© 2008 Starla Kaye

Cupid sucks! Valentine’s Day sucks even more! Love sucks most of all!

Love was such a simple little word, a gentle word. It described an emotion that could bring so much joy and happiness. The same emotion could also bring so much hurt. So much awful pain.

Ferdinand was gone. Blossom ached everywhere, especially in the heart region.

She shuffled her hooves along as she walked forlornly next to the fence separating farmer Sam’s field from the Stanton’s field. She had paced back and forth for hours now. What else did she have to do? She couldn’t eat. Well, she couldn’t graze basically constantly as was a contented cow’s normal habit. She’d only managed to nibble on the winter grass stubble three or four times this morning. That wasn’t nearly enough nourishment for a fine-figured Holstein such as herself.

Lifting her head to the pure blue sky, she mooed sadly. By the end of the week she’d probably wither away to nothing. She bawled again. How could she go on?

Blossom’s ears perked up. Was that Elsie snickering? Yes, she was! Evil Jersey bovine. Happy at Blossom’s misery! No doubt Elsie would do a happy dance when she finally keeled over. She ought to buck up and live—even with a broken heart—just to spite the self-appointed queen of the herd.

But she couldn’t live this way. Her eyes were dry and gritty from crying most of the night and a lot of this morning. Her will to even go on living was failing.

She mooed sadly again, louder, putting all of her misery into the effort.

Ferdinand was gone.

Yesterday morning she’d been practically skipping in anticipation of breaking through the fence at a run to spend time with him. Except that halfway across her field she’d spotted old man Stanton leading the stud bull of her life toward a big trailer. She’d stopped and stood in horror, heart pounding.. She’d mooed her protest in a demand to know what was going on. Had the massive Belted Galloway answered her? No. Had he even looked in her direction to offer her some kind of meager reassurance that he would be back? No.

A tear trickled from the corner of one eye and she shook her head to fling the tear away. He hadn’t acknowledged her. He’d held his head proudly up and gone with Stanton. She thought she’d seen a hint of excitement in his step as Ferdinand had marched right up into the trailer. But that didn’t make sense. Unless…

Excited! Going all too willingly into that trailer! How dumb could she be? Stanton was taking her lover off somewhere so Ferdinand could do his job. He wasn’t a milk cow like Blossom. She’d known all along what his job was, but she’d tried to not think about it. She’d tried to pretend that she was the only cow he’d ever want, the only cow he’d ever be with.

Dumb, dumb, dumb. Another tear trailed down her face. Then another.

She started to shuffle away. They were history. She would scratch his name from her little black book, or she would if she had a book…if she could write. Whatever. She was so done with him! When he came back—which she now realized he would—just see if she even gave him the time of day!

Wait! She froze. Her head whipped up; her nostrils flared. Her ears twitched at the familiar slow rumble of heavy hooves heading closer. Her withers quivered. Her stomachs rumbled and her hunger returned in a rush.

Anxiously she lowered her head and chomped up a bit of grass. And she waited, chewing slowly.

The rumble grew even closer. Ferdinand’s scent drifted to her in the breeze. “Run!” her mind ordered.

“Blossom, my love,” Ferdinand moo rumbled in his deep, sensual voice.

Then she was running. “The wrong way, idiot! You’re running the wrong way,” she said as her legs carried her lightning quick toward the fence.

“Come here, my beautiful Blossom.” He used a muscled hindquarter to shove over a fence post.

She found the willpower to stop only inches away and looked at him through tear-filled eyes. “I-I know what you’ve been doing.” The lump in her throat was hard to swallow.

He stepped over the downed fence and walked directly to her. His big head rubbed against hers. He licked away a fallen tear. “Only my job, sweetheart. Nothing more.” He nuzzled her again “You are the only bovine for me. My heart belongs to only you.”

She raised her head and studied him for a second. Then she smiled, and then she reached around to lightly bite him on the butt. “And you belong only to me, Buster. Remember that.”