“About half-past two. What time is it now?”
“Four o’clock. I hate to bother you, but I’ve had a call from one of Ray’s good customers, so I think you or your friend ought to check it out.”
Swinging out of bed, Autumn said, “I’ll go. Trina doesn’t know anything about this country, and she’d never find her way tonight. Besides, we brought her niece with us, and Trina should be here if Dolly awakens in a strange house.” Pulling a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt out of her bag, she asked, “What’s wrong, and where am I going?” Olive answered the second question first, and her words, “Woodbeck Farm,” halted Autumn with one long leg in her jeans, the other still bare. Matthew Holland, Nathan’s uncle, owned Woodbeck Farm! Why was the first call as Ray’s assistant to a place that dug up best-forgotten memories?
She finished dressing and followed Olive downstairs to the clinic. “What’s wrong?”
“The boy who called said the cow had fallen down in the pasture field, and Mr. Holland thinks she has grass tetany. This happens to cows lots of times in a wet season.” She unlocked a large refrigerator. “Ray keeps all his drugs in there. Do you know what to take?”
“Yes. A lot of my clinical work was among dairy herds in Wisconsin. You go back to bed, Miss Olive, I’ll manage all right.”
Olive opened a desk drawer and handed Autumn a set of keys. “The truck’s in the garage.” Before she left the room, the angular woman peered up at Autumn, eyes compassionate, above a long, bony nose. “I think Ray put you on the spot to ask you to come back here, Autumn, but now that you have, I hope everything works out for the best. They may not admit it, but your family needs you.” She gave Autumn a quick hug before she went back to bed.
Autumn had often helped Ray Wheeler with his veterinary work, and she’d been in and out of the Wheeler house often. Apparently Olive and Ray had remained Autumn’s friends when her family and other neighbors had been quick to judge her, for Ray had been friendly when she’d seen him last month. Now Olive’s compassion brought a lump to Autumn’s throat. But she’d become adept at stifling her heartaches, so she gathered up several bottles of drugs and dropped them in a plastic bucket. Ray’s work clothes hung in the garage, and Autumn stepped into a pair of none-too-clean coveralls, took off her sneakers and pulled on a pair of Ray’s rubber boots. She found a wide-brimmed rain hat to put on when she got to the farm.
This wouldn’t have been an easy assignment under any circumstances, but she wasn’t sure she was ready to meet Nathan’s uncle. She’d hoped, while she was in Greensboro, to learn what Nathan had been doing since she’d seen him, but was she ready to learn that he was married and had a family? The thought had ruined her peace of mind for years. That knowledge would hurt, but on the other hand, if, as Trina insisted, Autumn needed something to put a lid on the past, Nathan, happily married, should do it.
Autumn drove carefully to avoid ponding water on the narrow secondary road. After she’d driven for eight miles, a large sign at the roadside pointed the way: Woodbeck Farm, half mile. When she reached the farm buildings, a boy emerged from the shelter of a shed. Stifling a yawn, he stood by the car door when she got out.
“I’m Tony Simpson. Mr. Holland’s out in the field with the sick cow. He told me to fetch you.”
Autumn took the bucket of supplies out of the car, and carrying a flashlight, she followed Tony into the darkness.
She heard Indian Creek tumbling along its course, but so far, the stream hadn’t overflowed its banks. The soil beneath the grass was soft and spongy, and when they reached a muddy, grassless area, Autumn’s feet flew out from under her. She sat down suddenly in the muck. Tony didn’t even know she’d fallen and he plodded onward.
After a quick examination, Autumn decided that nothing was broken, so she struggled to her feet in the slick mud and hurried to keep the boy in sight. All in the life of a vet, she figured, remembering the times they’d called for Doc Wheeler to come to Indian Creek Farm in the middle of the night.
A lantern burned in the distance, and Tony shouted, “The doc’s here.”
Covered with a hooded raincoat, a man knelt in the mud beside a cow. The large animal’s wet black coat glistened in the dim light as it bellowed and struggled with severe paddling convulsions.
“I believe your diagnosis of grass tetany is right, Mr. Holland,” Autumn said, observing the symptoms of a disease found in cows that fed on luxuriant, rapidly growing pasture in the spring, leading to a chemical imbalance. She pulled a stethoscope from the bucket and knelt beside the large animal. “I’ll listen to her heart.”
The farmer quickly lifted his head and peered at her from under the hood. The lantern’s light shone on his face. For a few breathtaking moments, Autumn was speechless, then she whispered, “Nathan?”
“Autumn!”
She pushed back the brim of her hat, and the rain streamed over her face. The cow forgotten for the moment, each stared at the other. Autumn’s heartbeat swelled with wonder, thankfulness and affection as she laid her hand tenderly on the shoulder of this man she couldn’t forget. A man she never expected to see again.
“So you became a vet after all?”
She grinned slightly. “Just last week. And I’ve got a little piece of paper to prove it.”
He reached out his hand and she placed hers in it.
“Welcome home, Autumn,” Nathan said, and Autumn felt that she really had come home.
Chapter Two
One of the cow’s flailing hooves struck Autumn’s leg, and remembering why she was here, she put her stethoscope on the animal’s trembling side. The loud palpitations hurt her ears. She handed the stethoscope to Nathan so he could hear the hammering heart, wondering if he could also detect her pulse beating almost as fast as the cow’s.
“I’m sure it’s grass tetany,” she explained, “but Ray has plenty of medicines, so I hope it’s not too late to save her.”
“I didn’t find her until after dark,” Nathan said, concern in his voice. “She was bawling and galloping around blindly before she fell down. I haven’t had this happen to any of my cattle before. What can you do?”
“I’ll slowly inject her with a mixture of magnesium and calcium compounds and monitor the heart carefully while I’m doing it. If she reacts favorably, I’ll administer a sedative to settle her down so we can take her into shelter. All of this rain has increased the potassium and nitrogen in the herbage, so she needs to be taken out of the pasture.”
After an hour or so, the cow seemed stable, so Autumn, Nathan, and Tony urged her to her feet and alternately led and pushed her toward the barn. After the animal was bedded down in a sawdust-littered stall, Autumn said, “You should feed her hay and concentrate for the next few days to keep the blood magnesium from falling again. I’ll come back later on today and bring some more medication for you to give her every day.”
Exhausted, the boy curled up on a stack of hay and went to sleep. Nathan grinned. “Tony’s not used to working all night. He’s a neighbor boy, who helps me occasionally. His parents are gone and he was spending the night with me, but he hasn’t gotten much sleep.” Nathan shook the boy’s shoulder. “Tony, come in the house and go to bed.” Tony
