Page 49 of Unyielding
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” Fiona said in a singsong voice. My eyes snapped up to look at her, and I could feel heat spreading across my cheeks. My sister’s eyes went wide, and she grinned. “Unless, of course, you already have?”
I started to hem and haw—but I was saved when my phone rang. I snatched it up, not looking to see who it was, and waved it atthem. “Gotta go. Things to do. People to talk to.” I did an about face and answered the phone as I was walking away. “Hello?”
“Shannon?”
“Zoe? It’s early for you. Is everything okay?” Zoe was a night owl while Josh was a morning person. How those two managed to make it work was beyond me.
“Everything is fine, but Aurora called. The twins are sick and she thinks she was exposed to whatever they have, so she can’t make it to the cake tasting today.”
Fiona and I were supposed to meet Zoe at the Bite and Brew for the final cake testing late this afternoon. Aurora ran the popular eatery with her chef husband, Marc. If it had been me getting this news, I’d have fallen completely apart, but Zoe sounded as calm as ever.
“Okay, it’s just a delay, right?”
“That’s what she said.”
“Wait, are the samples finished? Because we could always do the tasting without her and just let her know what we think.” Marc was the one who was making the wedding cake. Josh had offered to order it from a specialty bakery in Aurora, but Zoe had wanted to keep the purchases for the wedding local as much as she could.
“Oh. I didn’t think to ask. Let me call the diner and talk to Marc. It is way too early to have to think yet. I’ll call you back.”
We hung up and I went to check on and feed the horses, working my way from stall to stall. Vida was up and nursing on Belle. “Good morning, Mama. Look at you, feeding your baby,” I crooned at the older mare. “As soon as Vida is finished, we’ll goout to the paddock for some playtime.” I left her food and moved on to the next stall to check on Iris, wishing there was a way to determine how well she was doing just from looking at her. When women were pregnant, they were always told that they had a glow about them. I can’t say I always saw that, but now, I wished it was true for horses. I rubbed her favorite spot above her nose and brushed my hand up to her forehead.
I was almost finished when Zoe called me back. “Well?”
“He said they’d be ready around three.”
“Okay. Fiona should be back from her trail ride around lunchtime. She’ll need to get cleaned up, but after that, we’ll stop at the diner to grab the cake samples and pick up some dinner and meet you at your place. Sound good?”
“That’d be great. Thanks so much, Shan.”
“Hey, what’s a maid of honor for if I can’t come to your house bearing food and dessert?”
When I got off the phone, I went back to work. In such a short time, so much was changing for us. But at least it was all good. Josh was about to marry the love of his life, while my best friend was marrying the man of her dreams. Fiona and Eli were acting like newlyweds even though they were only recently engaged, and Eli’s son Patrick adored my sister like a second mom. Lost Valley’s trail riding program was growing and if I played my cards right, my breeding program would soon be expanding in ways I’d only dreamed about. The only thing missing in my life was a partner I could go to sleep beside and wake up next to each morning. If I was being honest with myself, I wanted that person to be Dr. Declan Morris. The only problem I could see was that I still wasn’t sure if he wanted the same thing.
THIRTY-ONE
DECLAN
“You gotta do something, son,” my father, Bill, said, his voice rising a few worried octaves as he pointed to the chubby beagle stretched out on the exam room floor. Based on the rainbow of splatters on his T-shirt, he looked like he’d come straight from painting. “Poor Bailey is suffering. I hate to see her like this.”
The beagle was on her side, panting with her eyes at half-mast. I could tell she was uncomfortable from whatever she’d eaten, but I needed more information before I could come up with the right treatment plan.
I glanced back and forth between my parents wearily. It wasn’t the first time Bailey had gotten into their groceries, and I’d repeatedly told them how dangerous it could be to leave the bags on the floor while they ran off to dive back into their latest projects. They always said that they couldn’t predict when their muses would arrive, but they always seemed to show up when there was work to be done around the house. Stuff like laundry, cooking, or putting away the groceries. Then there were all the missed school functions all the way up to my graduation fromvet school. Everything always seemed to take a back seat to following their passions.
When they’d brought him in, my parents had guiltily told me that Bailey had chewed through the bag and eaten half a loaf of bread, two sticks of butter, and, most troubling, chocolate. Her bellyache was obvious, but I needed more information from them to try to determine exactly how much of the chocolate she’d ingested.
“I’ve told you a million times that chocolate can be toxic to dogs,” I said, struggling to keep my voice even. “Why would you leave it on the floor if you know she gets into your food? Is it so hard to set the bags on the counter?”
“Well, the counter was full of your father’s paints and it wasn’t like the bags were going tostayon the floor,” my mother, Linda, answered. She was in her typical Earth Mother attire, from her Birkenstocks to the pale pink woven cardigan draped around her shoulders. “We both just got wrapped up in our projects. You should see the new bowl series I’m working on, it’s?—”
“Mom,” I said in a sharp voice. “We’re here for Bailey. Focus!”
“Right, of course. Our poor, sweet Bailey girl.” She dropped to her knees beside the dog. “You’ll be fine. Your brother is going to take good care of you!”
“Did you bring the chocolate wrapper? I need to know what kind it was. That’s very important.”
My parents looked at each other sheepishly.
“We didn’t know we were supposed to,” my father said.
