The week seemed more like a month, but finally Alex arrived and she picked him up at the airport. They had an entire week, so there was no need to rush into a conversation that might spoil everything. No reason except the fact that she was losing a lot of sleep.
Alex was there at dawn every morning to help with the chores and then they would take off in his truck. They went fishing one day and canoeing another. Yet the conversation never turned comfortably toward children. She was going to have to force it.
When the subject came up, though, it was completely unplanned. She was in the barn one morning before Alex arrived, struggling to trim Penny’s hooves. Snowflake had taken the ordeal with remarkable ease, but Penny was using every ploy in the book. Carmen had Penny in the stanchion and was straddling her, trying to trim one hoof when the little doe simply lay down. She was hanging from the stanchion and suffocating. Carmen released her and shoved her off the stanchion.
“I always planned to fill this farm with kids, but they’re going to be human and I hope none of them are like you!”
“What’s the matter?”
Carmen swung around to find Alex watching her. She blushed.
“She’s such a pill. I think I’ll take her to the sale barn and let someone else fight with her for a while. I don’t need the hassle.”
He rubbed his jaw and eyed her reflectively. “You always planned to fill the farm with kids?”
Every muscle in her body tensed. “Children,” she clarified.
His hand slipped around to the back of his neck.
“Yours?”
She laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t want to raise anybody else’s children, would you?” The metal clippers felt unusually cold in her clammy grip.
He picked Penny up and set her on the stanchion. “I’m afraid I don’t have a choice.” He reached a hand out for the clippers. “Give me those.”
“Why?” She surrendered the clippers.
“Because I’m going to show you how to do this.”
He dumped Penny on her side and pinned her down with one knee.
“No, I mean why do you feel you have no choice?”