15. Nora #2
I looked down. Waffles had indeed positioned himself directly on top of Hunt’s left boot, his small hooves planted firmly on the expensive leather, his body angled as if daring him to object.
“He does that when he’s establishing dominance.”
“And if I move?”
“He’ll scream.”
Hunt stayed perfectly still.
Waffles held the position for a long moment, maintaining eye contact with a goat intensity that would’ve been funny if it wasn’t also deeply satisfying. Then, with deliberate slowness, he stepped off Hunt’s foot and began walking toward the door.
He paused at the threshold and looked back.
“I think he wants you to leave,” I said.
“I gathered that.”
“You should probably go before he decides to escalate.”
Hunt stood up, careful and slow, his eyes never leaving the goat. “Thank you for the terms. I’ll follow them exactly.”
“See that you do.”
He made it three steps toward the door before Waffles charged.
It wasn’t a real charge, not the kind that would do damage, but it was enough to make Hunt stumble backward, his arms windmilling as he tried to avoid stepping on the goat while also avoiding the furniture.
Waffles bleated triumphantly and charged again, herding my husband toward the exit with the efficiency of a border collie moving sheep.
“I think he’s escorting me off the property.”
“Looks that way.” I leaned against the doorframe and let myself enjoy it.
“Should I be concerned?”
“Only if you come back without permission.”
Hunt made it through the kitchen door and across the porch, Waffles nipping at his heels the whole way. I followed at a distance, watching the spectacle from the doorway, and a part of my chest I refused to name felt lighter than it had in months.
The billionaire wildlife veterinarian was being chased across my grandmother’s yard by a goat.
He didn’t run. Didn’t curse. Didn’t do anything that might escalate the situation. He just walked steadily toward his truck, accepting the goat harassment with the same quiet dignity he’d brought to the contract negotiation, and when he reached the driver’s side door he turned back to look at me.
Waffles stationed himself between us, triumphant.
“I’ll see you Thursday,” Hunt called. “For the appointment.”
“Ten o’clock. Waffles will be checking his watch.”
“Tell him I’ll beat him to it.”
He got in his truck. Waffles stood guard until the engine started, then trotted back to the porch with the air of a soldier returning from a successful campaign. He positioned himself at my feet and looked up at me with unmistakable satisfaction.
“Good boy,” I told him. “Very good boy.”
The truck disappeared down the driveway just as another vehicle appeared on the road. June’s sedan, instantly recognizable by the dent in the passenger door and the “Support Local Farms” bumper sticker.
She pulled up to the house and emerged with a pie in her hands, her eyes following Hunt’s retreating taillights.
“Was that who I think it was?”
“Depends on who you think it was.”
“The billionaire husband you never mentioned.” June climbed the porch steps and handed me the pie. “The one who’s apparently been leaving wildflowers on your clinic doorstep and carrying you out of burning buildings. That billionaire husband?”
“Word travels fast.”
“Honey, this is Primrose. Word doesn’t travel, it teleports.” She looked down at Waffles, who was still positioned protectively at my feet. “Did your goat just chase him off the property?”
“He did.”
“All the way to his truck?”
“At a trot.”
June’s face broke into the widest smile I’d ever seen on her. “Oh, I’m starting a pool.”
“A what?”
“A betting pool. Town-wide.” She was already pulling out her phone. “On when the goat forgives him. Because that goat’s going to know before you do, and everybody in Primrose is going to want a piece of that action.”
“June, you can’t start a betting pool on my goat’s opinion of my estranged husband.”
“Watch me.” She was typing rapidly. “Opening odds are six months minimum. Maeve’s going to want in on this. So’s Doc Hale. And the ladies at the grange are going to lose their minds.”
“This is insane.”
“This is small-town entertainment, Nora. We take what we can get.”
I looked down at Waffles, who looked back up at me with innocent eyes, as if he hadn’t just become the town’s unofficial measurement of my husband’s redemption arc.
Then I looked at the contract on my kitchen table, three pages of my terms in Hunt’s blocky capitals.
Then I looked at the driveway, where dust was still settling from his departure.
And then, for reasons I couldn’t explain and didn’t want to examine, I started laughing.
It bubbled up from somewhere deep in my chest, laughter too big to contain, laughter that brought tears to my eyes and made my stomach ache.
I laughed until I couldn’t breathe, until I had to sit down on the porch steps, until Waffles was pressing against my leg in concern and June was patting my back and making soothing noises.
“Honey?” June’s voice was gentle. “You okay?”
“He looked like the boy at the fence.” The words came out between gasps, between laughs that were starting to sound more like sobs. “Blushing at dawn seven years ago. He looked exactly like that, being marched across the yard by a goat, and I hate him, June. I hate him so much.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“But he looked like the boy at the fence.”
“I know he did.”
June sat down beside me on the steps. Waffles settled in my lap. And I cried and laughed and cried some more, because the ridiculous, enormous man I’d married had just signed away every right he had, every protection his money could buy, every negotiating position he could’ve claimed.
He’d signed it like a promise.
He’d signed it like it mattered.
And I hated, hated, that some part of me was starting to believe him.