. Major had brought the ladies in early, and it was almost as if Blossom and Rosie knew what the special circumstances meant. If they were nervous about what was going to happen they didn’t look it. Elizabeth considered running back to the house to fetch her phone, but she didn’t want to miss a moment of the strange ritual.

  William joined them and shooed the dogs out of the barn so Blossom and Rosie would have one less thing to worry about. Georgina paced back in front of the open door, occasionally daring to poke her nose over the threshold. Each time she breached it, William turned to her and shook his head meaningfully, and she put her head down and stepped back until she was beside Major.

  “I wish I could communicate with her like that,” Elizabeth said to him. “It’s like you have telepathy with her.”

  “You’ll get there, Bess,” William replied. “You’ve come quite far. Georgina is devoted to you, you both just need a wee bit more . . . polishing. And you need to have faith in your handling skills.”

  Their training had indeed come far under William and Trudy’s care. Georgina responded to the full suite of basic cues when Elizabeth asked, which still shocked her given their rocky start. William didn’t push Georgina’s herding training, only exposing her to the sheep for short periods to assess her potential. He’d commented on her low tail when she was near Blossom and Rosie, explaining that it meant she was stable and not excitable, a surprising revelation based on what Elizabeth knew of the dog. William told Trudy the pup already had a “good stop,” and Elizabeth assumed that it meant Georgina had potential.

  “We begin,” the shearer said. He turned to one of the sheep, which Elizabeth now knew to be Rosie because the fleece on her chest was slightly darker than Blossom’s, and in a move that looked like a karate takedown, he flipped her onto her rump so that she was seated on her tail in between his legs. The shearer was strong, and handsome in a wild and muddy way. At home, a sweaty man in a dirty tank top would’ve been invisible, but now, after weeks in Fargrove, she couldn’t ignore the magnetism of rough-hewn muscles.

  “It’s going to go quickly,” William said, standing next to Elizabeth at the gate. “David is a wizard on the handpiece. Thirty-five strokes or less.”

  The shearer balanced Rosie between his legs and started shaving her low belly near her back legs, slicing through the thick fleece like he was peeling an orange. Rosie sat perfectly still in the awkward position, allowing the shearer to move the clipper rhythmically across her body. Much of the fleece came off in a large piece as he worked, leaving faint track marks in what was left of the wool on her pinkish skin.

  “Does it hurt?” Elizabeth asked.

  William stared at her for a moment before he answered. “Do you think these two would let anything hurt their babies?”

  The shearer manipulated Rosie from one side to the other, occasionally grasping an ear to maneuver her, or tucking her head through his legs while she sat balanced on her rump. She took it all so calmly that Elizabeth wondered if losing her heavy, muckish coat felt good despite the contortions. When he flipped her onto her side she thought she saw Rosie close her eyes, as if she were getting a massage at a spa. Elizabeth was shocked by this version of the grumpy sheep. No bleating complaints, no nipping at boots, just calm acceptance of her hairdresser’s work.

  A minute later he was done, and Rosie looked unrecognizable. Skinny, bright white, stick-legged. The shearer gave Rosie an “atta girl” pat on the side before she dashed away. Trudy opened the gate so that she could run out to the small field just outside the barn.

  “Watch this,” she said to Elizabeth, beckoning her to the doorway so that she could take in the full impact of Rosie’s annual makeover.

  Rosie stood in the middle of the field with her nose in the air, as if reacquainting herself with the feeling of the wind on her nearly naked skin. Then she took off running, jumping and kicking joyfully.

  “They revel in it,” Trudy said, cradling her cast. “I just love to watch them on shearing day.”

  Elizabeth had never seen the stoic sheep move with such agility. Rosie leapt and pranced her way around the small field, then made her way back to where Trudy and Elizabeth were standing.

  “You look lovely,” Trudy said as Rosie ambled closer. “Such a pretty girl.”

  It was time. Elizabeth had never been so close to one of the sheep, but after weeks of watching them from a distance as Georgina worked them, she felt like she understood them better. They were confident creatures that walked the line between bowing to authority and bucking it, often literally. They were observers and deep thinkers. They played favorites, opting to follow William on some days and Trudy on others. And there was no denying it: they were adorable. She needed to paint them quickly, with their before and after looks, so that she could include them in her show at HiveMind.

  Instead of half stepping behind Trudy for protection as she normally did, Elizabeth held her ground while Rosie snuffled around her feet. Rosie looked up at her, twitching her ears, and seemed to ponder how to interact with the nervous acquaintance at close range.

  “You do look very pretty,” Elizabeth said. “It’s like you just broke up with your boyfriend and you needed a new style. It suits you.”

  She reached out her hand and Rosie stepped closer, so Elizabeth tentatively scratched the top of her head between her ears. When she stopped Rosie bowed her head and leaned gently against Elizabeth’s leg as if to say, Do go on, so Elizabeth scratched with more gusto. She was surprised to discover that petting Rosie felt very similar to petting Georgina, Major, or Porter. And based on Rosie’s reaction, she was very good at it.

  “Finally,” Trudy said with a sigh. “You’re finally friends. I’ve been waiting for this since the first day you met them. Now just try to rid yourself of her.”

  Elizabeth laughed and headed back inside the barn to watch the shearer prepare Blossom. Rosie followed close behind them, bleating jealously.

  chapter twenty-nine

  Why are we here?” Elizabeth asked as they pulled up to James’s cottage. Was he fast-tracking their date, starting with dessert?

  “I have to show you something.” He smiled at her. “I think you’re going to like it.”

  Elizabeth watched for Porter’s happy face in the window, but he didn’t appear. James almost ran to the front door and swung it open without unlocking it.

  “Come.” He beckoned. “This way.”

  He led her back to the bedroom, and she worried about what had him so excited. Was this the part where she found out he was a sex maniac with handcuffs attached to his bed? Was he going to show off a dildo collection?

  Porter woofed at James as he walked in the room, and for a moment she couldn’t see past James’s broad shoulders. He stepped to the side and there in front of him was Porter dancing beside a small dog crate covered with a blanket.

  “You did it? You brought her home?” Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. She dropped to her knees and peered inside the crate, and
Amber’s little face emerged from the shadows. “I can’t believe it! How did you make it happen so quickly?”

  “It helps to be an F.O.T., a friend of Trudy. That woman runs the place! They let me speed the process since I was there with her blessing. And yours too, of course. Lisa thinks you’re amazing.”

  “Can we let her out?” Elizabeth was so excited to see Amber out of the shelter that the compliment didn’t register.

  Porter was still dancing in place next to the crate, pausing to peek inside at his new sister and then resuming his choreography. He barked again, as if to get them to hurry up.

  “Of course we can! Hey, Amber,” he said softly. “Come see your guardian angel. She’s the reason you’re here.”

  Elizabeth bit the inside of her cheek. She’d done a full face for the first time in ages, lashes and all, and she didn’t want to start the evening with runny eye makeup.

  Amber stepped out of the crate and looked around. She shook off, and Elizabeth remembered that Trudy called it a level set or a way to signal stress or arousal. Porter danced beside Amber, bopping his nose on her small body every few steps. The dog was overjoyed with his new sister.

  “How’s it going?” Elizabeth watched Amber closely as she sniffed her way around the room, trying to remember everything Trudy had told her about canine stress signals.

  “It’s only been a few hours, but so far so good. Obviously Porter adores her.” He gestured to his dog, who was play-bowing in front of Amber over and over, trying to get the puppy to play with him. “And she seems fine. A little overwhelmed, but that’s to be expected.”

  Amber walked to Elizabeth with Porter dancing beside her.

  “Hello, friend,” she said softly. “Isn’t this great?” She scratched her under the chin and the pup wagged her tail. Porter nose-bopped Amber again and the little dog turned abruptly and yipped at him.