Page 33 of Baker (Bastian Brothers #1)

Chapter Fifteen

I t was two-fifteen in the morning and I was on maternity watch with an overstimulated ten-year-old.

Why did this kid have so much energy at this time of the morning? Why did this goat decide to go into labor at this time of the morning? Could she not have chosen a better time to get a baby stuck and make us call out Aiden? Would I ever get any rest?

Those were all questions that I had no answers to.

No one had told us that these goats were going to start dropping babies left and right all within a damn week.

I kept shooting dark looks at Willy as he slumbered unconcerned about his children or his lady loves.

The boy was showing more concern for this breech birth than the real father lying over there snoring.

Willy and I were going to have a long heart-to-heart as soon as the vet left.

I glanced at the goat doe, Petal, she had been named, trying her best to give birth but not being able to do so.

So far, all we’d seen emerge was a tail.

I was no veterinarian, but I’d been around cattle long enough to know that front feet and the head should be presenting first. I’d been forced to help a few cows in the past, but that was a much bigger area to work in than a goat.

Also, what I knew about caprines could fit into a thimble, yet here I was with a ten-year-old toughing it out.

Had to give the lad credit, he was one fine goatherder.

He’d been sleeping in the goat barn the past five nights.

The goat kids that had been born had loved it.

Nothing like a slumbering boy in a sleeping bag to leap onto and then off.

If I crashed on the floor of the barn, they’d need a damn forklift to get me to my feet. Oh, to be young again.

“When will Aiden get here?” Dahn asked for the tenth time in five minutes. He paced the small pen we’d filled with fresh bedding like an expectant father. Again, I shot Willy a glower. He reminded me of my father, but I kept that sourness to myself.

I was about to reply when the door to the barn slid open and Aiden hustled in. Petal blatted as Dahn hooted. I pushed off the square bale I’d been sitting on as the vet climbed over the gate and made his way to the tired doe.

“Sorry I took so long,” he said as he began prepping to assist poor Petal.

“Dude, it was twenty minutes,” I reminded him as we gathered around behind him.

“Twenty minutes can be too long,” he said before he realized that we had a child present. “I’m sure this kid will be just fine, though. Can you run to the house and ask Granny for some fresh coffee?”

Dahn seemed torn, but he raced off. Aiden glanced at me.

“I’m going to show you what to do here since you have experience birthing calves.

It’s not that much different.” I begged to differ.

I doubted you could hook onto a skinny goat leg with a calf puller.

They just seemed so much more fragile than cattle. “Pay attention. First, we wash up.”

By the time Dahn, Granny, and the rest of the house came thundering out, Petal was back on her feet and her enormous baby boy was trying to stand up.

Coffee was served to all. Ford crept into the pen with Daisy, sleepy still, but intent on the new buck kid wobbling about on spindly legs.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Ford demanded after Aiden had packed his bag and went home, fully caffeinated, after spending a good hour talking with my youngest brother about goats.

“Because you were up all last night. It was our turn. The kid has a long weekend off and doesn’t seem to require rest like us old farts. Everything was fine.”

Ford huffed and muttered at me, but I was too tired to care.

I handed the goat kid watch off to Dodge and his son, now slumbering with the four-legged kid, and fumbled my way to my bed.

After a shower, I took a moment to slip a ruler into my cast to dig at a persistent itch.

I could not wait to get the damn thing off.

Despite what Aiden had said about the bone not knitting as quickly as he would like to see and his suggestion to leave the cast be for another few weeks, I was over it.

I had a Dremel tool out in the shed that would do a fine job and save the ranch a few hundred bucks in ER fees.

Call me a penny pincher. Yes, I saved money by getting my vet friend to X-ray my arm. Was I a poodle? No. Did I care? Nope.

Crawling in between the sheet and the blanket, I rolled to my side, cast resting on my hip, and stared at the stars in the sky.

Hanley was out there, way up north, taking pictures that were truly stunning.

He’d been in contact a few times with images of the Canadian wildlife in the Great Bear Rainforest, praise for the naturalist he was working with, and a cautious tone.

Every time he signed off with a casual “see you soon,” I prayed it would come true.

I wasn’t sure if I was in love, but it sure felt like something big blooming in my chest. I think I was keeping that bud in the dark, out of the sun, out of fear.

If he came back, I could move it from the dark out into the sunlight and let it grow.

But until he returned, I’d keep that tiny floret in the shadows to protect it and myself.

***

Family is dumb.

You’d think you had killed a person when you were found in a tool shed working away at a plaster cast. Bella nearly fainted when she strolled in looking for a hammer and found me cutting a nice, straight line on the damn cast. No one seemed to be impressed with the cut I had made left-handed when I’d been ratted out by a petite thing in culottes.

Granny had put her boot down then and had sent me off to the hospital with Linc and Dodge as escorts to have my arm looked at right.

Aiden should be offended, but he would agree.

He’d been cranky about me not doing that weeks ago, but he’d relented when I’d threatened to use a hacksaw to remove the cast from my arm.

As we sat in the waiting room on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, I had to wonder if my buddy the vet had possibly lied to me about how slow my bone was healing.

I got up to stretch. My brothers glanced at me from their phones. “Just stretching,” I grumbled as my nannies tutted at me. I figured I could possibly take on Dodge if I made a run for the exit. Linc? Nope, he was too big to wrassle with, but on the other hand, that bulk probably made him slow and—

“Studebaker Bastian,” a weary nurse called out, and I shuffled off with her to waste time and money that would be better spent on cabin renovations or the shots that all those cute little goat kids were going to need.

An hour and a half later, I was discharged and free of the cast. The bone had healed neatly, the ER doc had said, then scolded me for not coming back for an X-ray as I had been instructed to do.

I didn’t tell him I had Aiden do it. Feeling lighter on the outside than I had since the night of the storm, I took my brothers to the small diner on the highway for lunch.

My treat. Anything to help keep my mind off Hanley.

He’d been gone for weeks now and had mentioned that he might spend more time in Canada as the moose were starting to calve.

I’d been polite and understanding. After all, we were taking this time apart to suss out if our feelings were big enough to bring him back to the ranch.

It seemed that they weren’t which hurt—a lot—and made me feel stupid for being jealous of moose. Mooses? Whatever.

I was free of plaster of Paris. And that was what I was going to focus on for this long holiday weekend.

It looked to be a busy one with a house filled with men, women, and a kid that was hellbent for leather to become the world’s best majorette.

His other dad, the ex-footballer, had had a fit when Dahn asked to go to a twirling class in California.

Dodge, being a cool dad who wasn’t hung up on macho stupidity—how sad was it that a queer man was being a dick to his son about wanting to twirl a baton instead of playing something more masculine, help me understand—had found a small class led by the music teacher at the Brighton Grange elementary school.

As soon as summer break came around, Dahn would be at the ranch and twirling his little heart out if Dodge had his way.

Seeing as how Chris—the bonehead other dad—was being all sorts of dodgy about summer vacation, I was preparing myself for another round of battle of the exes to take place soon.

There were goats to tend to, cattle to check on out on the range, cabins to continue working on, and of course, the daily chores.

If someone who lived on a farm or ranch ever got bored, I’d never heard tell.

I was on Prissy’s back as soon as I got home.

Freed from the cast I rode her hard, giving her the run that she had been craving, all the way out to the twister cabin—or High Winds Cabin as Bella called it—to find Ford hard at work.

The man was a dynamo and with our help, when we were free, we’d managed to get the walls up, the roof in place, and the windows in.

No small feat with the roof trusses, let me tell you, but with some muscle, some ingenuity, and a damn good tractor, we’d hoisted those bitches into place with only a few bumps and bruises.

There may have been a hit taken to a healing forearm bone that may have set things back a week or two, but a man made sacrifices for his land.