Page 41 of Cabins Cows Critics
“So make the most of it.”
“Maybe,” I say, and she grabs the thermos.
“I’m taking this to the milking barn with me.” I don’t tell her it’s loaded with almond milk and sugar, and chuckle as her face scrunches up when she sips it. “Seriously, how sweet do you need it?”
“You can give it back.”
“No chance. It’s still better than no coffee at all.”
“I’ll take you over,” Atlas tells her, and they leave.
“So, how do we convince a herd of cows to come out of their nice warm barn to be milked?” I ask as he opens the door of the main barn wide, the warmth of the air inside immediately surrounds me, and I’m reminded of how warm Miss Moo was to sit with. It was like leaning up against a giant hot water bottle.
“Cows are creatures of habit. They do this every day, and they like being milked, so most will walk over like normal, even through the cold.”
“Most?”
“Yeah, we have a few girls that can be stubborn, so we’ll walk behind them and give them a few claps to keep them motivated to move on.”
“And they’ll just know what way to go, even in this?” I ask, turning in the snow as more flakes drift down in a soft scattering. It puts a white haze over everything, and while I can still see the red milking barn through the haze, it’s nowhere near as clear as it normally is. “Won’t their feet get cold? I’m in warm boots and my feet are still freezing.”
“I’ll grab you a pair of wool socks later. The cows’ hooves are pretty well insulated, but we’ll make the walk easier for them,” he says just as I spot the green tractor headed our way with a plow attachment fitted to the front, plowing a path toward us from the milking barn. Following close behind is another tractor, and someone is standing on the trailer hooked up to the back of it, shoveling something out. “Here are the guys now.”
It’s not until they get really close that I can see what they’re doing. After the plow pushes the snow to the side, creating a clear pathway, the other tractor is pulling a trailer of straw that is being laid down over the cleared path.
“It’s like their own yellow brick road,” I say, and Connor chuckles.
“A classic movie. The books were better, though.”
“Have you read the Oz novels?”
He nods. “I read the first one in school, then I kept going. I used to have the whole series.”
“You don’t still have them?”
“No, they’re…gone,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck and looking anywhere but at me. That’s the third time now I thinkthat he’s reacted weirdly to talking about his past. He mentioned he was alone, but I just have this feeling like there is more to it than that. Maybe his childhood was rough, or his family were horrible people, or maybe they were amazing and just thinking about them makes him too sad, so he avoids thinking about them? I should just let it go. Leave him his secrets. I have enough of my own, like the fact that I haven’t told him that I am here for work, to review the ranch. Would he even care? I mean, he’d want the review to be positive, and it’s been great so far, anyway, but would he stop wanting to spend time with me outside of the planned activities if he knew? I’m not ready to let go of our quiet time together. It’s not even the sex, though that part is pretty fucking incredible. It’s the time before and after. Just being near him puts my mind at ease.
“Well, I totally agree, the books were amazing. I fell in love with reading in school, too. Shakespeare was what had me wanting to be a writer,” I say, deciding to move on from his past by talking about my own.
“So you wanted to write plays?”
“Yeah, for a while. I did actually write a couple in my final years of schooling. The drama club performed one of them.”
“That’s really cool.”
“I thought so. It didn’t get such great reviews, though.”
“Not every story is for everybody,” he says, rubbing the head of one of the cows waiting by the internal railing containing them. They start to moo at each other like they’re talking in their own cow language, and I guess for all I know, they are. A cow lifts its head over the rail and nudges my arm, so I give it a scratch behind the ears.
“I guess you’re right,” I say, and he smiles that wide smile I love so much.
“I know I am. Now, come on, let’s get these girls off to see the wizard.”
Chapter seventeen
Connor
THE FIRST TO KNOW
