Her eyes took a few precious seconds to adjust, and she saw him leaning on a waist-high stack of hay bales.
What was he doing? He couldn't even stand upright.
But he reached down and grabbed something. When he straightened, he swayed a little. He was holding a yowling tabby cat.
And looked like he had no idea what to do with it.
She stepped closer, wincing against the assault to her eardrums. Took off her coat.
He met her gaze with relief. Had he thought she would just leave him out here alone?
She held out the coat with her arms underneath to make a sort of net. "Put it in here."
He did. The cat came hissing and spitting the whole time.
"Now what?" she asked, but he was shedding his own coat. What was he doing?
He laid the coat on top of the bale of hay and leaned over the top again, bracing heavily on one hand. He reached down—
And came up with a tiny kitten.
Oh.
There came another. Another.
The first one tried to crawl off the edge, and she moved quickly to push it back with her elbow.
A fourth one, and he was tumbling them together, wrapping them all up.
The mama had stopped yowling but was trying to claw through Molly's coat.
"Now we take them home," he said with a nod that he probably meant to be decisive. "They can't stay out here with the barn a wreck. Other animals can get in. It isn't warm enough."
Her insides melted a little. The big tough guy was worried about kittens.
"Are you sure that's all of them?" she asked. She'd hate for one to get left behind.
"She had four the first day, and I haven't seen any more when I've come in to check on her."
He'd checked on them. Molly melted a little more.
But with her coat off, the cold was seeping through her layers. "C'mon. Let's go."
In the truck, it took some effort to wrangle the mama cat against the door panel, still wrapped in the coat. That left Molly to shift gears and steer with one hand.
She glanced at Cord to see his head back on the headrest again, the coat-wrapped kittens cradled in his arms.
"You're a good man, Cord." The words slipped out before she could catch them.
Maybe he wouldn't hear in his feverish state.
"No, I'm not," he mumbled. "The accident was all my fault."
What was he talking about? "I'm pretty sure the barn’s collapse can be blamed on the weather."
"Not the barn. The. Accident. Capital T, capital A. I was there the night Noah lost his sight. It was my fault. I brought the beer. Never should’ve let Cal drive.”
She kept her eyes on the track as she steered the truck at a crawl. They were almost to the house.
