“That’s so sad.”
“She senses Crumpet is weak, so she’s decided to focus on the two with the strongest chance of surviving.” He slams the grate shut. “I should have seen this coming. God knows how long she’sbeen in the cold. She needs her mother’s body heat to live. If she survives the night, we’ll have to keep her in the house.”
“If?”
“There’s a decent chance she won’t,” he says grimly. “She’s half gone.”
Fear flushes through me. I cast around. “What else can we do?”
“Ideally, we’d have some warm air on her, but I don’t want to leave her to get a heater.”
I think. “What about a hairdryer? Would that work?”
“It would, but I don’t have one.”
“I do! Hang on.” I pass her over, jump to my feet, and stumble back to the guest room. I yank open my suitcase, sorting through hair irons and rollers until I find my lilac hairdryer. I run back to the lounge. “Do you think we should use the diffuser?”
“What?”
I yank the attachment off. “Sorry, I’m panicking. It helps define your curls. If I just used my hairdryer straight up, I’d turn into a puffball.” I plug the hairdryer into the wall. “When you’re better, I’ll do my full curly girl routine on you,” I tell Crumpet. “You’ll look amazing. Everyone else will be jealous of you. So stop dying. Please, please, please.” I can feel Alec looking at me as I turn on the hairdryer and hold it a few inches from Crumpet’s back. “Like this?”
Alec nods, and I settle in for the most important blow-dry of my life.
For the next couple of minutes, we both work on her, me drying her wool as Alec rubs her limbs. I can feel my blood pressure rising with every second passing. It’s not working. She’s not moving. She can’t die like this.
Alec’s face is darkening. “Summer,” he says quietly. “Maybe you don’t want to be here for this.”
“No, I’m helping.” I start rubbing her little butt as I frantically dry her.
Finally, after what feels like forever, she stirs in Alec’s arms, bleating weakly. “There you are,” he tells her softly. “Come back to us, okay?”
Slowly, her movements become less sluggish, and her eyes open more. She makes a few tiny squeaks.
Then she bounces out of Alec’s arms, kicking me in the boob.
“Ow,” I say, cuddling her. “Oh my God. You’re alive. Thank God.”
Alec’s clearly just as relieved as I am. “Good girl,” he rumbles, stroking Crumpet’s cheek. “You just decided you wanted to scare us, eh?” He straightens. “I’m going to make her a bottle. She needs sugar. You can bring her to the sofa.”
I nod, carrying a wriggly Crumpet to the couch as she bleats happily. I feel like my heart has restarted. Alec comes back a minute later with a bottle. He sits next to me, tucks her efficiently into the crook of his elbow, and starts to feed her. She immediately latches on and begins glugging the milk down.
Now that the danger has passed, I can’t help but watch as he holds her to his bare chest. The firelight throws golden light over the hard slabs of his abs.
My cheeks burn. “I’m sorry. For running in on you like that. It was dramatic.”
“Why would you apologise?” he murmurs, not looking up. “She would have died if you hadn’t.”
He resettles his weight, and the side of his strong thigh brushes against mine. I feel heat flutter in me.
Sue me. A hot shirtless man is feeding a baby lamb next to me.
I hug a cushion. “So…you always do this? Drop everything whenever one of them is sick? You have, like, hundreds of sheep, right? I guess it’s part of farming that some of them die.” Maybeit’s not a burst-into-the-shower kind of emergency whenever one is ill.
“It is part of farming,” he agrees. “But it’s a reducible risk. When my father ran Lochview, we lost five percent of the flock annually. He said the time was better spent doing other things than constantly checking in on the livestock.” His mouth presses into a line. “I disagreed. As a child, I used to get up early before school to check on all the animals myself.”
I smile slightly. “That’s kind.”
“It’s just what’s right. Father didn’t like it though. One day, he found me nursing a hypothermic lamb after dark. He made me put her down.” His massive finger strokes Crumpet’s tiny cheek. “There now, sweetheart,” he rumbles. “Be good and eat.”
