“Oh, no. I don’t think so.” The very idea of taking a day off when she was so close to finishing everything made her more frustrated than getting sick in the first place. “You know what? I’m actually feeling a lot better this morning. I think it might have been a twenty-four-hour bug.”
“Well, that’s good to hear,” Tony said, patting the heads of both goats, who had come up to get some attention.
“Those goats sure do love you,” Kat said. “You must be a good caretaker.”
“They’re my old buddies. Been around for years. They’ve been missing your uncle a bit, so I give them a little extra attention.” He leaned on his rake and smiled. “Why don’t you go spend a little quality time with Dolly? She’s been a bit homesick.”
“How can you tell?” Kat asked.
“Ah, when you’ve been around ’em long enough, you can see the signs.” He shook his head. “People are even more obvious, which is why I know you’re lying about feeling better this morning.”
“Ah…” Kat blushed after being caught in a lie. She’d wanted to be able to help out without being a burden to anyone, but Tony had called her out. She wished he hadn’t. He could have at least pretended to believe her. “I’ll go say hello to Dolly.” At least he’d given her the excuse she needed to leave before she embarrassed herself further.
She went to Dolly’s enclosure, and the donkey came running up to her like a dog who was excited to see her owner after a long day of being away from home. The sounds she made as she bounded toward Kat were loud and kind of delightful. “Hello there, Miss Dolly,” Kat said. “I guess you actually like me.”
Dolly nuzzled against her, and Kat was shocked she’d managed to win her over so quickly. She had to wonder why, but whatever it was, she supposed it was a good thing. Dolly brayed and nuzzled her hand again. Kat gave in and pet her some more. “You are super cute,” she said. “Let me get you some treats.”
She went back to her cabin and opened the fridge in search of some produce that was safe for donkeys to eat. The apples were easy enough to core and cut, but the second she cut into a carrot, her stomach started to churn. The smell of it made her feel even sicker than she had the day before. And she liked carrots! Once again, she had to run to the bathroom. When she returned to Dolly’s enclosure, she put the cut-up treats into a feed bucket and offered it to her. “Enjoy, cutie,” she said. Then, she told Tony she was going to take his advice and rest as much as she could for the rest of the day.
Kat spentthe next couple days recuperating from what she assumed was a stomach bug. Every morning, she decided she felt better and tried to work, but then in the afternoon, she would get sick again. After a week, she started to worry. Maybe this wasn’t only a stomach bug or a cold or whatever. What if it was something worse? She decided it was past time to go to a clinic. At the very least, they could give her some stronger medicine than she had at home so she could get back to work.
Every day that passed without her having accomplished the things that needed to be accomplished before she could open her doors to guests gave her increasing anxiety. The ranch was not lucrative yet. She was bleeding money just to keep the animals fed. Of course, she knew most businesses were not profitable in their first year, and she had budgeted for it, but she felt like she was using up that budget a little at a time for every day she lost.
“I will not lose this business to a stupid stomach flu,” she muttered to herself.
On her way out, she told Tony that she was headed to the clinic.
“Good,” he said. “I was wondering when you were going to do what needed to be done.”
“Are you calling me inefficient?” She narrowed her eyes at him.
“Sure am,” he said, laughing. “Denial is always inefficient, and you were in some deep denial about being sick.”
“Oh, fine.” She pouted. “I’ll be back soon… hopefully.”
He waved with his back turned, already back to work. Tony really was probably the hardest worker she’d ever known. And he didn’t even seem to be doing it for her. He seemed to be motivated by the animals. He did the work for them. It was sweet when she thought about it. And then for no reason at all, she missed Cole and had to pull over and cry like a baby for ten minutes before she could drive again.
Breaking down for no reason was another thing that seemed to be happening more than usual, which she attributed to being exhausted from work and sickness, and it was finally getting to her. That was explanation enough, of course.
The clinic in town was tiny and dated. She didn’t think it had been updated since she was a kid. It brought back memories of coming here when she was a kid and had broken her little finger on the playground. It brought back a flood of memories, very few of them good. But the one thing they all had in common was that someone was taking care of her.
She signed in and sat down, pulling out her phone to read the latest e-book on caring for livestock she’d checked out from her local library. Seconds after she highlighted a helpful excerpt and took a few notes on a notepad, they called her name.
In the exam room, a middle-aged woman took her temperature and blood pressure. “Well, you don’t have a fever,” she said. “And your BP looks great.” She pulled out a little plastic cup and handed it to Kat. “Next…”
Kat didn’t need to be told what this was. “Oh, no. No, there’s no way I’m pregnant.”
“Are you sexually active?”
Kat didn’t answer.
“Did you use any kind of birth control?”
Kat stared down at her lap.
The nurse smiled. “Honey, you’ve been feeling nauseated, and you don’t have a fever. If there’s even the slightest chance.”
She sounded like Kat’s mother, which was almost comforting, but Kat’s mind wouldn’t stop spinning. There was no way she was pregnant. No way. “But I’m not getting sick in the mornings,” she said as a last-ditch denial. “It’s usually in the afternoon.”