The Happiness Pact. Liz Flaherty

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Which he obviously was, whether he wanted to or not. Her expression told him there’d be no good in arguing that point. Tucker took off his coat, gloves and the pullover sweater he’d worn to church. The shirt he’d worn under it was fairly expendable, but the sweater was cashmere and he really liked how it felt.

      “My brother is a vet,” Libby explained to Gavin, “and we grew up on a dairy farm, so I really do know how to do this. Understand, I don’t like doing it, so you’ll probably have to do something wonderful for me after this, like make me some cookies or something.”

      Holding the calving chains until she asked for them, Tucker listened to Libby as she spoke first to the worried boy and then to the frightened cow. “My friend delivers human babies, and she’s given me all kinds of new instructions I didn’t know about,” Libby said, her voice soothing and quiet. “You need to breathe just right, Joanna. Do the hoo-hoo, hee-hee thing like they show on television. I’ll bet Alice can tell you how. That way I can put the chains around your baby’s legs and help you out a little.”

      “That’s right about the breathing, although I never considered it for a cow.” Alice was at the cow’s head but standing outside the stall, little Mari and her cat at her side. The woman stroked the side of Joanna’s neck. “You can do this, girl.” She looked over at where her husband stood holding firmly to a long and manure-encrusted tail. “We can do this, too, Dan Parsons.”

      Her husband smiled at her, reminding Tucker of how Jack and Arlie looked at each other. He wanted that. Maybe he wanted the whole over-the-top part of it, too.

      He didn’t think he wanted any cows, but if that came with the package, he guessed he could live with it.

      He flinched as Libby slipped her arm into where it had to go, talking to the cow all the time. “Just be glad it’s me instead of Tuck or my brother, Joanna. They have big hands and arms and...ouch...let me get that...no, hold still.” She stopped for a moment, panting as Joanna did, biting down on her bottom lip. “Okay, let’s try that again. Let’s get this baby out for you so you can have a nice rest. Attagirl...oh, ouch, ouch, ouch, you’re not being very grateful, are you?”

      Tucker stepped forward, but she shook her head at him. “I’m okay.” She smiled and patted the cow’s hindquarters with her free hand. “She is, too. She’s just tired.”

      “Do you think it’s going to be all right?” Gavin’s tone was solemn. “Sometimes cows die giving birth. Their calves die, too.”

      “You’re right.” Libby’s expression was as serious as the boy’s. “It seems as if there are risks in everything you do, but if you don’t risk anything, you don’t gain anything, either.” She grinned suddenly, her face lighting up. “And you’ll never have any adventures. Right, Tuck?”

      “Right.” He sounded too hearty, he knew he did, but the boy’s face brightened, too, so it was okay.

      “Okay, good. There we go. Tuck, you set to back me up? Dan, you want to be there to give Gavin a hand if he needs it? He probably won’t, but just in case.” Libby stepped away, holding the end of one of the chains and giving the other to Gavin. “Now, when she strains, we’re going to pull real slow and steady, working with her contraction. Don’t jerk and don’t pull too hard. Think you can do that?”

      “Yes, ma’am.” He looked frightened, but no more so than his father.

      “It scares me, too,” Tucker told the boy, moving into place behind Libby, “and I’ve done it before. I think you’re supposed to be worried about it.”

      Gavin took a deep breath. “Well, if I am, I’ve got that part down. Now, ma’am?”

      “Now.”

      Rewarding the efforts of a small woman in a red dress, a determined young boy and an extremely tired Holstein, a large calf was born in a rush of fluid. Tucker stepped away from Libby in time to catch it, although he fell under its weight.

      “You did it, Joanna! You did it!” Gavin dropped the chain and ran around to hug his cow’s neck. “It’s a...what is it, Dad?”

      “A heifer,” said Dan, helping to rub the calf down with straw. “A big, strong girl.” He looked up at where Libby was shaking her arm to regain full feeling in it. “We can’t thank you enough.”

      “Yes, you can,” she promised. “I know you don’t know us at all, but if you’ll let us take a bath and change our clothes, I think we’ll consider ourselves thanked.”

      “I’m pretty sure we can accommodate that,” said Alice, “plus there’s a roast in the oven just crying out to be eaten.”

      Tucker exchanged glances with Libby and shrugged slightly. “Sounds great.”

      A few more inches of snow had fallen while they’d been in the barn. Drifts created whipped-cream mountains everywhere they looked, some of them all the way up to the eaves of the garage. “I have a tractor,” said Dan. “I’ll be able to get you out of the ditch, but you might want to plan on spending the night. I don’t think you’ll get far, especially without all-wheel drive.”

      “We don’t want to put you out,” Libby protested.

      Alice and Dan laughed together. “You haven’t been inside yet.”

      Except for its fully finished and beautiful kitchen, the old farmhouse was a construction zone. “It will be wonderful someday,” said Alice.

      Tucker looked around, at framework with doors but no walls, at the living room subfloor partially covered with area rugs, at the beautifully curved stairway without a rail. He saw where the children had hung their coats inside the back door in what would eventually be a mud/utility room. He watched as Dan Parsons patted his wife’s stomach, high-fived his son over the birth of the calf and knelt to talk seriously to little Mari about how the new baby would be all right sleeping in the barn with her mama.

      It will be wonderful someday. “No.” Tucker met Libby’s eyes. This is it. This is what I want. “It’s wonderful now.”

       CHAPTER THREE

      LIBBY SLEPT ON an inflatable mattress on the floor of Mari’s room. When Stripes, the kitten, crawled into bed with her, Mari followed, bringing her own pillow. The blow-up mattress was twin-size, so it didn’t leave a lot of room, but Libby slept well anyway, the little-girl scent and warmth of her roommate making for a comfortable night.

      She woke before dawn, dressed in the clothes Tucker and Dan had brought in from the car last night, and plaited her hair into a messy braid. She tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen, stopping on the landing to look through the window and find Venus, clearly visible in the post-storm sky. “Hi, Mom,” she whispered, and went down the rest of the stairs. She found her hostess at the table with a cozied pot of what smelled deliciously like Earl Grey. “Ah,” said Libby, keeping her tone hushed, “a girl after my own heart.”

      Alice waved her to a chair. “And one after mine, who knows any voice over a whisper will wake my children at the crack of dawn on a snow day. We homeschool, but we adhere to the public-school schedule.”

      By the time she and Alice had drunk two pots of tea and told each other most of their СКАЧАТЬ