Page 63 of Not Just for Christmas

Dylan was beside me instantly. ‘What can I do?’

My arms were trembling with the strain of keeping tension in the rope.

‘Lift up her leg,’ I panted, ‘it’ll give the calf more room to manoeuvre.’

‘Gotcha.’ He inched round me and took hold of the heifer’s leg, raising it slowly to avoid startling her.

Tears pricked at my eyes. ‘I’ve never had a difficult birth like this before.’

‘Just hang on in there, you’re doing great.’

‘Says the rock star,’ I sniggered.

‘Yeah, like I have any clue what’s going on.’

I snorted with laughter at the situation, and a second later, Dylan joined in.

‘OK, it’s time,’ I said, once we got our breath back. I pulled again using all my strength and this time a second, much smaller calf slithered silkily out of its mother and straight into Dylan’s lap.

‘Oh Jesus.’ He put down the cow’s leg and sat back on his heels. ‘I think I might need some new jeans. Now what?’

I gasped with exertion and sank back into the straw. ‘Is it breathing?’

‘Er …’ He leaned over the calf. ‘I think so.’

‘Thank God,’ I exclaimed shakily. ‘Put it next to its mother.’

‘Come on, buddy.’ Dylan carefully laid the calf next to the cow’s head. ‘Baby number two, ma’am.’

The mother began to lick its nose, and we shared a look of triumph.

‘Well done,’ I said, crawling to the calf to check the sex. ‘Another girl.’

‘Hey look,’ said Dylan. ‘Calf number one is feeding.’

‘She’s after the colostrum.’ I washed my hands in the bucket of water I’d brought over with me an hour ago and sat down, exhausted. ‘The first few feeds are really important.’

I pulled out my phone and sent Pete a quick text for him to read in the morning, to let him know that both calves had arrived safely.

Dylan whistled under his breath. ‘They just know what to do, they’re so clever.’

‘Animals seem to take motherhood so easily,’ I said. ‘No antenatal classes, no textbooks, no angsty phonecalls to their health visitor, just mum and baby working it out for themselves.’

‘If I remember correctly,’ he raised his eyebrows sternly, ‘you handled being a new mum like a pro.’

‘The things I remember most about those first few weeks were sore boobs and a total inability to get myself dressed much before noon.’ I smiled. ‘Oh, but the love I felt for that scrunched-up little bundle of joy is indescribable. Some evenings Jack and I didn’t even bother to put the TV on; we’d sit, beaming at the baby and then each other, completely besotted with the tiny human we’d made together. He’d wanted to have more straight away, but—’ I paused and swallowed the lump in my throat.

‘You didn’t?’ Dylan probed softly.

‘I told him to slow down; I said we were young, we had all the time in the world.’ A tear trickled down my face. ‘I was wrong. And stupid.’

‘Never say that.’ Dylan wrapped his arms around me and held me while I cried. ‘No one could have predicted what happened.’

I leaned into him, relishing his warmth, feeling safe and understood in his embrace. ‘I miss hugs.’

There were many things I missed as a single woman: a person to share the highs and lows of the day, knowing someone was waiting up for me when I went out, missing me, the secret looks, the shared jokes that come from knowing what someone else is thinking. But the simple act of holding space like this for another person was possibly one of the things I craved the most.

‘For as long as I’m here, I’m going to hug you all the time,’ Dylan replied.