Page 14 of Sheep Calm and Merry On
“The ewes are, yeah.”
Huh. “How do you tell? Like, I’m guessing they don’t pee on a stick, and they’re all kind of….” He gestured. “The same shape.”
“Round?” Amber suggested.
Even the male sheep were, well. Yeah. “I was going to say fluffy.”
“Well, you’re right. They don’t pee on a stick. Though I bet my mom wishes we could do that instead. She’s a vet,” she added when Noah gave her a blank look. “Preg checks on sheep are done rectally.”
They what? “I’m sorry,” he said, “are you telling me your mom—”
“Fists livestock for a living? Oh yeah. Shoulder-deep. You can see why I didn’t follow in her footsteps.”
“You mean handprints?”
“Hoofprints?” Amber suggested.
They grinned at each other.
“Anyway,” she went on, “they’re all pregnant, so that’s why the rams are mixed in right now—no risk of inbreeding. Though we’ll have to separate the little ones into their own flock soon enough. Flower might look young and innocent, but she won’t be for much longer.”
“Farm life.” Noah shook his head. “I get the feeling there’s lots to know.”
Flower headbutted his leg.
“Ow.”
“Okay, Miss Attitude,” Amber said sternly. “Go play with your cousins.”
Flower made as if to butt Noah’s leg again, but Nelson chuffed at her and did a little play bow, and she trotted off with the dog in pursuit.
“Devon hand-raised her,” she said, deliberately casual, like she knew it was the conversational equivalent of taking a baseball bat to Noah’s knees. “Her mama couldn’t make enough milk for three, so she got bottle-fed. That’s why she’s so spoiled.”
Oh no, that was so cute. Why weren’t there pictures of that in Devon’s office? “He’s a sensitive guy, huh?”
Amber gave him a sharp look, as though she’d read as much into Noah’s off-the-cuff comment as he intended. “It seems like you know him pretty well, considering you just met him yesterday. But maybe not as well as you’d like?”
“Shit, was I being too subtle?” he asked. “Maybe I could take out a billboard?”
“Don’t worry. I think even Devon’s worked it out.” She gave him a long, assessing glance. “I don’t think you need this warning. But just in case—if you break his heart, I will use you to preg check a sheep and then bury you in the manure pile.”
Yikes. “Understood.”
She dimpled at him. “Good. Wanna see pics of Devon bottle-feeding lambs?”
The wind kicked up, and he shivered. “Can we look at them inside?”
Noah spent the next few hours keeping Amber and Devon company while they went through the year’s sales data to find out what colors and fiber mixes (what was a fiber mix? Noah didn’t know and was afraid to ask in case it was also about sheep crap) and “wool weights” or whatever were selling, so they could restock the shop fronts and decide on their orders for next year.
From what Noah could tell, that process took about five minutes, but the gossip session that happened concurrently stretched it into almost two hours.
Noah didn’t know Amber’s family, and despite the fact that Amber was airing all their dirty laundry right in front of him, he didn’t learn anything about them apart from the fact that her brother was a tool. He was too busy running his fingers through Nelson’s fur and, to be honest, making what he suspected were incredibly obvious heart eyes as Devon wound a lump of yarn into something more ball-shaped so that Amber could make—he didn’t know. Mittens? A scarf? A sweater?
Finally Nelson perked up his ears and tilted his head and padded out of the room. A moment later Noah heard the crunch of tires on snow.
That would be his dad.
Amber raised her eyebrows at Devon.
