from the moment they’d arrived here in Dovetail. She’d nurtured them, rejoiced when Stormy became pregnant by artificial insemination and at times felt like one with her animals.
She’d been so sure she had everything under control.
Until labor began two weeks earlier than expected. She should have called Charlie as soon as she thought anything was amiss.
But she hadn’t.
Stupid. Selfish.
She ignored the critical voice. This wasn’t about her.
Claire rounded the corner of the stall and looked at her prized female llama. Stormy’s pecan-colored coat shook as her ribs heaved from the effort of breathing through her labor pains. Pains that should’ve been over after Claire helped birth the baby llama who stood blinking up at her, his brown eyes globes of innocence and trust. He mewled at her, shivering. He’d walked away from the heater she’d left him next to.
“Come on, baby.” She led the cria closer to the warmth and rushed back to Stormy’s side. Llamas weren’t usually vocal, and if Stormy had been the one mewling… Claire distracted herself by keeping her focus on calming Stormy.
“You did a wonderful job, momma,” she crooned to the three-year-old llama.
But Stormy wasn’t done. Claire swallowed down her fear. There was another calf in Stormy’s womb; she’d felt the hooves after the first cria was born. Plus the dam’s apparent discomfort alarmed her. It wasn’t typical for llama’s to convey distress during birth.
Twins. Claire groaned.
Twins weren’t a cause for joy, not in the llama world. They often meant death for the dam.
“Hang in there, Stormy.” Claire rested her hand on Stormy’s side, hoping to calm her. It was an impossible task as her own anxiety threatened to shatter her brittle composure.
DANIEL “DUTCH” ARCHER, Jr., squinted against the glare of the bathroom light.
“Humph.” He groaned as he splashed cold water on his face.
Waking up from a deep sleep to go out and make a house call wasn’t unusual for a large-animal veterinarian. Especially in rural Maryland.
What was unusual was his reaction to this message from his service.
Emotions he never wanted to feel again. The one person on earth he never wanted to deal with again, not at such close proximity.
Claire Renquist.
“Damn it.” He yanked open his bathroom door and strode back into his bedroom. This was just another call.
Like hell it is.
Underneath the layers of indifference, resentment, anger and a sheer distaste some might even describe as hate, Dutch recognized the tickle of anticipation. And he despised the part of himself that enjoyed it.
It wasn’t anxiety over the difficult job to come—saving a cria twin and the dam. It was knowing that in a few short miles he’d come face-to-face with the woman he’d avoided so carefully for the past two years.
He grunted. Two years, hell; try more than a decade.
Sure, they’d had unavoidable run-ins around town since Claire moved back to Dovetail, but they’d never spoken a word. The few times their eyes had met they’d looked away, each refusing to acknowledge the other. Like strangers, and that was how Dutch wanted it to stay.
If he’d been more mature when he’d chosen Claire’s closest friend, Natalie, over Claire all those years ago, he would never have encouraged Natalie to remain friends with Claire. He and Claire had drifted apart during their senior year in high school. After the horrific accident that had killed Dutch’s best friend, Tom, Dutch had gone to comfort Tom’s twin sister, Natalie, and, in a moment that changed the rest of all their lives, made love to her.
His relationship with Claire was irrevocably severed.
Never mind their childhood bond. Never mind that Claire had christened him with the name “Dutch” when, at age three, her pronunciation of Daniel Archer had become “Darch” and then “Dutch.” Dutch’s mother had loved it and so the name stuck.
He pulled on his work jeans and made a mental note to leave a note by his sister, Ginny’s, coffee mug. If not for Ginny he couldn’t keep making these late-night calls. Hopefully he’d be back before Sasha left for school.
He sighed and yanked a sweatshirt over his head.
This was the hardest part of his job—leaving Sasha in the middle of the night. But he needed a paycheck to clothe, feed and house himself and his eleven-year-old daughter. Natalie’s parents had been in their forties when she was born and elderly by the time Sasha came along. They’d passed away while Dutch and Natalie were in college, one year apart. Dutch had only himself and his family to lean on.
A squirming warm body squeezed between Dutch and his bureau, then sat.
Rascal thumped his tail and looked at Dutch with complete adoration—and expectation.
A low chuckle forced itself past Dutch’s tight throat.
“No, boy, I don’t need an Australian sheepdog yipping around the barn with me. Wait here and keep an eye on the ladies, okay, pal?”
Rascal’s fringed tail thumped twice before the dog lay down and rested his head on his front paws. His ears were still pricked, in case the tone of Dutch’s voice changed. In case his master decided to take him along, after all. But he’d stopped making eye contact with Dutch. Rascal knew the deal. Birthing was vet’s work, and Rascal wasn’t invited.
CLAIRE GLANCED at her watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.
Where the hell was Charlie?
It was quiet, except for Stormy’s heavy panting, a quiet that closed in on her. Half past two in the morning. The hour she’d always found least appealing, even when her surroundings had been the offices of the White House or a foreign capital city and not a rustic old barn with thirteen llamas.
Fourteen llamas, with one still on the way.
She left Stormy for a moment and went over to the cria, who stood in the corner of the birthing area. The surprised expression on his small face reflected her thoughts.
What the heck is going on?
“Here you go, sweetie.” She crooned as she rubbed another large, dry towel over the animal in front of the heater. His shivers had ceased and he seemed more relaxed than when he’d landed on the barn floor.
Claire allowed a wave of relief to wash over her before she returned to Stormy’s side. At least one cria might make it. Her emotions reminded her of when she’d first come home to Dovetail, thinking she’d be nursing her mother through heart surgery for much longer than had turned out to be the case. Thinking she’d leave after mom got better—but deciding to stay and start her new business—the llamas.
“Hang in there, lady. Help’s coming.” But as she said the words Claire couldn’t ignore the bitter burn
