Chapter 20
Thursday morning was a full of surprises for me from the first moment I awoke. I could hear the muffled sound of a motor running steadily and it took me a few seconds to realise that it was the generator. That brought me to the realization that the sound wasn't masked by the wind howling around the eves. On top of that the light coming in the window was actually much brighter than I'd expected. All of those impressions came to me in an instant and I wondered if the blizzard had blown itself out.
Then I felt Lisa-Marie shift in bed at my side and turned my head to say good morning. Only it wasn't Lisa-Marie who was lying beside me, instead it was Andy. Suddenly the night before came back to me and my mind whirled through a multitude of thoughts in an instant. I smiled though, after all I did like her a lot, maybe even loved her, at least as a friend, but she certainly wasn't Lisa-Marie. However my mind didn't stop there, it went back to the night before and I began to feel uneasy.
'Damn.' I thought to myself. 'Now what have you done, you idiot? You had sex with her and you may have just done it because she was there at the time you needed a woman. Are you proud of yourself? I hope you haven't done any irreparable damage, you horny asshole.'
"Having second thoughts about last night?" Andy's voice stunned me.
"Actually I was, but mostly I was wondering if I'd hurt you with what we did." I admitted, realising too late that from my words she might think I meant physically.
"I'm fine. Actually, I feel really good, but then I knew I could trust you not to hurt me in any way." She smiled. "However we should get up and get going, we slept in a bit late today. So if you're in a hurry for the bathroom, I can hold it for a bit, but not for too long."
"My, but you're the practical woman, aren't you." I had to grin, then I shifted to kiss her lightly on the forehead before jumping out of bed and dashing for the can.
At least I left her happy, she was giggling as I sprinted across the chilly floor. By the time I'd taken care of essentials and had gotten back to the bedroom, Andy was up, wearing a robe wrapped around her and slippers on her feet. The bed was even straightened up.
"What's this? Hiding out?" I waved an arm to include her robe and her slippers.
"I watched you dance around in bare feet and bare buns, but I'm not silly enough to try to be macho about being warm." She answered with another giggle as she ran to have her turn on the white throne.
I glanced at the clock and realised that we really had slept in. I was so accustomed to awakening at five in the morning or a little after that it made me feel guilty that I'd been laying in bed when the animals needed me to be there. It was almost seven thirty and I knew that the cow would be upset with us this morning. She should have been milked by now, so she'd be feeling uncomfortable with an overfull udder.
Dressing hurriedly, I ran downstairs, pausing to look out the window at the weather, then turned on the kitchen radio. It looked to me as if the storm had blown itself out, but if I could, I wanted to hear a weather forecast for confirmation of that hope. While I listened for a break in the country music in hopes of some form of weather news, I started the coffee maker, then grabbed the milk bucket. I set the bucket in the sink and turned on the hot water tap, forgetting that since the hot water tank worked on 220 volts, without hydro it wouldn't be working. Damn, and we didn't have any quick and easy way of heating water either.
"Well, the cow will have to suffer with being washed with lukewarm water, I guess." I complained to myself as I carried on getting things prepared to go outside.
By the time the coffee was perked, Andy was downstairs and saw me hurriedly moving to get ready to do the chores. She came dancing across the room to wrap me in a tight hug.
"Jeez, calm down." She laughed. "You'd think the way you were bouncing around that a deal worth a million bucks was on the line or something. You've got a farm to run, not a blinking bank! A few minutes one way or the other won't matter that much, besides you need something to eat if you plan on working outside in the cold."
I looked at her smiling face and had to grin. She was right. Instead of rushing to grab a cup and pour myself a coffee, I wrapped her in my arms, lifting her up and kissing her.
"Wow!" She giggled. "I should tell you off more often."
"No, you just need to remind me of the truth more often and not let me try to get ahead of myself." I set her back on the floor and spun her toward the cupboards, swatting her lightly on the bottom. "How about some breakfast, please? The toaster should work and I bought an electric frying pan the other day."
As Andy was cooking bacon and eggs and making toast, I stoked up the fire in the little heater and set the partly full bucket of warm water on the top of it. The weather forecast came on while I was doing that and I paused to listen. Basically they were telling everyone that the worst of the storm was past but that it might take a while for the crews to get the roads and services back in shape.
"As if we didn't know that." Andy commented with a laugh. "Now on that note, let's eat, then we can get some work done around this place."
We didn't have a leisurely meal, but we didn't rush ourselves either. Afterward, we rinsed the dishes off with cold water, then left them in the sink. I found an old canning kettle in the back room that we could fill with water and put on the top of the heater so we could wash up with warm water later. After that we finally dressed for the weather and went outside.
It was cold enough that the snow creaked underfoot, but without the biting wind, it felt fifteen or twenty degrees warmer than it had the day before. The weather was clear enough that the snow seemed bright to the eyes even though the sun wasn't shining and a glance at the clouds showed that they weren't scudding across the sky like they had been. For all intents and purposes it appeared that for once the weatherman was right and that was a huge relief. I certainly didn't want another day like the one before.
While Andy headed toward the barn, I detoured to the generator and checked the fuel level. At the rate it was using fuel the tank would probably last another night without a refill, but to be safe, I decided to fill it later in the day. On the off chance that the hydro crews had been able to repair the lines, I flipped the switch that ran hydro power through the test bulb, unfortunately I was hoping in vain, there was no reassuring light. Shrugging my shoulders, I turned my steps toward the barn and more pressing tasks.
Andy was already milking the cow by the time I entered the barn and she leaned over to look at me, grinning widely.
"The horses greeted me this morning, both of them." She crowed. "And I hope you have a second milk bucket. We're going to need it soon. The second cow looks like she's almost ready to calve."
"Aha, that's what that circle on Uncle Silas's calendar was for. I was wondering what was supposed to happen this week that was important enough for him to mark it down."
One glance at the cow in question and I postponed my other chores for a short while as I checked her over. Not only was her udder filling with milk, but her 'calf bed' had dropped and her vulva was swollen. I was almost positive that she was going to have her calf inside of hours and as far as I was concerned, I planned to be there when she did.
She'd obviously carried calves before and from the short notes on the two cows that Uncle Silas had made for his own reference, she'd handled calving easily, but I wasn't about to take any chances. She the first animal to give birth since I'd inherited the farm, so I wanted to be sure that I'd be ready to help out if I was needed. Besides, in this weather there was no way in the world a veterinarian could get to the farm to help me out, if things went wrong for either her or the calf, I and Andy were the only help available.
As I stood at the cow's side with my hand on her back, simply checking out all the possible scenarios in my head so I could be prepared, I felt Andy move to my side and turned to look at her.
"You really do have a thing about pregnancy and birth, don't you?" She grinned up at me. "I thought perhaps Lisa-Marie was simply reassuring me before, but you really do get into it."
"Yeah, well it's the start of the make or break point of profits on a farm." I grinned back, giving her the standard college answer, right out of the book. "Without new births in your stock, your farm would simply wither and die."
"Oh, sure. You can pretend to be 'Mr Hard Hearted Farmer' all you want, but just remember that I was the woman who felt how careful you were with me last night." She sighed as she leaned against me. "You just plain love babies and young things."
"Eeh, some, I guess." I grinned and gave her a quick hug. "In this case though I was thinking that it's rather a pain in the ass for her to be calving right now. I'm a bit apprehensive about the fact that we can't even call a vet, let alone get him to come out here if something went wrong."
"Yeah, well losing either the cow or calf would be bad, but when it comes to that, I'm sure you know what you're doing and I've helped pull a calf before. It's mostly just hard bloody work."
"Hey, in this case I doubt that, this cow has calved before, so pulling the calf probably won't be needed. I'm more worried about any possible complications. What if the calf is in the wrong position? What if it's a breech birth with the hind legs first? What if it has a leg folded back and in the way, that sort of thing?" I shrugged my shoulders. "There wouldn't be much I could do about either of those things or a lot of others that could happen."
"There's really not much chance of those things though, is there?" Andy asked.
"No, not really, but when it happens getting a vet involved is usually the only option." I sighed deeply. "I want to be here when the calf is born, just in case. I've seen calves smothered because they didn't have the gunk over their noses cleared off right after they were born and they suffocated. Then too, as cold as it is right now, the calf needs to be dried off fairly quickly, so it doesn't catch pneumonia or anything. There are a hundred things that could go haywire after the birth actually happens and I want to be here to prevent them if I can."
"I can understand that." She nodded. "I'd like to be here too, but if we plan on doing that, I think we need to get everything else done first if we can. So what do we need to do with her, just in case she decides to rush things?"
"Well, I like cows to be standing free when they calve, so we need to move her into the pen beside the calves. Why don't I get it ready, while you milk the other cow? I'll get some extra bedding in the pen and some feed for her, then do the rest of the chores in here. As soon as you're done with the milking, you can give me a hand to move her over."
"Okay." She said and spun around to get busy.
As I readied the pen and went about the other chores, my mind was busy reviewing the various books and articles I'd studied at the college about what to do in case of various complications during a calving, so only half my mind was on the job. I'd done this sort of thing so often though that I could let habit guide my hands; I seemed to even be able to notice problems automatically. If there was a problem, I'd pay attention and either compensate for it or realise what was happening and come out of my fugue long enough to fix the problem. I was very careful when I allowed myself to fall into that frame of mind though, it could be dangerous in some situations.
However, that morning I was completely comfortable and safe. Because I was busy with my thoughts, it seemed to me as if hardly any time had passed before I finished the chores in the barn. When I turned to see how Andy was doing with the milking, she was stripping the cow out and looked up to smile at me.
"That worked out well." She chortled. "You would think we had everything timed to finish together."
"You hurried." I smiled. "Probably almost tore the poor cow's whole udder off."
"I did not!" She declared indignantly, then laughed aloud. "This time I didn't get kicked on my butt either."
She was still chuckling as hung up the milk bucket near the door. "Now how do we handle our soon-to-be Mama?"
"Well, if I remember correctly, Uncle Silas trained his cows to lead when they were young. I was hoping we could do it that way. Of course we could just turn her loose and try to guide her to the new pen, but since cows tend to get so used to heading for the same stall each time, I doubt if that would work."
"Let's at least put a rope on her. Can you do a rope halter?"
"Of course." I snorted, grabbing a rope from a hook on the wall near the door.
I think it took longer to talk about moving the cow than it took to do it. She led perfectly and once she was in the pen, she instantly walked over to the manger and grabbed a bite of the alfalfa hay I'd put there for her.
"Well, that caps it." I chuckled. "I think she's been through this before."
"Either that or she's the calmest and most cooperative old cow that I've ever seen." Andy laughed. "I thought cows lost their appetite when they were ready to calve though?"
"That depends on the cow, but they usually won't eat much for a few hours before calving." I shrugged. "It looks to me like she'll be fine for a while. Since it's harder to separate when it's cold, why don't you take the milk into the house and do that? While you're there, in the back porch there's a bag of rags, could you check in it and see if you can find a couple of flannel rags, just in case we need them for drying off the calf? I'll go outside and look after the beef cattle, then hopefully I'll be able to come up and grab another coffee before anything happens here."
"Okay." She nodded and was going out the front door of the barn as I walked out the back.
After being in the barn for a while, it felt colder than before when I went outside. I moved through both of the cattle pens, chasing the cows to their feet, spreading a few more bales of fresh straw, clearing any snow from the feeders and checking the water bowls, but the cattle were having nothing to do with leaving the shelters. I knew better than to try to force them to get up and move, but knew that hunger and thirst would drive them to move eventually.
Having done what I could, I walked back to the barn and went inside. I hadn't been gone more than half an hour, but now there was a nice little heifer calf in the pen with the cow. She must have barely waited until I walked out the door before she calved. Now she was diligently licking it clean as the calf attempted to struggle to its feet.
I looked at the cow and laughed at my earlier worries, then let myself into the pen and used dry straw to help the cow clean up the calf. As I was doing that, the cow gave a long grunt and cleaned herself of her afterbirth. I scooped that up with a fork and tossed into the wheelbarrow to dispose of later. When I turned back, the calf had found its feet and was nuzzling under its mother's belly in search of a feed of the colostrum rich milk in her swollen udder.
"You can feed him today, Momma Cow, but tomorrow he becomes a pail bunter." I laughed as I hung a pair of heat lamps overhead to give the two of them a bit of extra heat. "Now, I'm going to the house to brag to Andy about your new calf. I'll be back to check on you both later."
I detoured past the hydro pole on the way to the house on the off chance that the hydro had come on, but was disappointed again. However when I glanced to the west and checked the sky, my face lit up with a grin. There on the horizon was a chinook arch. I sighed happily. As cold as it was, even the sight of that arch made me feel warmer.
When I went inside, Andy was near the door and just putting on her boots to come outside again. I looked at her and grinned, not saying a word, then started to take my outdoor clothes off.
"What are you doing? Don't you need these rags in case the cow calves and we need to wipe it down? What's going on?" Andy asked quickly.
One look at her face convinced me that I'd better tell her the good news now.
"We won't need them. Everything is taken care of." I sighed deeply. "While I was feeding the beef cattle, the cow dropped her calf. I went back inside just in time to wipe it down with clean straw. It's on its feet, feeding already. Oh, and if you look out a window to the west, you'll see a chinook arch in the sky."
"Really?" She grinned enthusiastically, then threw her arms around me to hug me hard. "So what do you plan on doing today, now that you don't have to play veterinarian?"
"Well, first I'm going to have a coffee, and talk to a pretty lady. Then I think I'll get out the tractor and see about pushing some snow around. If we have a decent chinook, even if it's only for one day, there'll be a good crust on the drifts and we won't have to worry as much about another blizzard. But, there's a lot of snow drifted around the cars and I need to clear them for sure. Once the roads are plowed, I want to be able to get to town as soon as we can."
"So you think the weather has broken and the storm won't be back?" Andy asked.
"Yeah, if that chinook arch means anything. Why?"
"Well, I have a snowmobile at home." She grinned. "I bought it last year and Daddy can't say a darn thing if I go get it because I bought it with my own money. It's big enough for two and we could ride it to town if we had to."
I considered that for a few seconds, then shook my head slowly. "It's too far to go because we'd be gone too long and we've got stock here that can't be left untended."
"Lisa-Marie is probably going nuts and one of us should go." She said quietly. "I could go. Or you could go. We don't have to both be here. Or we could even get Willy to look after the stock like you've been paying him to do."
Just then we both heard another engine that was louder than the generator and we moved to the door to look out. Both of us broke into laughter because Willy was just climbing off a snowmobile in the front yard and another machine was pulling in beside him ridden by his father.
"Hey neighbour." I hollered from the open the door as soon as the engines died. "We were just thinking of coming down to see you."
"Hi Tom, Andy. Dad and I thought we'd check to see you made it through the storm all right."
"Hi, Willy. Hi, Dad. We've made it fine." Andy spoke from my side. "Hey, that's my skidoo. Thanks for bringing it over for me."
"Come on inside and have a coffee." I invited. "We've managed just fine, but I sure wish the phone was working."
"That won't be fixed for a day or two." Mr Martin, Andy's dad, said, as he brushed the snow off his pants, then handed Andy a parcel. "Here's your snowmobile gear, even your helmet."
"Thanks, Daddy." She said quietly, then astounded me by hugging him. "Come on in."
He looked over his shoulder at me, surprise on his face, and I couldn't help winking and grinning. As I gave him a thumbs up, he wrapped Andy in his arms and hugged her back. I looked away in an attempt to make his feelings easier when I thought I saw a tear in his eye.
"Will you two quit blocking the door and let Willy in, so we can quit heating the crows?" I faked a growl after a moment.
All three of them laughed a bit awkwardly, but they almost scurried to get inside.
"So are you folks doing okay?" I asked, moving toward the kitchen to leave the Martins room. "We've made out fine, but I sure miss that bloody phone."
"Oh, Jean got through to us on the CB. She said to tell you that Mrs. Granger is going to make it. She's lost some toes and her hands are in bad shape, but that old lady is tough. The worst thing is that she seems to have lost a lot of her memory too. They think she may have had a small stroke." Mr. Martin explained.
"Oh no!" Andy said quietly. "How is Jean holding up?"
"Oh, Jean is fine." Willy snorted. "You heard that Mr Granger didn't want to go to town and didn't want his wife to go either? Well, when the snowplow driver turned into the yard and came right to the door, Mrs. Granger had an overnight bag packed for both her and Jean. She just marched right out and hopped in with the driver over Jean's old man's protests."
"Oh goodness." Andy couldn't completely hide a grin.
"It looks like you started an epidemic." Mr Martin grinned, which astounded me. "Uppity women are telling their men folks off all over the place."
Both Andy and I just stared at him.
"Well, it's true!" He grinned. "Now do you suppose my uppity daughter could finish giving her silly old man that hug, since we aren't holding the door open any longer."
"Come on Willy, let's get that coffee." I motioned with my head to move into the kitchen.
"Sure." He grinned. "By the way, Lisa-Marie sent you a message too. She said to tell you that she'd see you this afternoon."
"What?" I stopped instantly and stared at him in surprise. "How is she going to do that? The roads are drifted badly, aren't they?"
"She didn't say for sure, but she did ask me to tell you she was going to see the John Deere dealer about your account. I wondered about that for a moment until I realised that John Deere sells some darn good snowmobiles and all the riding gear she'd need. I tried to dissuade her from riding out here all the way from town, but I don't know how much good it did."
"Oh for cripes sake." I snorted. "That silly little . . ."
"Tom, she misses being here." Andy interrupted me. "And, she's probably been worried sick about us too."
"Oh yeah. She said that you need a CB and that she was going to buy you one." Willy added. "From the sounds of things, she wanted to talk to you about something or other."
"Great! Just frigging great! Now what the hell do I do?" I worried that she'd try to get here in a hurry on the skiddoo and have some sort of accident.
"Tom, she'll be fine." Willy tried to assure me. "I can tell you right now that neither Jean nor her Mom will let her take any chances. Since they're staying at Jean's cousin's house, I'll bet they'd get Triple Dub to escort her if she tried to come out here on a skiddoo anyway."
"Triple Dub?" I frowned.
"Billy Wilson, Jean's cousin." Andy snorted. "His name is William Warren Wilson, so the kids nicknamed him Triple Double U, or Triple Dub. He runs a business taking people on trail rides in the summer, but in the winter he spends most of his time chasing around on his skiddoo. Actually, he's probably the best guy she could possibly know if she planned on coming home on one right now. He'd never let her come out here alone."
"Well, he's a bit of a useless fool otherwise, but I have to admit he does pretty well with that trail ride business of his." Mr. Martin added. "I thought he was going to try to do the same sort of thing with snowmobiles though?"
"Yeah, except that he found out most people who have the machine and the gear want to be independent. Besides, it would cost him too much for equipment and be too dangerous to take amateurs out on skiddoo trips." Willy threw in. "He does give lessons in riding snowmobiles though. He was even talking about trying to get a job selling them at one time."
"So you're telling me that this guy would probably come with Lisa-Marie if she tried to come home riding a snowmobile?" I asked quietly.
"More than likely." Andy sighed heavily. "Especially if he talked to Jean long enough to find out that I was living here."
"Well, there is that too." Willy winked at me. "Triple Dub has always had a thing for my little sister, ever since she was about twelve."
"He should be called Triple Dumb! He just won't take a hint that I'm not interested." Andy snapped. "It's too bad Lisa-Marie will be with him if he comes, otherwise I'd glue myself to Tom like wallpaper. He's old and he stinks. He's stupid too. He just won't believe me when I flat out tell him that I don't like him."
"Oh great." I snorted. "I don't suppose he'd try anything on Lisa-Marie would he?"
"Unh uh." Willy laughed. "Actually since he's going to think of you as Silas's nephew, I doubt if he'll even try too much with Andy. He and Silas didn't exactly see eye to eye."
"Oh, I forgot about that." Andy giggled. "Maybe I will hang on your arm just a bit after all, Tom."
"I wouldn't." Mr. Martin sighed and rolled his eyes. "You might as well know that the rumour mill has already started up with tales about you living here with Tom and Lisa-Marie. If he saw you hanging on Tom's arm, it would just make them worse. Even if he doesn't talk a lot, he loves to listen to gossip and if he does say anything, folks listen."
"We expected the rumours." I think I surprised him. "People just naturally think along the lines of sensationalism if they see anything out of the ordinary. Lisa-Marie and I are used to being the butt of rumours though and we really aren't all that worried about what people say about us."
Perhaps I surprised everyone, for a moment or two no one spoke, instead everyone seemed to be interested in their coffee.
"Hey, Andy can stay here forever if she wants to." I said flatly. "Lisa-Marie and I both like having her around. If people want to think I'm living with two women, let them."
Mr. Martin sighed deeply, then looked me square in the face. "As Andrea's father, I'd like to know if there is anything going on between you and my daughter."
"Of course there is." I snapped. "She's become one of my closest friends, but Lisa-Marie is my fiancée and we plan on getting married this spring. I love Andy as a friend right now, but since I'm not a Mormon, there couldn't be anything else, could there?"
"Perhaps not legally and in the eyes of the Church it would be wrong, however, you should know that Janet and I had a long talk about Andrea living here." He sighed. "We don't really understand the situation, but having seen the three of you together and having discussed this with Willy, we suspect that there is more here between the three of you than just a simple friendship. Since we don't know or understand the situation and since we don't really want to know anything, we just thought you should know that we feel Andrea couldn't be living with a better couple at this time."
Andy was staring at him open mouthed, and I felt at loss for words myself, then he stood and smiled. "Willy, it's time we went back to our farm and did some work."
"Unh, yeah, Dad, sure." Willy gulped the dregs of his coffee and jumped to his feet, grabbing his coat.
Andy hugged her Dad, then both Mr. Martin and Willy went out the door but I was still sitting at the table, completely speechless. Andy turned and looked at me, with a silly grin on her face and I finally found my tongue.
"What in hell just happened?" I managed to ask, staring at her grinning face.
"I think Daddy just gave you permission to fuck me silly." She giggled. "I wondered how long it would take Mom to figure things out."
"What do they have, ESP? We only did it the first time last night for cripes sake."
"Maybe I was loud enough for them to hear me when I got excited." She giggled again. "After all, the wind was only howling by at sixty miles an hour and they only live half a mile away."
"Jeez, what next?" I sighed. "Now I've got my neighbours literally telling me to take their daughter as my concubine."
"Eew, I like that idea." She grinned and plopped herself in my lap. "But, do you think you could do that later? I haven't seen our new calf yet and I need to make some lunch. Besides, you were going to plow some snow with the tractor. First though . . ."
She bent forward and she was kissing me. Actually, she almost ate me alive. That was probably the best thing that she could have done too. It literally shocked me out of being in shock. Instead, I was holding a woman that I could finally admit I'd fallen in love with. The strange thing to me was that I knew that I still loved Lisa-Marie just as much or more. Now though, I could admit that I loved Andy as well. It felt weird, but at the same time it felt right.
We were still kissing and my hands were caressing her curves when I heard another noisy snowmobile.
"Oh shit! Daddy or Willy must have forgotten something." She leaped to her feet and ran to the door, straightening her clothes on the way.
She glanced out the window in the door and then squealed, throwing the door wide open and stepping onto the front porch. I got to my feet and followed her, moving a lot slower because of the erection that threatened to tear through my pants, but I got there in time to see Lisa-Marie and Andy wrapped in a tight hug, their mouths crushed together in an almost desperate kiss.
"Wow, do you suppose you have one of those for me too?" I teased Lisa-Marie after a few seconds.
"Take a number and get in line."Andy pulled back long enough to snap, then her lips found Lisa-Marie's again.
The only problem with that was that both she and Lisa-Marie started to giggle. Then suddenly Lisa-Marie broke into laughter and pulled away to flow into my arms. For the second time in only moments I was almost being eaten alive by a woman I loved, only this was a different woman. This one hadn't seen me in days, so she was definitely aroused and lonely for some loving. While our tongues were dancing in each other's mouths, her pelvis was grinding futilely against mine, trying to grind away the clothing between us.
Somehow we staggered back into the house, then the door slammed and suddenly Andy was worming her way into the hug. Somehow we all had our arms around each other and there were two women to kiss at once. I couldn't help it, I began to laugh, then they began to giggle.
"You seduced him like I told you, didn't you?" Lisa-Marie snorted at Andy, her face in a wide grin.
"Unh huh, last night, well almost this morning." Andy giggled. "Then Daddy was over later this morning and gave his and Mom's blessing, in a round about way. He said that they couldn't think of a nicer couple for me to live with."
"What?" Lisa-Marie squealed. "He didn't?"
"Did too! My way though. Ask the gentle giant."
"The gentle giant?" Lisa-Marie frowned.
"Tom's got a big one, but he's oh so gentle with it." Andy giggled. "He was scared of hurting me."
"That was probably a good thing, since you were in the hospital less than a week ago." Lisa-Marie grinned, then turned to me. "And how was she? Can we keep her? Are you willing to admit that she'll make a good bed partner for the two of us?"
"She'll do." I winked at Andy. "You get me all wound up and she calms me down."
"What?" Andy squealed, then broke into a giggle.
"Just wait until tonight, we'll see about that." Lisa-Marie giggled as well.
"What about right now?" Andy suggested with a grind of her hips.
"Oh damn! He can't." Lisa-Marie suddenly pulled back and looked a bit flustered. "I forgot, I was supposed to be getting Tom to take the tractor down the road to the gully right away. Triple Dub needs a tow."
"What? Why does he need a tow? Has he got a truck or something?" I asked.
"No, he's on his skidoo and he drove into a soft snow bank. The drive belt came off and he can't get at it to put it back for some reason. We thought you could use the tractor to drag him onto solid ground. Jean is waiting there with him on another machine, but I came ahead to get you."
"Ah, I got it." I nodded. "Where is he?"
"About fifty feet past where the Granger ladies had their accident. He's right in the gully at the bridge in really deep snow." She was suddenly very quiet. "I didn't tell Jean that the accident happened there though. Since she was trying to help him, I thought it was best if I didn't upset her with that."
"Is there much drifting on the road?" I asked as I grabbed my boots.
"It's not bad." She answered. "There's one big snow bank right across the road. I think that it's in the same place where we found one the other day when we went down to the accident. Mostly the snow seems to have drifted right off of the road though, other than the buildup on one side of the road from the snowplow banks."
"How far off of the road is he? Will I need much chain?"
"Umm, maybe forty feet? He said a stout rope would do and he needs a shovel. He broke the handle of the folding one that he had with him on his skiddoo."
"Anything else you can think of?" I asked, kissing her lightly, then grabbing Andy to do the same thing.
"Nope, but they might think I got lost." She grinned. "So get moving, huh?"
"Oh for gosh sake." Andy snapped. "For all they know he might have trouble getting his tractor there in all this snow."
"There you go." I laughed. "A perfect illustration. Lisa-Marie winds me up and Andy calms me down."
It was lucky I had all my clothes on and was hurrying out the door. Both of them slapped at my retreating back, then threw things at me as I retreated. I actually felt Lisa-Marie's rolled up woollen socks bounce off my shoulder before I got the door closed behind me.