‘Okay, I’ll come in tomorrow. Oh, today, thanks Laurel. Stapleton is lucky you were there,’ the vet said and the line went dead. She handed the phone back to Owen.
Laurel stood in the middle of the stables, unsure what she should do next, except cross her arms over her chest so people couldn’t see her nipples poking through the thin satin. It was the middle of the night, and she was cold.
There was a beat of silence.
‘Well, I think we’ve got a lot to learn,’ Jess said, putting her arm around a shell-shocked Owen.
Damn right they did.
How can you have animals if you can’t care for them properly? Laurel did her best to keep her face still, because all eyes were still on her and she did not want Nate’s friends to hate her with her raised eyebrows and judgmental looks.
‘Perhaps you can help us, Laurel?’ Jess asked hopefully. ‘Put us in touch with someone who can train us? Tell us where to go? What to do?’
Laurel nodded.
‘That, I can do,’ she said, heading for the door to the stables, thinking sarcastically that just perhaps Mr Stapleton might be the place to start.
‘Is that it? Do we have to do anything else?’ Owen asked, a little distraught at the idea of leaving the newborn calf with its mother. What did he think Penelope would do? Eat her own calf?
Laurel held in the eye roll and pasted a thin smile on her face.
‘No, mother is licking, the joints are working. We can leave them to it now.’
‘Is that what you were doing? Testing the joints?’ he asked, timidly.
‘Yeah.’ She was tired and covered in goo, and this was not a conversation for now. ‘I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.’
Nate put his arm around her shoulders and edged her towards the door. He seemed eager to leave the stables, and honestly, she was as well. She’d had enough of Alex’s leering glances and Lucia’s marked indifference for one night. Besides, who knows what type of judgment or disgust would be lurking there as she stood, in all her glory, having just pulled a calf from a cow, and in the process, proved that yes, she was just a farm girl. A covered-in-cow-juice farm girl.
‘I wouldn’t get too close to her, Nate,’ Alex said loudly, a smile hidden in his voice. ‘She stinks of cow shit.’
Lucia smothered a laugh. Come on now, guys. Be better than this. Couldn’t he think of anything more original to say? How pathetic.
Nate tensed his arm around her shoulder and she could feel his anger rising. Laurel leaned into him and shook her head softly. Alex wasn’t worth it. Not one little bit. They carried on into the darkness of the garden and back to the house. Behind them, Owen had broken out of his shock and his voice rang out.
‘Alex, you are a petty, ridiculous little man, aren’t you? And you’re no better, Lucia.’
‘What the fuck do you mean by that?’ Alex shouted.
‘I’m sorry about him,’ he said quietly to Laurel.
‘Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. He’s obviously a wanker,’ she said. ‘I just want to have a shower. I am covered in cow gunk.’
Nate snorted a laugh.
‘Don’t worry about it. Hey…’ He stopped and looked at her. She was a little hazy around the edges, hair jagged and tousled, but she was beautiful with the moonlight shining just right across her cheekbones. ‘You were brilliant just then. Absolutely brilliant.’
Her shoulders raised in a little shrug.
‘It was nothing. Anyone would have done it.’
‘No, Laurel,’ he said, gripping the tops of her arms. ‘Not anyone. You.’
‘Okay, not anyone.’ What was she supposed to say to that? ‘Thank you.’
‘But,’ he grimaced slightly, ‘you do have, um, cow juice on your face.’
On. Her. Face.
