Page 27 of Sometimes You Stay

“Come on. You can help me feed the kids.” He nodded toward a small room just inside the barn’s sliding door. “We just have to heat up their bottles.”

“Like baby bottles?” She sounded like an idiot, but he wasn’t making sense.

He chuckled again as he strolled toward the room, the sound of his boots dampened by the light coating of hay and dirt across the floor. He pulled a chain hanging from the ceiling, and a single light bulb lit up the square window overlooking the barn.

Cretia took a step after him, and the cow’s enormous eye followed her every movement. Roberta’s chewing turned more serious, and she stamped a hoof against the ground. Her body swayed into the side of the stall, and the wood groaned.

Throat dry, Cretia shuffled back a step, bumping into a furry body at her hip. “Joe.” She forced the word out on a shaky laugh before scratching the dog’s back with a few quick strokes. “How long have you been here?”

The dog let out a low bark, which might have been an answer. Or maybe not. Either way, it seemed to make the cow glare at them more intensely, her hooves rustling the hay in the floor of her stall.

Cretia swallowed quickly and pressed a hand over her suddenly speeding heart.

It wasn’t like the cow was trying to get out. Or like it could even if it wanted to. And if it could, it probably wasn’t going to attack.

Probably.

Not that Cretia had much livestock experience. Or any, really.

She’d visited Pamplona to see the Gothic churches, not the Running of the Bulls. And though she’d received several requests from her followers for videos from a dude ranch in New Mexico, that was a little too close to her childhood and a little far outside her comfort zone.

Dogs were one thing. Dogs were normal animals.

Cows were ... decidedly not normal.

She gave Roberta a wide berth as she scurried after Finn. Roberta might not like her, but the cow had every reason to love Finn. There was no way she would attack the guy who had saved her and fed her every day.

Probably.

Seven

Finn wasn’t exactly sure what was going on between Cretia and Roberta, but he watched their stare down closely for a few minutes after turning on the burner to warm the pot of water. Roberta had ignored his mom and dad, the vet, little Jessie, and pretty much everyone else who had deigned to visit the barn since her arrival the year before.

Not so for Cretia Martin.

Mar-teen.He replayed her introduction a few times in his mind. The gentle roll of ther. The subtle Spanish accent that made her name exotic and intriguing. And made him want to ask if she spoke the language. If she’d grown up in a bilingual household. If she still called San Luis home.

Technically, that was none of his business. But it didn’t stop the questions from racing through his mind. Roberta wasn’t the only one curious about North Rustico’s newest—if short-term—resident.

Reaching for one of the big green bottles of milk, he brushed his thumb against the outside of the metal lobster pot sitting on the hot plate. With a hiss, he shoved his thumb into his mouth to ease the immediate sting.

He knew better than to get distracted. He’d nearly dumped the whole pot on himself a week before when he made the mistake of letting Sonny and Cher follow him into the tack room. While a lot less prone to butting against his legs, Cretia was a whole lot more interesting than the kids. And he couldn’t seem to look away from her as she shuffled toward Roberta then back, her brown eyes almost as large as the cow’s.

Cretia looked up just then, catching his gaze through the window. She nodded toward the cow in question, as though asking if Roberta was safe or if he’d left her with a maniac. Finn dropped his thumb from his mouth and offered a half smile by way of answer.

Cretia didn’t seem convinced, keeping one eye on the cow even as she shuffled closer to the tack room.

At the first bubble in the pot, Finn dropped two bottles into the water. He forced his gaze to stay on the task at hand, careful to avoid the splash. He didn’t need a serious burn because he couldn’t pay attention to his job. Because he couldn’t take his eyes off of his visitor.

Setting the little egg timer on the table, he crossed his arms and waited, surveying his workspace. His goat setup wasn’t sophisticated—nothing like Justin’s dairy across the street. But it got the job done. And considering he’d put most of it together in about twenty-four hours, he was pretty proud of it.

His animals were healthy, cared for, and well fed.

That knowledge didn’t stop his gut from twisting when he wondered what his dad would think of it. Or Cretia. Which was absolutely ridiculous. He shouldn’t care about her opinion.

He’d made his mom proud, and he hoped he’d earned his dad’s respect. He’d saved the animals he could, all while maintaining the business. So what if it wasn’t the big, technological production he’d like it to be? No one cared that he was using his mom’s hand-me-down kitchen gadgets to make sure the kids got all the nutrients they needed.

Finn was probably the only one who cared that the business wasn’t growing. That it functioned much as it had when his grandfather started selling his Princess’s puppies to families, farmers, and search and rescue operations across Atlantic Canada.

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