Page 108 of Bailey

“Evening prayers,” he said out loud. “Kneeling down at my bed.”

The pastor continued to talk, but he kept his head down, creating a small, intimate space for him and Bailey to whisper back and forth. “What about you? Is there anything you want to set a goal for?”

“Are we accountability buddies now?” She grinned at him.

“Yes,” he said without missing a beat.

“I think I’m going to have my goal be church attendance,” she said. “Every week, unless I’m really, really sick.”

“Or the weather’s too bad,” he whispered.

She giggled quietly, turning her face into his chest. “Yes, or unless the weather’s too bad.”

Reeves grinned at her and pressed a kiss to the corner of her eye, then lifted his face back to the pulpit, beyond glad that he hadn’t canceled on church this morning, that he hadn’t given up on himself, and especially that God hadn’t given up on him.

CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE

Bailey looked up as Lark stuck her head into her office. “Hey, do you have a couple of minutes to go over these reports?”

Bailey sat away from the research she’d been doing on a rare type of cattle hoof fungus. One of the farms she’d been visiting in the last couple of months had been seeing it more and more, and Bailey hadn’t dealt with it since her vet school days.

“Yes,” she said. “It’ll give me some relief from these gross pictures I’ve been looking at online.”

She closed her laptop and smiled as Lark entered the office, sighed, and sank into one of the two chairs across from her desk. “You sound tired,” she said.

“Yeah,” Lark gave a half chuckle. “It’s been a little rough getting back to real life after the honeymoon.”

“I bet.” Bailey grinned at her, though she’d had no experience with such things. “You and Cash are all settled in at the new ranch?”

“Yeah,” she said. “We got Teresa moved down to Texas over the weekend. I flew back, and Cash is picking up his horses and driving them home.”

Bailey’s eyebrows went up. “Is that this week?”

“They’ll be here on Friday,” Lark said. “I’m pretty sure you have an appointment at our place to check them out.” She tilted her head, silently asking Bailey if she was still planning on going out to Cousins Creek Ranch to examine Cash’s new horses.

Bailey didn’t normally concern herself with Friday’s work on Monday afternoon, but she smiled and nodded. “That sounds right.”

Lark beamed at her. “Cash is like a little boy on Christmas Day getting those horses.”

“I think he sent me the listings,” Bailey said. “And they looked good.”

“Yeah.” Lark suddenly sat up and put a light blue folder on the desk. “Anyway, I’ve got all those reports for the blood samples for the cattle from the farms you service right here,” she said. “I’m not seeing anything abnormal, but I’m not a vet tech.”

“I’ll take a look at it.” Bailey pulled the blue folder in front of her. “You have a report for each farm?”

“Yes,” Lark said. “And I’m happy to get those emailed out later today if you’d like. I just need you to sign each one, and I can turn them into PDFs and get them done.”

Bailey looked at the first one for a small hobby farm with a herd of thirty-five cattle. Lark hadn’t quite finished her animal science degree, and she toyed with going back to school to get her vet tech certification, but she hadn’t done that either. Bailey had found her a great asset as an animal care specialist around the clinic.

She helped with all kinds of tasks, from entering data to weighing animals, to being an extra pair of hands, to being a daily staple in their doggy daycare, to prepping supplies and cleaning up surgical rooms after procedures.

Bailey suspected that once Cash had established his cutting horse operation, she’d lose Lark to that, as horses required plenty of care: moving them from pasture to pasture, stable to stable, cleaning out their stalls, feeding them a precise diet at an exact time. Yes, horses were one of the most finicky livestock animals anyone could own, and someone with Lark’s skills would be invaluable to a cutting horse operation.

“These look great,” Bailey said. “I’ll get them signed for you in the next couple of hours, and you can get them out this afternoon.”

“Thanks,” Lark said, and she started to get to her feet as a commotion came down the hall.