Page 48 of Lost and Found Cowboy
“That’s it, sweet girl,” Mack told the cow as he gritted his teeth and gave another pull. “You can do it.”
The cow’s stomach gave another heave, then the hips were through, and the baby calf slid into the straw.
“It’s out,” Mack said, dropping the handles and quickly working to strip the remains of the amniotic sac from its legs and hind quarters. “And of course, it’s a boy. It’s always the boyswho give us trouble.” Sticking his fingers into the calf’s mouth, he tried to clear any mucous, but it didn’t seem to be breathing.
Lorna pulled Max closer to her legs, terrified that her son had just witnessed a dead calf being pulled and praying that Mack could save his life.
He grabbed a piece of straw and circled it around inside the calf’s nostrils.
“He’s tickling inside its nose to try to get it to sneeze or start breathing,” Maisie explained, squeezing her hand as they watched Duke kneel down and start rubbing the calf vigorously with a towel. “He’s trying to stimulate his breathing and circulation. The towel is supposed to mimic the natural licking of the calf that the mother would be doing. She just looks too worn out to do it yet. But it can also help a weak calf to regulate its body temperature and start breathing on its own.”
“Is he gonna be okay, Mama?” Max asked, his voice small and frightened.
The calf let out a sneeze and a wheeze, and everyone in the barn seemed to let out a sigh of relief accompanied by a whoop from Mack.
They dragged the calf closer to the mama cow’s head, and she licked at his head and body to clean him. He was all red except for a small white tuft in the middle of his forehead, a bit of white on his belly and white socks on both his back legs and one of his fronts.
“Yes,” Mack said, grinning over at her son. “He is going to be okay.”
They all cheered then as Mack pushed to his feet and used another towel to clean off his arms and chest. He knelt beside Max and pointed at the baby cow. “That calf is yours.”
Max frowned. “What do you mean?”
Lorna was thinking the same thing. This was news to her, and she wasn’t sure she was prepared for the care and feeding of a small cow.
“I mean, I talked to my brothers and Duke, and we want you to have Junebug’s calf,” Mack told him.
Her son’s face lit with delight. “Can I bring him home and he can sleep in my bedroom?”
Mack chuckled. “No, he has to stay here where his mama can take care of him.”
Whew. Thank goodness for that.
“But you can pick his name, and you can visit him whenever you want,” Mack continued. “And if you spend a lot of time with him when he’s little like this, and give him lots of love and occasional treats, he’ll recognize you and come to you when you come out to see him.”
Max beamed up at his mother then threw his arms around Mack’s neck, oblivious to the muck and straw on his chest. Thank goodness she’d brought extra pajamas. “My very own cow. I can’t believe it. I will love him and bring him treats. This is the best night ever.” He pulled back as his small brow furrowed. “What kind of treats does a cow like anyway?”
Chapter Twenty-One
Mack reported for barista duty the next morning promptly at seven. Lorna had left the ranch twenty minutes before him so she could drop the kids off with Gertie. Max had an odd schedule because it was the last day of school, so Gertie was going to take him in then he and Lorna would pick him up from school that afternoon.
They’d invited him to go to the school carnival with them that night, and he was oddly looking forward to it. Not the part about hanging around with a bunch of elementary school kids and their parents and playing silly carnival games, but the part about where he got to do all that with Lorna, Max, and Izzy.
They were starting to feel like family to him, and that both excited and scared the hell out of him. When he’d first arrived in Woodland Hills the summer before, they had all hung out together quite a bit, he and his brothers and their girlfriends, and Lorna and the kids, and he’d had the same kind of feelings then—like he was actually part of something. Part of a family.
He’d been scared then, too. And looking back now, he had to wonder if maybe that was a portion of the reason he’d agreed to go back to Texas. And maybe why he’d stayed away.
He’d yearned for a family for so long, but then when he finally got one, it was a bit overwhelming and terrifying. In his life, whenever anything started to go well for him, like having Anna Maria and her family take him in and treat him like one of theirs, it got taken away.
Or whenever he thought things might be going okay with his mom, she’d end up taking off again and making him feel like a chump for believing for once, things might be different.
But this time, with Lorna and the kids, it did feel different. It felt real. Which was kind of a joke, since they were supposed to be in afakerelationship.
He knew that. But still, a part of him wanted it to be real—wanted this to be his life. The American dream—a beautiful woman and two point five kids. Although, in their case, they’d have to count their point five as the new baby cow.
“Hey, Mack,” Lorna called, breaking into his thoughts as she waved him toward the back door. “Would you take a look at something with me real quick?”
“Sure.” He followed her outside then frowned as she pointed to the back door where it looked like someone had taken a screwdriver to the lock. “What the hell?”
