Make-Believe Mom
Tomorrow had to be better—if only he could make it through today. In weary frustration, Jon Rider wiped the sweat off his forehead with his upper arm. The anxious mother-to-be in front of him, held immobile by the headgate of the calving pen, lowed in distress and kicked at her swollen belly.
"Yeah, I don't blame you," Jon muttered. "I wouldn't want to be in your position."
His own position wasn't ideal, up past the elbow in the slippery birth canal of a first-year heifer. His hand measured the breadth of the two hooves stuck in the pelvic opening with little room for them to push through, and none for the calf's head. Jon's bare chest gleamed with sweat, blood and sticky amniotic fluid. For most of an hour, he'd been trying to turn the big calf so he and Clint could pull it, but he had resolved himself to the hard truth. This baby wasn't coming out the back door any way you looked at it, and a C-section was out of his league. If he didn't get help soon, he stood to lose both mother and calf—something he couldn't afford just now.
"No luck, huh," Clint said, striding loose-jointed down the aisle of the calving barn.
Jon extricated his arm ... read full excerpt from Make-Believe Mom ebook
