“Funny, I can hardly stop thinking about it.” Flann traced a finger along her jaw. “Besides, we won’t be there much longer.”

“God, I hope this contractor turns out to be someone we can work with. I really want to get the new place renovated so we can move in before winter.”

“Baby,” Flann murmured, “winter comes early in these parts.”

Abby’s eyes took on that fierce light Flann had come to recognize as absolute determination. “The first snowfall is five months away. That’s plenty of time to get us two working bathrooms and a decent kitchen.”

“And a roof that doesn’t leak and some modicum of heating,” Flann added.

“You said one of those pellet stoves would heat the whole place.”

“Probably. I said probably.”

Abby tapped Flann’s chest with a fingertip. “We paid cash so we could get our family moved in as soon as possible. And that does not mean next year. I want to have our own private bedroom.”

“I’m sure Blake would like a bedroom too.”

Abby laughed. “I think he only mentions it once a day.”

Flann’s heart gave a little jog at the words our family. She had her own family to look after now, and she hoped to God she was anywhere near as good at it as her mother and father were. “I take it the excitement is over down here. Sorry I missed the fun. How did it go?”

“Good,” Abby said quickly. “Good. Everyone held steady and did their part. We admitted five, streeted three, and didn’t have to transfer anyone.”

“Good for you.” Flann rose and settled her hip onto the corner of the desk, playing with a strand of Abby’s golden hair. She loved the color, like sunshine on a wheat field, and the texture, soft and silky as the strands of fresh young corn. “So what did I see in your eyes when I walked in? Some kind of trouble.”

“I hope you’re the only one that can read me that well,” Abby muttered.

“I better be.”

Abby caught Flann’s hand and kissed her palm. “Believe me, you’re the first to do it and the only one who is ever going to see inside me.”

“What happened?”

“We lost a teenage girl, just a couple years younger than Blake. It was horrible. She suffocated in the silo.”

“Damn,” Flann murmured. “Every couple years something like that happens around here. Who was it?”

“A farm family up the Hudson a ways. Hoffertin. The girl’s name was Annie.”

“I knew a Jim Hoffertin, used to be a quarterback for Granville High. About four years older than me, I think. I know his family had a farm.”

“That’s the father.”

“Man, that’s hard.”

“It’s worse, I think, because the girl went in after her brother when the silage funnel collapsed and they managed to get him out but not her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, so am I.”

“But the brother made it?”

“He did, at least we think so. He’s still on a blower and probably will be for at least twenty-four hours, but his vital signs are good and preliminary EEG shows pretty normal activity. We were lucky—our PA started to lavage him right away and cleared his lungs enough to ventilate him.”

“Nice. Pretty sweet trick for the ER.”

Abby smiled. “Eventually you’ll learn to respect what we can do down here.”

Flann spread her hands. “Hey, I’m not arguing. The more you do, the more time I have to take care of the real emergencies.”

Abby snorted. “God, I don’t know why I love you as much as I do. You’re such an arrogant ass sometimes.”

Flann leaned down and kissed her. “It’s because I’m so good in bed.”

“That must be it, because it’s certainly true.”

“Replay tonight since neither one of us is on call?”

“Tonight, sometime. I think Blake and Margie need a ride to some event at the fairgrounds, and we’ll probably have to pick them up.”

“Not one of the music festivals, is it?” Flann frowned. “Those crowds are rough and there’s alcohol and every other thing around.”

Abby smiled. “Take it easy there, cowboy. You know those two aren’t going to get into that kind of thing—they have good judgment, but even so, I’m not that naïve. It’s a rodeo.”

“Huh. Slightly better. Okay. Sex between chauffeur trips, then.”

“It’s a date, Dr. Rivers.”

Flann rose. “I’ll be thinking about you the rest of the afternoon. Text me when you’re ready to leave, and I’ll see if I can get away. We’ll grab dinner somewhere.”

“I’ll do my best. We’ve got new students today and a couple of new staff and it’s already been a hell of a morning.”

“Hey, you wanted to run the ER. It takes a unique level of skill and—”

“Go before your head doesn’t fit through the door.” Abby made shooing motions.

Laughing, loving to tease and loving that Abby let her, she headed down the hall and nearly ran into the other member of her family. He’d grown two inches since that morning, and she was pretty sure his voice was lower. He was still skinny as a beanpole in an oversized T-shirt and baggy shorts, though. “Whoa. Hey, Blake. What are you doing here?”

Blake shoved a thick lock of dark hair off his forehead, a habitual motion when he was nervous. He had his mother’s intense eyes. “I just wanted to talk to Mom for a few minutes. Is she busy?”

“You’ll have to check with her, but I think she’s still free. Everything all right?”

“Yeah, sure. Great.”

Flann was getting used to teenage speak, since her sister Margie was just about Blake’s age and about as communicative. When Margie’d been a little girl, you couldn’t shut her up. Why this, how that, what are you doing? Now she was usually lost in a book or off with Blake or doing other things that were clearly unexplainable, because when asked, her usual response was nothing special, not much, whatever, and really with several exclamation points. Flann hadn’t been a teenager for a decade plus some, but she did remember when she’d reached the monosyllabic stage, she’d mostly been thinking about sex. She didn’t really want to think about her sister Margie and sex, or Blake for that matter, and especially not the two of them and sex together. Her head hurt all of a sudden, but now she was a parent. “You can talk about it, you know, whatever…it is…you know?”

Blake stared at her. He’d only ever talked to his mother about things that really mattered, the things that scared him, and that probably scared her too. And then Flann had come along and his mother had fallen in love with her and he’d pretty much fallen in love with her too. Not the same way, for sure, but he couldn’t think about the future now without seeing Flann and his mother and him all together. Still, it was hard to trust someone who hadn’t been there his whole life, especially with things that nobody seemed to understand. Not even his mom sometimes. “Yeah. I know. It’s not that.”

Flann grinned. “Well, if it ever is…that—one of us, me or your mom, we’ll probably know something about whatever that is.”

“Yeah. Maybe. Sure.”

Flann resisted the urge to tousle his hair, but she really wanted to. He was so sweet, although she’d never say so. Teenage boys weren’t sweet, not in their minds. But he was. He was good and kind and sensitive. She deeply, deeply feared he was going to get his ass kicked more than once, more than most teenagers. She didn’t want that to happen. Wouldn’t let it happen if she could help it. She squeezed his shoulder. “I gotta get back to work. I’ll see you at home tonight.”

“Right.”

Flann turned away, and Blake called to her. “Hey, Flann?”

Flann looked over her shoulder, one dark eyebrow raised.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Blake peeked into his mother’s office. She was sitting behind her desk, her head tilted back, her eyes closed. He wasn’t sure if he should interrupt or not but she knew he was there, she always did.

“Come on in,” she said, eyes still closed. “Is there blood?”

“No, no injuries.”

“Good.” Abby opened her eyes. “What are you doing here? I thought you and Margie were going on rounds with the vet.”

“I was going to, and then I thought I’d come talk to you instead.”

“Okay. Is something wrong?” She had a horrible thought. “Please, please don’t tell me you want to move back to the city, because that is so impossible.”

“No way,” Blake said dismissively. “I don’t ever want to move from here. But Margie and I were talking.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Come on, Mom,” Blake said in his long-suffering tone.

Abby laughed. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I know the two of you never come up with anything together except brilliant ideas. So what is it?”

“We decided that we need to get as much clinical experience as we can, before we get our formal training and set up practice together.”

“Meaning?” Abby said, wondering if either of them would ever go through with their teenage dream to become vets, return to the community, and set up a practice together. She’d wanted to be a doctor as long as she could remember, and she’d never wavered, but many teenagers their age changed their minds about the future along with their hairstyles. Add to that the fact Margie had never had much experience outside her hometown and Blake’s big city exposure hadn’t been exactly great—they both had a lot of the world left to see. “So did you change your game plan?”

“No, but we thought we should get some human experience as well as, you know, animal.”

“I see. Humans not being animals.”

“You know what I mean, Mom.”

“It’s a good idea. A lot of techniques in human medicine are applicable to veterinary medicine, and believe it or not, there’s actually some crossover the other way around. What were the two of you thinking?”

“That we’d split the summer,” he went on quickly. “I’d start here and Margie would start with Dr. Valentine, and then we’d switch.”