said. “She stays outside mostly, except when she’s hungry.”
They reached the kitchen, which was blessedly stack-free and optimistically yellow, just as her grandmother had been. Goldenrod Formica. Daisy patterned linoleum. Canary-yellow walls. The September afternoon sun angled through the windows facing the backyard, making Shelby squint. Mushu lay on the grass in the shade of a peach tree, a black ball of curly fur. Beyond the fence, the Jameros’ empty pastures rolled up toward Parish Hill. The Jameros had left town, like the majority of residents after the grain mill exploded and jobs disappeared, until the once quaint and charismatic town was quiet and quirky. Not exactly the thriving, supportive community of her youth, but a community she longed for nonetheless. And one that was growing again in dribs and drabs.
Shelby released her grandfather and sat on a walnut ladder-back chair. The room was clean and uncluttered—the collection of animal salt-and-pepper shakers lining the kitchen counter and grouped in the center of the kitchen table didn’t count. They’d been there as long as she could remember.
“Do you ever hear from the Jameros?” She couldn’t keep herself from adding, “Or from Dead Gage?”
“Don’t call him that.” Her grandfather gripped the chair next to hers. “He’s not dead.”
“He’s dead to me.” Had been since the day of Nick’s funeral. He hadn’t answered any of her calls or pokes on social media. She picked up the bumblebee saltshaker, wiping dust off the curves of its black and yellow body.
“If he was really dead to you, you wouldn’t ask about him.” Her grandfather traversed the kitchen as though he was aboard a ship deck, pitching and rolling with each step.
When had his equilibrium worsened? “Where’s Grandma’s cane?” Shelby stretched a hand toward him.
He tottered backward. “I don’t need a cane.”
“You don’t need to fall.” She extended a hand again, but he swatted her away.
“Give a man some room.”
“I would, but look what you did with the living room,” she said drily, giving up for now. “My question is, why?”
“I’m writing a paper on the non-invasive assessment of equine musculature recovery post-delivery.” Since he’d retired, he’d written many papers. As titles went, this one was almost decipherable. Almost. After a moment, he obliged her questioning look. “How a mare’s muscles regain their tone after delivering a foal.”
“And you need all those books and magazines for that?” Shelby knew her expression was incredulous. It was the face Gage Jamero, her former best friend, used to take one look at and say, “Barnacles.” He claimed her features twisted up as firmly as her resolve, and were just as reluctant to let go. Not that he’d ever given in to her. On the other hand, Nick used to recognize that expression, raise his hands in surrender, and say, “Babe.”
Her grandfather wasn’t looking at her. He’d turned in his chair to see through the archway back toward the living room. “No, no, no. The stacks by the piano were for the paper I did on canine word retention. The stacks by the fireplace were for the paper I did on bovine stimulus-response. The stacks—”
“Hold up.” Shelby raised a hand. “There are stacks in there from papers you’ve already written?”
He nodded.
“Submitted for publication?”
Another nod.
“Been published?”
He shrugged. “Mostly.”
“So we can get rid of those.”
“No, no, no. What if someone challenges my findings? I may need to write a rebuttal or be asked to write a companion piece.” He drew himself up in bony regalness. “I have a system. Don’t touch a thing.”
“You do remember I’m here to stay with you through harvest?” She’d landed a job as the cellar master at the local winery. Grape harvest at Harmony Valley Vineyards started soon. She’d be working ten hours or more a day from now until the holidays, managing the various containers and equipment where the grapes would ferment, plus making clean transfers as the wine moved from crusher to tank to barrel to bottle. Once this was under way, as well as launching construction of a wine cellar, she’d have time to find a place of her own. And she’d know if Harmony Valley would live up to its name and her memories of it being a close-knit town. “You do remember I’m not that graceful.”
“Of course I remember.” Grandpa tapped his temple with a thin, age-spotted finger. “I’m not senile.”
“We need to find a place to put your inactive research, so I won’t—” and her grandfather wouldn’t “—come in late at night when my reflexes are shot, and knock everything down.” Given how he walked, it was a miracle the stacks hadn’t toppled already.
“I like my library where it is. You can come in the kitchen door.” Her grandfather had a barnacle expression of his own, reminding her why his nickname was War.
Shelby realized she’d have to raise the stakes. “You know, Grandma Ruby wouldn’t approve.”
“Maybe not,” he allowed. “But she’d understand. You’ll come through the kitchen door.”
* * *
“ACCEPT MY APOLOGY, Sugar Lips?” Gage Jamero was up to his elbows in trouble with his latest lady love.
Well, at least one elbow.
Sugar Lips’s contraction built like a blood pressure cuff around Gage’s right biceps. His face heated, his fingers numbed, his body felt as if it was wrapped in a too-tight ace bandage.
“Breathe easy, honey.” Gage tried to follow his own advice. During his internship and residency, he’d gained quite a reputation as a horse whisperer when it came to peevish, pregnant horses. Since then, he’d soothed countless mares and saved many foals trapped in utero by breach positions, like this one was. But this foal, sired by a Kentucky Derby winner, was the equivalent of a million dollar baby.
On the floor of a hay-lined stall, sprawled on his back, his legs half across Sugar Lips’s chestnut flanks, Gage sweated through the mare’s next contraction. He hadn’t been this nervous about his performance since he choked while asking his lab partner out in the twelfth grade. Saving this foal would make or break his fledgling career.
He’d graduated. He’d passed his licensing exam, both in California and Kentucky. He had a job offer in Lexington. All he was waiting for was his predecessor’s retirement. Until then, he was working for lucrative per-delivery fees from the Thomason Equine Hospital, a facility in Davis which was also an open classroom to local university vet students. They received notification when a procedure or delivery was imminent at Thomason and were able to observe through specially installed viewing windows. Today they were witnessing Gage, one of their own a year ago, on the main stage. He’d never been requested to deliver such a valuable foal before. If he screwed this up—and there were many ways to fail here—it would be a blow to his young career. He might even lose the job in Kentucky.
As if sensing what was at stake, the student onlookers and support staff in the hallway of the birthing center fell into
