Chapter 14
Lark
I’d been avoiding Logan since yesterday’s kiss, and my system had been flawless right up until the moment it required me to be in the same building as him.
Morning feed rounds: I took the outdoor animals, while he handled the barn. Paddock check: I went east, sent him west. Lunch: I ate a granola bar behind the equipment shed like a fugitive on my own property.
When he came into the barn at ten to work on the kennel latches, I remembered urgent paperwork at the house. When he left for the fence line at noon, I suddenly needed to be in the barn.
The flaw in the system was that the medication log lived on a clipboard in the feed room, and the afternoon med check couldn’t be done from forty acres away.
So here I was. Midafternoon, standing over the clipboard, pen in hand, acutely aware that Logan was fifteen feet behind me replacing a latch on Duke’s kennel. I could hear the metal-on-metal clink of the latch he was fitting, and I was very definitely not looking at his forearms.
I was looking at the medication log. Right. Yes. Medication log.
Tova: heartworm prevention, administered. Atlas: joint supplement, administered. Frank: senior multivitamin—
The clinking stopped. Logan shifted his weight, and every nerve ending in my body tracked exactly where he was without my eyes leaving the page.
This was absurd. I was a grown woman hiding behind a clipboard because a man had kissed me in my utility closet yesterday and I’d liked it so much I’d been actively avoiding him every hour since.
Yesterday’s kiss had been so much different from what had happened in the storm.
The overhang, I could handle. I’d spent the last two days building a box around that memory, lining it with context and justification.
Humiliating extraordinary circumstances.
A woman in crisis who needed somewhere to put the wreckage, and a man who’d let her.
Mortifying, but it was explainable, and I could survive explainable.
But the utility closet yesterday had no box.
Logan had put his hand on my face and pulled me in because he’d wanted to.
No crisis behind it, no adrenaline, no excuse.
And I’d fisted his shirt and pulled him closer because I’d wanted to, and if Beckett’s truck hadn’t pulled into my driveway, we both knew exactly where that kiss was heading.
I’d had sex since my divorce. Twice, and both times with men I’d met outside of Garnet Bend who didn’t know my last name and were gone before morning. I’d been fine with that.
Pawsitive was where my everything went, not men. Every dollar, every hour, every scrap of energy I could wring out of a day. And that was exactly where I wanted it.
But being around Logan didn’t pull anything away from Pawsitive. He’d become part of it, showing up, doing the next thing without being asked, fitting into the rhythm of the place as if he’d always been there. With him around, I had more of myself at the end of the day, not less.
I didn’t trust it. The last time I’d trusted a man, I’d ended up with a scar on my arm and choosing a new name under fluorescent lights in a women’s shelter.
I was saved from my own spiraling thoughts by my phone ringing.
I grabbed it from the shelf and recognized the Kalispell number. James Ellison, the banker. Shit, I didn’t have time to get away from Logan, so I answered.
“This is Lark.”
“Lark, it’s James. I’m glad I caught you.” His voice carried that careful warmth that always preceded bad news. “I heard back from Pinnacle Property Group this afternoon. The ones that bought the second mortgage.”
My hand tightened on the phone. “And?”
“Unfortunately, they’re not willing to extend. I explained your situation, your payment history, the nature of the business. They were polite, but the answer was no. They want the missed payments brought current within thirty days, or they’ll begin default proceedings.”
The barn went flat around me. The medication log blurred, and I pressed the pen hard enough into the clipboard to dent the paper. I turned so my back was to Logan, not that that would change the news or cause him not to hear.
“How much to bring it current?”
He told me. I already knew. I’d run those calculations so many times, the numbers lived behind my eyes twenty-four seven. But hearing someone else say them made them heavier, more permanent than the figures I ran alone at two in the morning.
“And I have thirty days to come up with that,” I said.
“Yes. They’re adamant. This happens sometimes, although not often. I’m sorry, Lark. I pushed as hard as I could. We can still work with you on the first mortgage, but that one… They want their money now.”
“Okay. Thank you for letting me know.”
I hung up and set the phone on the shelf, then stood there with the clipboard pressed against my sternum and my jaw clenched so tight my back teeth ached.
I needed to do what I always did: process it, put it away, figure out the next step. I needed to turn back to the medication log, finish the afternoon rounds, find something that needed fixing. As long as I kept moving, I could pass for someone who had it all together.
“Lark.”
Logan’s voice, close behind me. He’d crossed the barn while I wasn’t tracking him, and he was standing at the edge of the feed room with a screwdriver loose in one hand, watching my face.
“What happened?”
I should have deflected. I had a dozen possibilities ready: a joke about Clarence, a question about Duke’s latch, a sudden need to check on Duchess. My mouth opened to grab one.
“That was the bank.” The words came out flat, before the deflection could catch up.
I was looking at the clipboard, not at him.
“The investment group that bought my second mortgage. They won’t give me more time.
I have to come up with everything I owe in thirty days or they start the default process. ”
The silence lasted three seconds. I counted them.
“How much do you owe?” he asked.
I told him. The number sat in the air between us, ugly and specific.
He grimaced. “What are your options for covering it?”
“There’s a grant application still out.” I gripped the clipboard to my chest. “I should hear back in a few weeks. But honestly, I don’t know if I’ll get it.
I’ve never had trouble getting grants before this year, but two fell through back-to-back in the last nine months without any good explanation.
So I can’t count on them anymore, and I’ve got to have this second mortgage up to date by the end of the month. ”
“Is there any extra income Pawsitive generates? Outside the grants.”
I looked up. He was leaning against the doorframe with the screwdriver resting against his thigh, his expression level and unhurried. There was no pity in his face, no careful tilt of concern. He was engaging with my problem as if it had an answer we could find together.
“I don’t know. I’ve been turning it over for months.”
“What about doing some sort of fundraiser here in Garnet Bend? Pawsitive means something to people. If they knew what you were dealing with—”
“No.” It came out harder than I meant. “Nobody finds out about this. I’m not standing in front of this town with my hand out, Logan.”
He didn’t flinch, just waited.
“I’m not a charity case,” I said, quieter.
“Okay. Then what can you sell?”
“I don’t want to sell any of the animals. I can’t stand the thought of it.” I looked from the dogs over to Clarence—who, okay, I might be tempted to sell, but who was going to pay me for a foul-mouthed parrot?—over to the goats. No, I couldn’t do it. “And I need all the equipment.”
I’d already sold anything I could do without months ago.
“I didn’t actually mean selling the animals. I mean what can Pawsitive do that people will pay for? You’ve got sixty animals and the training to back them up. Can they be leveraged to make money? Sort of like the open house?”
I turned the question over. The animals were what people loved. And then something surfaced that I hadn’t thought about in over a year.
“There was a woman who called me last year. Fourteen months ago, maybe. She wanted to hire me to bring animals to her daughter’s birthday party. Pony rides, a petting area, the therapy dogs. Big production. She offered three thousand dollars for four hours.”
“What happened?”
“I said no. I couldn’t manage it alone. Loading the animals, transporting them, handling them on-site, keeping kids safe around livestock—it’s a two-person job at minimum.” I set down the clipboard. “I didn’t really need the money and I was a one-person organization, so I moved on.”
He was quiet for a beat. “You’re not one person anymore.”
I looked at him. He looked back, and the steadiness of it loosened something in my chest that I hadn’t realized was still clenched.
“Yeah, I guess I could try private bookings,” I said slowly. The idea was taking shape as I said it. I pulled a pen from my back pocket and grabbed a feed receipt from the shelf. “Birthday parties, private events. Families with money who want the experience.”
“A mobile petting zoo. I’d imagine some people would love that for their kids. Do you still have the contact?”
“Somewhere in my email.” I was writing now, jotting down notes, the pen moving fast: which animals traveled well, pricing, transport logistics.
“It won’t fix everything. I still need the grants.
But if I can book a few events in the next month, it might be enough to cover the missed mortgage payments and get Pinnacle to back off. ”
“Maverick’s a draw. Kids went crazy for the rabbits at the open house.”
“Snowball. She’s bombproof.” I added her to the list. “And Al Pacacino, obviously. He’s revolting and children worship him.”
“Does he spit at children?”
“He spits at everyone. We’d market it as a premium interactive experience.”
He laughed and I kept writing, the pen moving fast, my brain faster. For the first time in months, something was loosening instead of tightening. The problem hadn’t shrunk, but for once, I wasn’t carrying it alone.