about now. Because where exactly were they? She didn’t know.
They rode in silence after that, until they reached the barn. Bennett Dodge was already there, his mobile unit fully equipped to handle any sort of emergency.
“Hi,” Ryder said, getting out of the back of the truck and shaking the other man’s hand. “How are things?”
“All right. Kaylee’s got some wicked morning sickness but other than that...”
That was the first that Sammy had heard about the veterinarian’s wife being pregnant. His wife, who was the other veterinarian.
Bennett Dodge was one of the least scandalous people in the entire town of Gold Valley. But he had one of the more scandalous things from his past pop up to haunt him. Well, not haunt him, she supposed. But one day three years ago a fifteen-year-old son he hadn’t known he had had ended up on his doorstep. That was when things had changed between him and his coworker and friend Kaylee. Sammy wasn’t privy to all the details; all she knew was that they had been the best of friends, and then the next thing she knew she heard they were getting married. And now apparently having a baby.
“Congratulations,” she said.
“We were empty nesters for all of two minutes.”
He said it with a lot of humor. Bennett was only in his midthirties. She doubted he was ready to be an empty nester anyway.
Plus, he’d missed the first fifteen years of his first child’s life.
“I’ll never be an empty nester,” Ryder said, looking around. “I can’t get these people to leave.”
“It’s overrated anyway,” Bennett said. “Having been one for most my life.”
“I never have been.”
He’d never lived alone. And neither had she. Not really. But it struck her then how funny that was.
Was that what she needed to do? Did she need to get back to her original thought of being independent? She wasn’t really sure.
“Let’s check this little guy out.”
For the next half hour or so Bennett gave the calf a thorough once-over and dressed his wounds. Primarily, his issue was dehydration. But Bennett was hopeful that with the minor injection of fluids and a speedy reunion with his mother, he would pull through quickly.
He left them with instructions on what to look out for, and then left on another emergency call.
“I better get back to... I was making jewelry, actually.”
“No, you don’t,” he said. “We need to go in the house and get your hands patched up.”
“I’m fine.”
Rose appeared from around the front of the truck. “You’re not fine. You’re bleeding like a son of a gun. A stuck pig. It’s awful, Sammy.”
“I’m fine,” she protested.
But she found herself being grabbed by said hands and propelled toward the house.
It took her a moment to realize it was only she and Ryder who had gone inside.
“Where’s Iris?” Sammy asked.
“Don’t know,” he said.
He opened up the cabinet in the kitchen that housed all the medicine and the first-aid kit and dragged it down. It was an old, metal thing that could probably be used for a weapon. She was sure that they’d had it since they were kids. Probably something that their parents had bought and they had just continued to restock.
Ryder got out an antiseptic ointment and some Band-Aids, and she leaned against the counter, watching his movements.
His dark head was bent low as he opened the Band-Aids and put medicine on them, one lock of hair falling into his face.
She fought the urge to reach out and push it back off his forehead.
A casual gesture that she might have engaged in thoughtlessly before last night. But now she just couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything like that casually.
Because touching between them was no longer casual.
It hurt her to realize that.
That last night they might have found something, but they lost some things, too. And she wasn’t sure that they would ever be able to get back to a place where they had them. She wasn’t sure if you could have everything after all.
She never had been.
It was one of those big promises that you saw trumpeted everywhere and she had always been naturally suspicious of it. As she was naturally suspicious of all things that sounded slightly too good to be true.
“Give me your hand.”
She did, and remembered this morning when he had kissed her wrist after he demanded her hand. But he didn’t kiss her wrist this time. Instead, he started putting a bandage on it, followed by another. “You should have waited.”
“It just felt really important,” she said. “I couldn’t stand