Stepping out of the tub, Steve fetched a large towel from the stack on the shelves in the corner and enfolded her in it with a hug, before fetching one for himself. “I like it. The fifteenth and thirtieth it is. And you get the thirtieth, so I can spoil you before our wedding day.” He paused, then added quietly, looking off to one side, “I wish we could still afford a big wedding, then I could’ve spoiled you on that day, too.”
Tucking her finger under his chin, Rachel turned his gaze to her. “I’m marrying you. That’s the important thing. If we can survive tornadoes and mortgages and once-a-century blizzards—and we have—then the rest of our lives will be good, and that’s all I could ask for. So long as I get to spend the rest of my life with you.”
Steve ducked his head, kissing the tip of her finger. “I don’t deserve you, woman.”
“Every fifteenth of the month, you will,” she returned, grinning. “Now, dry off so the important bits don’t freeze before we can get into bed. I’m still in the mood to start a family with you, mister!”
“Yes, ma’am!” Grinning back, he complied.
CROCHETING IN THE LIGHT OF THE FOUR VOTIVE CANDLES she had brought upstairs with her, Cassie blinked sleepily. The infant-sized jumper suit was almost done. Just a few more rows to finish the collar, and she’d be finished. Which was just as well, since she was almost out of pink yarn in the skein she had brought.
Pink.
Blinking again, this time to clear the sleep from her eyes, she grinned and crawled out of the quilt-covered bed. Padding out of her room, jumper and skein wadded in one hand, a candle in its glass holder carried in the other for illumination, she tapped lightly on the door across the hall from hers with a knuckle. Bella opened it after a moment, one of her dark brown eyebrows arched in silent inquiry. Still grinning, Cassie lifted the jumper into view, displaying it to her longtime friend.
For a moment, Bella squinted in confusion. Then her brow cleared, her eyes widened, and she smiled as well. Tipping her head to the left, she indicated Mike’s door, there at the end of the hall. A nod and Cassie moved over to that panel, rapping quietly on the painted wood. It opened after a moment. Lifting the votive holder and the nearly finished jumper, Cassie displayed it to him as well.
He grinned and nodded, speaking softly. “Everything will be taken care of on my end. Don’t worry. Just keep up your own work. I trust the snow will end in time for us to get going.”
Cassie nodded, clutching the pink jumper to her chest with that same pleased smile. “Everything will work out, I’m sure of it.”
“When does it not?” Bella murmured from the doorway of her room. “Good night, you two.”
SOME OF THE SNOW HAD SWIRLED INTO THE TRENCH BETWEEN the farmhouse and the barn, and some of the snow had swirled away from the house, reducing the six feet of snow in the drifts around them to about five and a half. But it was still passable when Steve slogged through the knee-high powder and wind-blown flakes on his way to help Pete with the morning’s milking. The air was still bitingly cold, too, threatening to freeze him from nostrils to lungs with each cautious breath.
He wanted to be back in bed with his wife-to-be, but tending animals was a responsibility, with cattle to milk and chickens to feed. He did allow thoughts of last night’s unfettered coupling to keep him warm, since the wind was blowing hard. Of how deliciously naughty it had felt to enter her without any protection…of how she had laughed at one point during a position shift when he complained about the cold drafts down his back, since the covers had also shifted.
Opening the barn door, he stepped inside, and heard an unexpected sound. The lowing of the girls in their stalls was joined by the bleating, higher bawl of a calf. Blinking, Steve closed the door behind him. There, in Ellen’s stall on the other side of the barn, was a newborn calf! And a very tired but pleased-looking Pete, seated on a stool as he fed the hungry thing from the oversized baby bottle of colostrum they had collected.
The slats of the stall were angled wrong for Steve to tell if it was a future bull or heifer. Joining the younger man, he saw the gender. “A boy. Ah, well.”
“Something you don’t need in a dairy herd. Not when it’s the offspring of one of these ladies,” Pete agreed. “It’s hard not to get attached to ’em when they’re newborns. A girl, you could’ve kept. What’ll you do with him?”
Steve always hated this part, but he knew he had to be practical. They had room for six cows, in the count of the stalls and the milking machine stations in the dairy; if the calf had been a heifer, they could’ve kept her. “Same as the last one, I guess. Raise to the point of weaning, then sell for veal, and keep the stomach for the rennet.”
“Rennet?” Pete asked, curious.
“The stomach lining of a milk-fed calf has enzymes that help turn milk into cheese,” Steve informed him. “A lot of the enzymes are vegetable-based these days, and we mix it in, but there’s no sense in wasting the calf rennet, either. Didn’t you ever read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books when you were going up?”
“Nope; I was more into books with talkin’ animals. I figured you’d raise him for veal,” Pete replied, getting back to the subject. He scratched the top of the calf’s head. “That’s why I resisted naming him. This is the part about dairy farming I don’t like. The rest of it, I do. Much more than pig farming.
“I’ve been thinking, out here at night,” he added, adjusting his grip on the bottle, tilting it higher so the calf could suckle the remaining milk. “I think I should go back to my uncle’s place and hire on as a hand. He’s always been grateful for the help in the summers. Joey’s turning into a real good plumber, an’ Dave’s got an offer in the works for the garage of the dealership in the next town. It’s time I did something with my own life, rather than just drift an’ make trouble. An’ I’m sorry I came here to make trouble for you an’ Miz Rutherford. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“I think you just finished growing up, Pete,” Steve observed softly. “And your apology is accepted. It takes a man to admit when he’s been wrong. Anyone who can’t do it is still just a boy, no matter how many years under his belt.” From the shy smile Pete gave him, Steve knew his compliment had driven home. “But I’m not too sorry you three came out here. Dave helped with the generator, Joey with the plumbing, and now you with the calf. Was it a hard birth?”
“Breech, like you thought; her lowing woke me up,” Pete admitted. “But it was easy enough to scrub up, reach in, and turn ’im around.” He paused and laughed. “I almost went up to th’ house to wake you up, make a city-educated boy like yourself learn how do it…but I thought of all that sloggin’ through the snow you did yesterday, gettin’ the spark plugs an’ such, an’ I didn’t have the heart to wake you so early. Besides, it was an easy turnin’ to do.”
A yawn followed his words. Steve took pity on him. “Why don’t you finish up with the calf, then go on back to bed for a nap? I’ll do the milking and the mucking, then wake you up when it’s breakfast time.”
Pete smiled at him. “I’ll take that offer. This little boy’s almost done, anyway. Darn near drained Mama dry when he first latched on, too, so I thought I’d offer him what was in the bottle.”
Nodding, Steve went to work.
THE WINDS CONTINUED TO SCOUR DOWN THE DRIFTS OF snow, but at least more didn’t seem to be coming down from the thinning clouds in the sky. At the rate it was vanishing, somewhat slower than it had arrived, Rachel figured the roads should be reasonably drivable by Christmas morning. They couldn’t get out to church for Sunday services, but that was alright, in a way; Cassie found a book of hymns in the small, family-style library the Inn boasted, and coaxed the others into singing carols with her. It filled the old farmhouse with joy and tranquility, that eight people, three with diverse faiths, could enjoy such a simple yet uplifting task together while they waited for the last of the storm to abate. And with the drifts gradually blowing away, they’d be able to go into town for Christmas services.