Page 47 of The Grump I Married
WESTON
Thud, thud, thud.
I bolted upright in bed, the sheets tangled around my waist as the darkness pressed in, trying to decide whether I’d been dreaming or if I’d actually?—
Thud, thud, thud!
Definitely not a dream. Someone was at my door, and they wanted something. Urgently.
“Coming,” I called, kicking off the sheets and scrambling out of bed as my heart started racing. “Lena, what is it?” It was bound to be her, right? I didn’t know who else would be pounding on my door at—I checked my watch on the nightstand—four in the morning.
“Hurry up, would ya?” came the reply.
That didn’t sound like Lena. I threw the door open, blinking until my sleep fog faded and the hazy outline of Callum came into view in the hallway. He wore mud-caked overalls andsmelled strongly of wet straw and manure. That was not a smell a man wanted to wake up to.
“Sorry to wake you,” he said, voice gruff. He didn’t actually sound all that sorry.
“S’all right,” I mumbled, rubbing my eyes, still trying to figure out what was going on and why it required me being up at this hour. Had something happened to Agnes? Or was it Lena? That didn’t make sense, though. Why wouldn’t they have come to me themselves? I glanced around. Milo was still passed out on the rug in front of the fireplace—he’d barely popped his head up in reaction to Callum’s knocking. “What’s wrong?”
“One of the Highland coos is calving,” he said. “Labor was progressing well, but it’s stopped now.”
I was suddenly flooded with memories of late nights poking my head out my bedroom door. Hushed voices. Watching Grandad march down the stairs, wellies under his arm, setting off into the pitch black. On those particular nights, it had usually been an emergency with the livestock that had pulled him out of bed. When I was young, I’d wake in the morning to dramatic tales of babies born in the wee hours after a touch-and-go night. When I was a little older, Grandad would give me a wave, and I’d race after him in my pajamas. My chest ached at the clarity of the memories, and I ran my knuckles over my sternum.
“I’m gonna need help to get the calf out,” Callum said.
I nodded, wide awake now. “Give me two minutes.”
“I’ll give you one,” he said, marching off. “Meet me by the door.”
Without hesitating, I turned back to the room and threw on the first bits of clothing I could get my hands on and spared a glancefor Milo to see if he’d come, but when he simply thumped his tail, I took off down the stairs, stepping out the front door into the chill of dawn.
Callum set a brisk pace for the cattle shed, and as I hurried along behind him, I was struck by another memory. I must have been about fifteen. A wicked storm had blown through the area, and Grandad shook me awake in the middle of the night, bundling me out the door in a hurry. A massive yew tree had come down in the wind, crashing through one end of the sheep shed. The animals were in a frenzy, and we spent the rest of the night pulling sheep from the wreckage and moving timber. There’d been a lamb orphaned in the accident, and I’d snuggled it in my jacket until morning.
As we neared the shed, light spilled across dew-soaked grass, our feet crunching over gravel. I followed Callum inside the building and down the main aisle to a pen filled with freshly bedded straw. Lying on her side in the middle of the pen was a shaggy-haired, ginger-colored Highland cow. She looked less than impressed with the situation.
Her tail flicked as we entered the pen, and a low moo echoed her discomfort.
“This here is Skye,” Callum said, making his way across the pen. “She’s about to be a first-time mum.”
“Hiya, girl,” I said, laying my hand against her side. “You’re all right. We’ll get you looked after.” She flicked her tail again, and as I stared into one large, glassy black eye, I knew it was going to take all we had to get this calf out safely. My hand ran along Skye’s stringy coat as Callum readied his supplies. “How long has she been in labor?”
“Going on three hours now. When it just stopped completely, I got worried.”
“Is the baby backward in there?” I didn’t know much about calving but I knew a breech birth was potentially deadly.
Callum shook his head, handing me a pair of long, plastic gloves. I slid them on up to my elbows. “I took a look, and I think we’re dealing with carpal flexion.”
I arched an eyebrow at him. What the bloody hell was that?
“One of the calf’s legs is bent back in the birth canal,” he explained. “That’s why she’s gonna need our help to get this wee one out.”
“How do you know?”
“Come on over here,” he said, waving me around the back of the cow. He raised the tail and guided my gloved hand. “Feel that?”
I nodded.
“That’s the calf’s nose. And shift your hand over a wee bit. Feel that hard edge?”
