Chapter 2
Harris
The zebras were at it again. They hated being cooped up, and I couldn’t blame them, but they weren’t really equipped to handle the snow.
Zuri and Samir had been raised in temperatures similar to northern New York, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t been neglect.
Of course, they’d been owned illegally, which is how they ended up at my sanctuary in the first place.
I’d built them a heated barn with plenty of room for the colder months.
They had all the hay, proper nutrition, and enrichment they needed.
But they still got mad when I didn’t turn them out and they let me know with loud calls and banging around.
If they didn’t knock it off, I was going to send Cheddar in there to run them around.
My yellow lab was a friend to all equines on the property and he loved to play.
The zebras would chase him and he’d stay just out of reach, giving everyone much needed exercise.
But for the moment, they could be loud. They weren’t hurting anything and I had more important things to focus on.
I had four guys who worked for me at Wayfair Equine Sanctuary and The Cabins, which was part of the property.
Two of them had worked for my asshole of a father before I showed back up, kicked him out, and took over.
Steve was a few years older than me, had leg problems, and never complained.
Lenny, on the other hand, was young, brash, and had a huge chip on his shoulder.
I’d given him chance after chance, but he was getting to the point where I was hitting my breaking point.
If he didn’t straighten up soon, I was going to have no choice but to give him the boot.
“Everyone works shifts at the front desk, Len. You know that.” I was stretching for patience.
“Come on, Harris. I hate that shit,” he whined and I gritted my teeth so as not to snap at him. He was a fucking adult, but he was acting like a teenager. “Make someone else do it.”
“It’s a rotation,” I said through gritted teeth. “Everyone takes a turn. But every time it’s your turn, you give me shit.”
Lenny’s glare was mutinous. “It’s not my fault you built The Cabins and started taking guests. You’ve got the phone, why do I gotta sit there?”
I lifted my gaze to the ceiling and took a breath. “Because there are check-ins today.”
“Man, why can’t you just hire someone to handle that shit?”
“With what money?” I barked, patience gone. I shot him what I hoped was a scathing look and he winced. Good. “Just go work the desk, Lenny. Stop whining and do your job.”
He opened his mouth but at the last second what little common sense he had must have kicked in. He scowled and turned, stomping out of the tack room and slamming the door open on his way. For a beat, no one moved. Then I sighed and looked at the other guys. Steve raised a brow.
“I know, I know,” I muttered. “I’ll talk to him again. Steve, why don’t you take Cheddar and go see to the zebras, then get on with the mucking.”
“Got it,” he rasped out, a reminder of his years of smoking. He’d quit, but the effects were still there. “Come on, Ched.”
The dog wagged his thick tail and happily trotted after Steve. Cheddar was the best boy and more than happy to go with any one of us. I was pretty sure he knew the word “zebra” too and was excited to go play with the striped menaces.
I focused on Ben and Cade. They were both hard-working guys who did whatever I asked of them.
Ben was local, having grown up in Purchase.
He’d served four years in the Army and came home with his best friend.
I had suspicions about those two, but it wasn’t my place to question their personal life.
If they wanted to share, they would. And they knew they could. That I wouldn’t judge.
I’d made no secret of my sexuality.
“Whatcha got for me?” I asked. They’d already been out checking on things, as they usually did before our morning meetings. It was part of their job.
Unsurprisingly, Ben was the one who gave report. Cade was the quiet type who only spoke if necessary.
“I think George’s abscess might be back,” Ben said, scratching his cheek. “He’s off. He came over but he didn’t try to steal our hats. When I tried to get a look at the right side of his face, he kept turning away. But I thought I might have seen something.”
I nodded. The Bactrian camel had been dealing with a tooth abscess for a couple of months now.
We thought it had cleared up, but if George wasn’t acting like himself, then he needed to be checked, whether that was the issue or something else.
The camel had been raised by hand from a calf, and he loved people.
“I’ll call the vet. See if she can come out. I don’t want to trailer him if we don’t have to.”
Dr. Emily Porter was based in Burlington VT, which was a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Hickory Hollow.
Not that there weren’t plenty of closer veterinarians, and we used a much closer one for the horses.
But as good as Dr. Ricker was, he refused to treat the camel or the zebras.
He hadn’t trained in exotics, and Dr. Porter had.
I had no problem hauling the zebras to Dr. Porter’s clinic, but George didn’t fit well in the trailer and he got moody if I had to make him.
“Supposed to snow,” Cade murmured before leaning against the wall.
“Yeah?” I hauled out my phone and checked the weather app.
It was supposed to start snowing tonight and, by the looks of it, keep on going for at least the next ten days, which is all the app showed me.
That was a relief. The Winter Festival started next week, and it sucked if we didn’t have enough snow to have the sleigh rides.
It was a big draw of the festival, but more than that, it was a money earner.
“Make sure the plow is hooked up, and Cade, you keep the drive and parking lots clear, okay?” I waited for his nod, then asked, “What else?”
“We need to move Ione’s herd down because there’s not enough shelter in the back pasture. But that shouldn’t be an issue. The question is where to put them?” Ben asked.
I mentally reviewed the layout, trying to think.
Ione was our oldest mare at twenty-two or so, and she had a band of mares she led.
Those horses were the reason I started the sanctuary in the first place.
My old man, fucking bastard that he was, had been neglecting and mistreating his horses.
I’d had no idea, having escaped his clutches years ago.
I always knew he was an asshole, but apparently it had gotten worse.
Five or so years ago, Steve tracked me down and let me know what was going on.
But that was in the past and we had twenty horses, two zebras, and a camel to worry about now.
The zebras and George were permanent fixtures, as were the horses in Ione’s herd and the trio of geldings.
The rest? Well, I did my best to rehab them, get them healthy again, then found them good homes.
Adopting out a horse to a good home wasn’t easy but we made it happen.
“If we move the geldings to the east pasture, then we can open up the gate between the one where they are now and the smaller one next to it. That’ll give the mares the lean-tos. The east pasture has all those pine trees, which will be enough for the three geldings.”
Ben nodded, glanced at Cade, then looked at me again. “You’re planning on keeping the new rescues in then?”
I sighed. “They don’t have enough muscle or coat to turn out in the snow. They’ll hate being cooped up, especially Rosie, but we don’t have a choice. We can use the indoor arena as much as possible.”
The thing had been falling down, and I’d almost razed it rather than rebuilding, since I wasn’t going to be doing much training with the horses I took in.
The point was to get them healthy, maybe teach them a few manners if they needed it, and find them forever homes.
At the last minute, I’d decided to repair it anyway. I was glad for that now.
“Got it. We’ll get everybody moved.” Ben pushed off the desk, where he’d been half sitting, and Cade preceded him out of the tack room which doubled as my office.
“Let me know if you run into any issues,” I called to Ben before he could disappear. “I have a meeting with Hawley and the Ball committee in ten minutes, so I’ll be in the party barn.”
Ben’s grin stretched his lips and he chuckled. “Have fun with that.”
I flipped off his retreating back.
The Winter Ball had been Morgan Hawley’s brainchild a few years ago.
He wanted a formal event to bring some class to the Winter Festival.
When he first approached me about it, I’d been ready to turn him down.
The party barn, as Hawley dubbed it and we all just adopted, had just been refurbished then and I had been planning on renting it out.
Running the sanctuary was expensive as fuck and that, combined with the guest cabins, was supposed to subsidize the cost. Hawley’s idea would cut into those proceeds.
Until he suggested that this so-called Winter Ball was to benefit the sanctuary.
I couldn’t turn him down and he knew it.
I hated dressing up. I hated hosting the thing alongside him.
But surprisingly—or maybe not given that everything Hawley touched seemed to turn to gold—we sold out every year, and the proceeds funded several months of feed and vet care.
So it was a night of headaches for a good cause, and I put on my big boy pants and dealt with it.
Hawley and the committee he put together handled the rest. I was only forced to go to a couple of the meetings, the one today being the last one before the Ball on the twenty-first. The festival itself started this upcoming Sunday, so it was Hawley’s last chance to finalize everything before he was too busy to think.