His friend rolled his head to the side and stared at him. “You don’t work in those departments, Klein, and you know it.”
“If they need the help?—”
“Not gonna happen. Just… go home, will you?”
Mathew glowered at the glass doors where patients normally came in every few minutes. Aiden was right. Something was off about today. Where were their patients? Right about now, he was regretting moving out of the city.
His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out. Then his heart hammered to an uneven rhythm.
Aiden leaned closer. “Everything okay?”
Mathew glanced down at the message, then slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Yeah. Just my cousin’s friend. She asked if I could come by the farm and help her with something.”
Aiden stared at him, curious. Questions flickered in his eyes, but before Mathew allowed him to voice one, he shoved the phone in his pocket.
“I’ll check with Jones and then leave. You’re right. I wasn’t even supposed to be on deck today.”
His friend’s mouth fell open and he sputtered a few things that Mathew didn’t hear. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was going. Curiosity, maybe. Or maybe it was the fact that when River asked for help, something in him had a hard time saying no.
By the timeMathew pulled up at the farm, his eyes found River almost immediately. He put the car in park and leaned over to grab his sweatshirt, but before he could climb out, she opened the passenger door and slid inside.
He blinked at her. “What’s going on?”
A smile tugged at her mouth. “So you did come.”
His brow furrowed. “You asked me to.”
Something warm flickered in her expression, like she hadn’t been completely sure he would. “I thought there was a chance you might say no.”
He studied her for a moment. “You were awfully mysterious about what you needed help with.”
Her mouth twitched. “I didn’t want to give you too much time to come up with an excuse not to come.”
That nearly pulled a smile out of him, but he managed to hold it back. Barely.
“So,” he said, turning slightly toward her, “now that I’m here, you going to tell me what you need help with?”
She fidgeted for a second, then straightened her shoulders and smiled brightly. “I thought today we could go pick out some pullets.”
“Pullets?” He wrinkled his nose. “What are pullets?”
Apparently, pullets were chicks. Well, slightly matured chicks. They were definitely not as cute as chicks, but they weren’t the larger, scary dinosaur-like birds that roamed freely and pecked at the earth either.
“Aren’t they so cute?” River gushed, crouching down to get a better look at the teenage monstrosities. Yeah, he definitely wasn’t an animal person. But when River turned her face upward so he could get a good look at her smile, every hard edge in him softened.
“Yeah, cute.”
She tossed back her head with a laugh. “Come on, Doc. Help me pick out a few. They’re flock animals. That means they’ll get lonely if we don’t get enough.”
We.
Why did that single word sound so… special? She was including him in this adventure and… he was so here for it.
Pinching at the fabric of his pants, he crouched down and stared at the beady-eyed gremlins. “That one.” He pointed, and she followed his gesture.
“Yeah, I like her, too.”
After picking out chicks and getting all the accessories that the little darlin’s—River’s words, not his—could ever need, they were back on the road and headed for the farm. He stayed long enough to watch River get the babies acclimated to their new home. But when he made a move to leave, she caught him by his wrist.
