"On a beam above the third stall. He won't come down."
"He never does. That's his spot." Dillon walked past her and inhaled the familiar scent of barn and animals. His shoulders relaxed the way they always did when he was surrounded by animals. This was his world. Not to mention, he knew every stall, every feed bin, every creak of wood in this old barn. He'd been Fern's vet since the week he arrived in Cobbler Cove, one of his first clients.
She'd called him because a friend of a friend had mentioned that the new vet in the valley didn't charge folks who couldn't pay. Fern could pay—the farm was worth a fortune—but she'd wanted to test him. She'd asked him the price of a farm call before she'd even told him what was wrong with the animal. When he'd quoted his rate, she'd said, "That's highway robbery, but at least you're honest about it."
They'd gotten along fine after that.
"There's a ladder outside the stall," she told him as they walked toward the cat's perch. "I found it in the hayloft and brought it down."
He eyed the ancient wood ladder skeptically. "You trusted that decrepit thing to hold your weight? You're braver than me."
She frowned, looking back and forth between cat and ladder. "What was I supposed to do? Knock the cat off the rafter with a broom?"
He burst out laughing. "Not if you plan to get near him ever again."
She crossed her arms expectantly, making it clear she couldn't wait to see how he got the cat down from its perch some ten feet overhead.
He set down his bag and went into the stall. After a pause to scritch both of the ancient Belgian draft horses, he climbed onto the wooden hay rack in the horses' stall and from there, stepped up onto the stall's half wall directly beneath Chairman Meow. Balancing on its narrow frame, he reached up for the cat with calm confidence. After all, he'd been scratched by worse.
The cat flattened his ears and growled most threateningly.
"Yeah, I know," Dillon murmured. "You're tough. I'm terrified."
He took hold of the cat by the scruff of its neck and tucked him against his chest, pinning the cat against his torso with his forearm. He jumped down, causing both of the big horses Fern had rescued from an abusive farmer to throw up their heads. He murmured an apology to them.
Chairman Meow protested with a mighty yowl that echoed off the barn rafters but the cat didn't scratch him. He knew Dillon, and he knew the daily shot routine. He just wanted it on the record that he objected.
"How did you do that?" Tessa asked, staring. "I tried to get him down for twenty minutes. He drew blood."
She held up her right hand. Three parallel scratches ran across her palm.
"You grabbed for him," Dillon said, preparing the insulin syringe with his free hand. "The chairman doesn't like to be grabbed. You have to scruff him—hand on the back of the neck, firm but not tight. Cats have a reflex of going limp when they get picked up by the back of their neck. Comes from when their mothers carried them around as kittens."
"I'll remember that."
"You'll need to. He gets this shot twice a day. Morning and evening. I'll show you how to load the syringe and give the shot before I leave."
She blinked. "You expect me to give a cat an injection?"
"I expect you to give this cat injections," he said, sliding the needle under Chairman Meow's skin with the gentleness and precision of having done it ten thousand times, "or you'll have to find someone else who can, twice a day, every day, for the foreseeable future."
He watched her process that. He could see her ticking through the list of everyone she knew. But then, as if she abruptly remembered something terrible, her shoulders slumped. Clearly, she was beginning to understand the scope of what she'd just inherited. This wasn't just a farm. It was a full-time job. One she was hopelessly, helplessly unqualified and unprepared to do.
"Fern really knew what she was doing, didn't she?" Tessa said soberly.
"Fern always knew what she was doing."
He set Chairman Meow down. Tail straight up in the air, the cat stalked away with offended dignity, making it clear his personal space had been violated, and worse, his schedule had been disrupted by amateurs. Dillon watched him go, then turned to assess the rest of the barn.
Captain, the three-legged dog, was sitting at the end of the aisle with Maple the blind goat pressed against his side. Those two were a bonded pair—had been since Fern took them in. Captain had lost his leg in a bear trap, and Maple had been born blind on the farm Captain came from. The dog guided the goat and the goat gave the dog someone to protect. Fern had called them her best love story.
"Captain and Maple don't need any special care," he told Tessa. "Just twice a day feeding. They like to eat together. Put down their bowls in the feed room and close the door until they're finished or else the chickens will chase them off and eat all of Captain and Maple's food."
He bit his lips not to smile as Tessa typed furiously on her cell phone, taking notes.
He checked the horses next. Biscuit, was the larger of the two draft horses, a gelding with arthritic hocks. June, the Belgian mare, had a heart murmur that required monitoring. Both were ancient, sweet-tempered, and in reasonable shape considering they hadn't had a vet visit in over a week.
"Biscuit needs Bute daily for his joints," Dillon said, running his hands down the gelding's legs.