“Thirty-two pregnant cows.If I'm right, some of them—maybe a lot of them—aren't going to be able to calve naturally.I need a vet to perform an amniocentesis on at least one cow so I can do a genetic analysis and confirm the sire breed.Since there’s no vet around here—at least not one who’ll take me seriously—I was wondering if you could come back to Cobbler Cove and help me out.I don't want to cut your vacation short, but I'm worried Jenna’s going to lose her whole herd just when she's getting her ranch back on its feet.”
“I can be there next week.Tuesday work?”
“Tuesday works.And Dillon?I'd start thinking about how to assembly line bovine C-sections.I think Jenna's staring down a rough calving season.”
He hung up and set the phone down.
At the pinochle tables, the cards had stopped moving.
Walter leaned toward Ruth.“Did he say Jenna Foster's calves are the wrong breed?”
“Something about the sperm being wrong.”
“Whose sperm?”That came from Irma Brown, Rose's part-time waitress, who was refilling coffee at the next table and not even pretending she wasn't listening.
Ruth waved a hand.“The bull's sperm.The Foster cows are pregnant with the wrong kind of calves, and they're going to be huge.Did you hear him say over a hundred pounds?That's the size of a Labrador retriever.”
Walter snapped, “Labs don't weigh a hundred pounds, Ruthie.”
“My cousin had one that topped out at a hundred and ten.”
Walter snorted.“That wasn't a Lab.That was a pony.”
“The point is Jenna's cows are in trouble.And the Lawton boy figured it out.”
Walter shook his head.“That's modern science for you.One wrong test tube and the whole herd's in trouble.”
Gray, who actually was a scientist, a geneticist to be specific, bit his tongue.The pinochle posse didn't know the half of it.If he was right, getting Jenna's cows through calving season was going to be a nightmare.
But he'd done all he could for now.Dillon would be here next week, and the two of them would get answers then.
He went back to his fire textbook and continued reading.
Bonnie Watson came through the front door of Rose's Diner at ten minutes to noon, the cold following her inside like an unwelcome guest.March 1st in Montana was a liar—sunny and thirty-eight degrees, which felt like spring until the wind hit you.
She unwound her scarf and hung it on the hook by the door.
Rose looked up from behind the counter.“Hey, Honey.The usual?”
“Just coffee today.”Bonnie slid onto a stool at the counter.“And a cinnamon roll if there's any left.Cassidy and Noah have a half day of school today, and the bus is dropping them off here shortly.”
Rose poured the coffee black because Bonnie drank her coffee the way she ran the town: no frills, no nonsense, and strong enough to get the job done.She might technically be Mayor Lucas Shoemacher's secretary, but everyone in Cobbler Cove knew who did the real work of keeping the town organized.
Speaking of which, Rose asked, “How's Lucas doing?He back in the office yet?”The mayor had had a scary heart attack right here in the diner about a month ago.
Bonnie wrapped her hands around the mug.“The doctor’s only cleared him to come to work two days a week and wants him to take it easy.But taking anything easy isn't exactly in Lucas’s vocabulary.”
“And how areyoudoing?”
“Busy.You know how it is when the boss is out—everything comes to me.”
The truth was Lucas Shoemacher had been a bear to work for since his heart attack.It wasn't public knowledge, but her boss had confessed to her in confidence that his doctor in Apple Pie Creek told him his heart was in bad shape.Very bad shape.
The mayor had responded not by resting, relaxing, and recovering but by becoming irritable, impatient, and increasingly difficult in a way Bonnie couldn't quite pin down.It wasn't just crankiness.Something was eating at him from the inside out, but she didn't know what it was.
She owed him too much to complain about it, though.He'd given her a job two weeks after Brent's funeral when she'd been penniless and so hollowed out by grief and guilt that getting dressed in the morning felt like an Olympic event.After hearing his secretary had up and quit her job without warning, Bonnie had walked into his office with her résumé, her two-year-old on her hip, and her four-year-old hiding behind her and asked for the job.
Lucas had looked at her, looked at the kids, and said, “Can you start Monday?”
