Claire kept her hand on Stormy’s side as she spoke, as if by touch she could preserve the dam’s will to live.
“Let me look at her. Here, come and rub this cria. Don’t stop. I’ll check her out.”
While Claire rubbed the tiny llama, and occasionally patted its older sibling, she agonized over her stupidity. It was one thing to want to claim her farm, her business, for herself. It was quite another to put Stormy at risk.
If only she’d recognized Stormy’s distress earlier last night. She’d assumed it was going to be a regular birth, just earlier than Charlie had predicted.
Stormy was more than a resource to her. She was Claire’s hope for a new future. A future that was free of the pressures of the political life she’d left behind. Free of the constant drone of the newsroom and the stress of breaking the next story.
With a start Claire realized she was perspiring more profusely than she ever had while working in the press corps. Stormy and all the rest of her llamas had at some point become more than animals to her. They were embedded in her heart.
Yet another reason to regret her decision, which had led to danger for Stormy and the two crias.
Waiting for Dutch to finish dealing with Stormy stretched Claire’s anxiety to the max.
“How is she?” Claire asked the top of his silver mane. That was all she had in her line of vision.
“Shh.” Dutch’s admonition cut across the stable.
Claire kept rubbing the baby and decided to focus on naming the twins. They would both make it. They had to.
After what seemed like hours, but in reality wasn’t more than twenty minutes, Dutch snapped off his gloves.
He made direct eye contact with Claire, and she squirmed at the intensity of his gaze. But it wasn’t about her, or her and Dutch. It was about Stormy.
“She’s okay for now. Her uterus is intact and the afterbirth looked normal, which is a positive sign.” Dutch shook his head. “However, she’s had a huge shock to her system. She won’t be out of the woods for a day or so. I’m going to start her on IV antibiotics as a precaution.”
“Is there any way to avoid the stronger medications? She’s still young and I really don’t like—”
“No, there is no other option—you made sure of that when you took this birthing on yourself. Llamas, livestock—” Dutch waved his hand around her barn “—aren’t pets, Claire. They’re domestic animals who serve a good purpose and need to be respected as such. They weren’t put here for your entertainment.”
His emotional sucker punch echoed Claire’s own thoughts and drove the taste of bile into the back of her throat.
“This isn’t entertainment for me, Dutch. These are my animals, my vocation.”
She hated the electricity that quaked between them, even as they faced each other in total disgust, ignoring any remembrance of their past relationship.
“You’ve never been one for commitment. Is this something else to throw away when you grow tired of it?”
Her mind finished the observation: The way you threw away your best friend? Your hometown?
As soon as he fired the words at her and before Claire could reply, Dutch looked down.
“Damn it all to hell.” He slapped the OB gloves against his thigh. After a few deep breaths, he looked back up at her.
“This has nothing to do with you, or me or our past, Claire. It has to do with your llama. If you want her to live, you need to follow my directions implicitly.”
“I’m sorry—”
He held up his hand. “I’ll help you until Charlie gets back—or your animals are healthy. That’s it.” He nodded at the firstborn cria. “He’s doing okay, so I’m comfortable leaving him here. But the one you’re holding—I’d rather take her back to my office to monitor.”
“That could kill the mother!” Claire clutched the tiny cria as if it were her own child.
Dutch sighed. “I know. And we’re shorthanded in town for the next week as far as vets go. I’ll set up what you need for a llama preemie clinic right here and show you how to use the equipment. I’ll drop by frequently, and you can call me anytime you need help.”
He had her in the grip of his stare and she watched as his lips flattened into a thin line. “I know there was little reason for you or Charlie to expect twins—this was a rare instance for a llama birth.”
He looked back at her. “No more doing anything with regard to your animals on your own. You’re not a vet. Got it?”
Claire swallowed, but kept her mouth shut and nodded.
His gaze didn’t waver from her face.
“Let’s get something straight. We don’t talk about our lives now, or before or whenever. Nothing personal.”
“Right. Nothing personal.” What else was she going to say to the man she’d hurt more than anyone—other than his dead wife?
CHAPTER TWO
SASHA LOOKED at her fairy alarm clock. Fifteen minutes until the fairy’s wand hit the twelve and the alarm rang at six sharp. She reached under her bed for her cell phone to see if her best friend, Maddie, had texted her yet. They always checked to see if the other would be at the bus stop.
Her fingers brushed against a familiar organza cloth cover. The big red book.
The big red book was more of an album. It sat in a large, paper-covered box. Her mom had put it together for her before she died. When she gave Sasha the gift, Sasha was only eight. Mom had told her that someday it would help her smile and remember how much Mom loved her.
Sasha kept the box under her bed, but hadn’t opened it in a while. She’d opened it a lot those first few months, that first horrible year. But since her eleventh birthday last year she hadn’t looked at it as often. She still had the last photograph taken of her and Mom on her bulletin board and she looked at that every day.
In the photograph, Sasha sat on the bed next to Mom, whose head was bald, her eyes dark in her pale face. Sometimes the longing overwhelmed Sasha and she cried. But not so much anymore. She would never forget Mom, but as the years went by she was more comfortable with thinking about Mom in heaven, with no chemo, no sickness.
Sasha couldn’t remember a time that her mother hadn’t been sick. Maybe when she was really little, but pretty much since the end of kindergarten Mom had been seeing doctors all the time.
Sasha believed deep in her heart that Mom thought she and Dad should “move on” and get their lives going without worrying about what Mom would think. She wasn’t planning to ask Dad about this—he was too busy with the vet business and now he was worried because Aunt Ginny had to go away to law school and Sasha would be Without a Female Mentor.
A knock at her door startled her.
