“I’m up.” Austin rubbed the back of his hand where he’d connected with my shoulder. “Sorry.”
“No worries.” I rolled out of bed and stretched, aware of his eyes on me. “We’ll feed and water, then go up to the main house for breakfast and talk to Mr. Bowen.”
“You think he’ll let me work for my keep? I kind of broke in and stole those carrots.”
“Kendrick’s not a man to get mad at someone for saving their life.” Although the not-asking part wouldn’t impress him.
Austin nodded slowly, chewing on his lower lip. I thought better of holding out a hand to haul him off the bed. Touching Austin would be a bad idea. “Come on. Let me loan you some clothes. You can bring your dirty ones up to the house to wash.”
“I can’t…”
“I’ll stick them in with a load of mine later. We all use the laundry up there.” I pulled my hamper out of the closet and opened the lid. “Go use the john and toss your dirty things in here.”
“Yessir.” Austin scrambled up and shook himself, scrubbing at his hair with his fingers. The borrowed sweatpants sagged low around his hips and I caught a flash of pale skin as his shirt flapped when he hurried out.
I turned away and pulled open a drawer, checking my spare clothes. He was smaller than me, and would have to stick to the sweatpants, but T-shirts were easy. I added a henley too, with the cold deepening outside. Socks. I didn’t have any brand new, but he couldn’t be too picky. I tugged the bedcovers straight and laid the clothes on the foot of the bed.
Austin hustled back in, his hair dampened and slicked down. I almost gave him a hard time over risking frostbite just to look better, but the color across his cheekbones and the way he dropped his gaze to the floor suggested he wasn’t in a mood for teasing.
“Pick out what you want.” I waved at the assortment and tucked my own clothes under my arm. “Dress warm in layers. I’ll be out in a minute.” The bathroom wasn’t roomy for getting dressed, but I wasn’t about to strip to my shorts in front of Austin.
Outside, the wind had developed a nasty bite, blowing the fresh snow around, but we hadn’t got any additional white stuff. I showed Austin the feeding chart on the wall and got him started. Since he’d cleaned buckets last night, we only needed to top them up.
Colby arrived a few minutes later with the dogs behind him. He stopped in the doorway, staring at Austin. Austin ducked his head and scurried back to the feed room, leaving me to say, “Austin’s a friend. He’s gonna hang out for the holiday and lend a hand.”
“Friend, huh?” Colby grinned at me. “Go you.”
Colby was straight but not narrow, as he liked to remind me. Still, I told him, “Eyes off the teenager.”
“Teenager?”
“I’m eighteen,” Austin said, coming back with a fresh bucket of sweet feed and a scoop. “Seth just likes to pretend he’s ancient.”
That stung, since I was holding back for his sake. “Colby, Austin. Austin, Colby. You met our best cattle dog Patch and the brown one’s Ramble. Let’s get these horses fed.”
“I’ll scrub water buckets,” Colby offered.
“Already done.” I nodded at Austin.
“Yeah? He works fast.” Colby grinned at me, unrepentant. “I’ll feed the dogs and cats, and take care of Ebony, then.” He strode off toward the box stall where Kendrick’s pet cow was waiting for her calf.
“Ebony?” Austin asked.
“The heavy in the box stall. She’s due about now. She’s a family pet, the last calf Kendrick’s wife bottle fed before she passed.”
“Oh. I wondered why you’d brought a cow inside.”
“Pure sentiment. Kendrick will tell you it’s just practical. She’s a good producer, big calves, lots of milk to feed them. We’ve gotthree of her heifers in the herd now, but she came up empty last year. The bull broke a fence and got her in February. Kendrick pretends Ebony’s not special but secretly, yeah, his wife Lori named her, and Kendrick keeps her close.”
“That’s nice.”
“Huh?”
“That he loved his wife like that, all his life. When my mom left, Dad threw away everything, all her pictures. Like she never existed.” Austin shrugged. “Difference between dying and escaping, right?”
And cheating, maybe, since he said his mom ran off with a guy. I figured Austin didn’t want to hear that, and I wasn’t going to lay blame. More power to her.
We got everyone fed, then headed up to the house to eat. The dogs opted to stay behind and sniff their way around the newly white farmyard. In the summertime, one of us would’ve been out on the four-wheelers already for a quick first pass along the pastures, getting our eyes on the cattle before breakfast. In November, the short days meant we got to sleep in and still climbed the snowy front steps in near-darkness.
