Have Mercy - Christina Lee Page 0,14
could taste the buttery dough in my mouth right then.
Arash had stopped us that day, in fact. The day everything changed. The sky was cloudless, the temperature was climbing, and…and… I blinked the stinging sensation from my eyes. Don’t go there. Do not go there.
“I figured.” Kerry’s voice boomed in my ears, snapping me to attention. He stepped back to let the machine do its thing, and our shoulders momentarily brushed, making my skin feel strange and tingly. Suppose it’d been awhile since I was in such close quarters with someone again. He motioned to the device now, providing the interference my thoughts needed. “Some smaller dairy farms still milk by hand, but by now, it’s probably rare. This is way more efficient, and we can do a few at a time. And of course, there are much larger operations, where they can pretty much hook the whole herd up at once.”
When the cow’s tail whipped in our direction and her stance shifted, I wondered if she was uncomfortable. “Does it hurt them?”
“No,” he said adamantly, as if he wouldn’t dare consider doing anything that might injure his animals, and I wondered if I’d offended him with the question. I opened my mouth to say as much, but then he reached over to pat the cow like he’d done earlier. “Maisy’s teats are extra sensitive, so using a soothing lotion on them afterward helps her feel more comfortable.”
The expression on his face was one of warm regard or maybe respect.
“She’s an ornery one, though, and she’ll let me know if I’ve made a misstep.” He spun to reach for a paper bag from the corner of the stall. From the looks of it, it contained some apples and leafy greens. “And you never want to overlook her special treat after she’s finished her job.”
I smirked as I imagined her giving Kerry the cold shoulder or a quick snap of her tail.
Once the milking was about finished, Kerry explained how the pumps would naturally fall away from the teats, and then pointed out the filtration system up above us, which was essentially a series of pipes where the milk was siphoned to a drum for other purposes, like feeding some to the calves and getting the rest ready to sell. After he rubbed lotion on her udders and gave her some apple slices, I watched him move down the line to the next cow, whom he referred to as Butter, and again found myself snickering at the names.
“And business is good?” I asked after a couple of minutes of silence. Not that I minded the quiet right then, just that I found my curiosity getting the best of me.
“It’s decent, which is why Sienna had the idea for the silo store. We could sell fresh eggs and dairy and pump the profits back into the farm. Sienna’s goat-milk soaps and lotions have become popular round these parts too,” he explained. “Plus, kids like goats and calves, any farm animal, really. The past couple of years, we had an unofficial petting zoo around here.”
“I bet that’s a hit,” I said with a smile, imagining families lined up, little ones running about, especially after seeing how excited Ainsley was last night.
We were quiet for a stretch again as I watched him move to another cow, and I found myself wondering about the business they’d set up. It obviously wasn’t a large operation like the ranch, but it seemed to suit them.
“You want to try it?” He motioned to the stool.
“Sure,” I replied instantly, not giving it a moment’s thought. I sat down and looked up at him. “Just tell me what to do.”
When he squatted near me, I got a good whiff of him, which was the exact wrong thing to be focusing on right then. I had smelled plenty of men’s sweat in the barracks, some riper than others, but Kerry’s scent was more pleasing. Earthier somehow. Like grass, maybe hay, if it even had a scent? Who knew, and why the hell was I thinking about how the man smelled? Would I even be having these thoughts if he were still married to Sienna and hadn’t come out of the closet?
Of course you would. At least in passing. He was an attractive man, after all.
Kerry placed a bucket underneath the cow’s stomach. “Give her teats a couple of good squeezes to get rid of any residual dirt or bacteria before we hook her up to the machine.”
Guess teats was a word