“I can’t help that or the fact that trees are down,” Stevie answered. “I’m just glad that I’m not stuck on the side of a backcountry road with two flat tires in that blizzard anymore.”

“Bless your heart,” Gracie said. “I guess it could have been worse. Commercial is over. Back to my show. Thank you for taking care of my Fifi.”

“You are so welcome.” Stevie ended the call.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping, but Gracie has one of those voices that carries halfway to the barn when she talks. So, there’s gossip?” Mia grinned.

“Isn’t there always?” Stevie asked. “That’s part of living in a small town.”

“But neither of us want to live in the big city again, do we?” Mia asked.

“You got that right. A toast to small towns.” Stevie held up a cookie.

Mia tapped hers against Stevie’s. “And to a new friend that isn’t a stranger anymore.”

“Amen,” Stevie agreed.

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Come on, Mama, you can do this,” Stevie crooned to the heifer that was trying to deliver her first calf. “I know it’s a bad time, and you didn’t want to bring a baby into the world when it might freeze, but you’re in the barn now. I don’t want to have to pull your calf. It will be healthier for both of you if you do this on your own.”

She felt Cody’s presence long before she glanced over her shoulder and saw him peeking over the top rail of the stall. Infatuation or not, he still made her pulse race just like it did when she was fifteen years old. But Stevie couldn’t be distracted by her emotions when she was on the job, not even by Cody Ryan.

“You always talk to the animals?” he asked.

“Do you talk to your patients?” she shot back at him.

“Of course, but they answer me,” Cody answered.

“So do mine.” She rubbed the heifer’s heaving sides when she contracted again. “She’s saying that she likes for me to be here, that she trusts me to make the right decisions, and…all right, Mama, I see hooves. You are doing good. One more big push and we’ll have a baby on the ground.”

“I’d forgotten that calving season started in January,” Cody said.

“This is one of those unusual winters that come along every hundred years. It’s not normally so cold at this time.” Stevie was all over the place the second the calf was born, but once the mama was on her feet and washing the new baby, she stepped out of the stall. “What was I saying?”

“That you’re a hundred years old,” Cody teased.