Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
FRANKIE
Thelma yawns, stretches and adjusts her position on the kitchen windowsill to ensure maximum sunbeam exposure.
Oh, to be a cat with zero responsibilities and worries.
I push my empty oatmeal bowl to the side, pick up my tea and look over the summary of bad news that Paige sent me yesterday.
She’s absolutely right—the only logical, dispassionate decision is to sell to the developer that seems the least evil.
But this place is all about the passion.
All about the meaning. Yes, I’m sure we could move the unadoptable donkeys to other sanctuaries, but they’re all such delicate souls and would be affected by being ripped from their home.
And I know what it’s like to have this place feel like your home.
Surely I can leverage my skills to get more regular donor money flowing in than Grandpa has ever been able to.
I mean, the website hasn’t been updated for years, and the last activity on the social media accounts was eleven months ago.
Not that anyone would have seen any new posts because the follower count is so low and the engagement almost zero.
If I crank out the most amusing and interesting content I can over the next few weeks, maybe I can start to turn them around.
I mean, having an account based around cute animals has to be easier than getting people excited about nightstands, and I can do that blindfolded and with my hands tied behind my back.
In fact, if I can revive the dead sanctuary accounts, rather than my time here hurting my chances of getting the VP position back in Chicago, it might actually help. It could show I’m not just a one-trick pony—or donkey.
It’s just over a week to Thanksgiving, but if I could cobble together an open day event that weekend to coincide with Small Business Saturday, while everyone still has relatives in town they want to get out of the house, and combine it with a big push on fundraising and volunteer recruitment, maybe I could make a good start on rolling the boulder up the hill.
Then I could go back to Chicago leaving Grandpa to just topple it down the other side and everything will be fine.
I shove all sense of logic that no such efforts could ever be that successful that quickly out of my head. I have to try. I abso-fucking-lutely have to try.
Screw those developers.
Aside from Grandpa’s reasons for wanting to keep it, I’m sure the people of Warm Springs would rather have the sanctuary here than row upon row of cookie-cutter townhomes.
Movement outside catches my attention, and I gaze over Thelma’s outstretched body to see what is, objectively, a virtually perfect male form opening the door to the shed, disappearing inside, and reemerging with a shovel and a bucket.
I leave my chair and move toward the window, drawn to get as close a look as possible.
Miller seems like he might be as beautiful on the inside as he is on the outside. I mean, anyone who’s willing to use their spare time to give back to animals can’t be all bad, right?
I’d let out all the donkeys as soon as I got up. That’s always my routine when I’m here. The alarm goes off at six-thirty, I put on clothes—or sometimes just muck boots and coat over my pajamas—and head straight out to open their doors so the animals can come and go as they please.
Miller heads to the mini donkeys’ enclosure first—maybe he thought he’d start with the smaller poops and work his way up. The way he’s fumbling with the rope loop makes it look like he’s never opened a single farm gate in his life.
What the hell is his story?
He’s quite the fascinating and mysterious character.
If this scenario had happened to someone else, I’d say that a total stranger showing up on their doorstep out of nowhere, wearing brand new clothes, with zero belongings, yet seeming to have enough money to buy the whole town but wanting to stay in a ramshackle barn loft, was a walking red flag with a blaring Klaxon on top.
But when we looked at each other for that moment after he bumped into me right here in the kitchen yesterday, I had this weird feeling like I’d known him my whole life. Like we’d been to kindergarten and elementary school together and been teasing each other since we were five.
Though there was nothing childlike about the trembly flip in my belly when he looked down at me and his eyes locked onto mine. And my belly is doing a very similar thing right now just watching his long, firm legs stride purposefully into the miniatures’ stable before he disappears from view.
What the …
A laugh flies from me involuntarily at the sight of Miller suddenly reappearing at high speed—running across the paddock with the shovel still in one hand and the bucket swinging from the other. I can’t quite see the expression on his face from this distance, but I’m pretty sure his mouth is open.
My hand clamps over my mouth to stifle a shriek—totally pointless since there’s no one else here to hear it. Although Thelma has lifted her head just far enough to throw me one of her looks of disgust.
Oh yup, there we have it, just as I suspected. Racing out of the barn behind Miller is Harley. We didn’t name him after the motorcycle for nothing.
This is like something out of an old silent movie. A terrified handsome farmhand running at full tilt—leaning back, knees pumping high—as he’s chased by a miniature donkey who looks like he’s having the time of his life.
The laughter rocks my belly now.
Shit, I totally forgot to warn Miller that Harley hates the shovel.
Or, more likely, is scared of it. God knows what that poor little guy experienced before someone rescued him and brought him to us.
But if he ever sees anyone carrying a shovel, he headbutts them with a force entirely disproportionate to his size.
We always either wait until he’s out of the stables before going in there to clean, or we shoo him out first.
Miller has now reached the far end of the enclosure and has nowhere else to run. He’s oblivious to the fact that Harley has considered his mission accomplished and abandoned it halfway across the paddock where he’s decided to nudge the big orange ball around instead.
Miller grips the fence and looks like he’s taking his life into his hands as he peers back over his shoulder.
An inelegant snort flies from my nose as his tall, square form slumps with relief that he’s escaped his three-foot-tall tormentor.
He drops the shovel and the bucket and clutches his heart with one hand while removing the Tractor Trunk cap he bought yesterday with the other and running his fingers through that lush crop of deep brown hair.
Oh my God, that was the funniest thing I’ve witnessed in a long time.
You don’t see that kind of action in Chicago. Though there are times I’d wished some sort of rampaging beast would chase Dickish Darren out of the building.
Poor Miller, though. I should take him some breakfast.
To make up for the shock. And because he has no means of making his own. And he is working here for free, after all. So it’s the least I can do.
Yup. Those are the only reasons. I’m definitely not looking for an excuse just to be around him. Nope. Definitely not the case.
I open the bread box to take out the fresh crusty loaf I picked up at Kneads Must while I was in town yesterday and chuckle to myself as the images of Miller high-knee running across the paddock as if chased by a murderous lion replay in my mind.
The chuckle resonates with another of those trembly belly flips.
Squinting against the low morning sun, I approach the stable just as Miller emerges, jacket off, sleeves of one of his new sweatshirts pushed up to his elbows, displaying those fine forearms.
I think he’s looking over at me, but it’s hard to tell since he’s now stepped into light that’s turned him into a silhouette reminiscent of a sexy cowboy—if the sexy cowboy were sure enough of his own sexuality to look after miniature donkeys rather than strut around riding enormous horses like they were the only large thing he’d ever seen between his legs.
I’d bet Miller McSweeney looks mighty fine in a pair of leather chaps, though.
“Breakfast.” I hold up a Tupperware container bearing toast, and a thermos mug of coffee.
He knocks up the brim of his hat with the back of his hand and gives me the warmest smile imaginable—a smile that could charm the birds from the trees, the fish from the ocean, and the panties from someone who’s taken the most stringent vows of celibacy.
He rests the shovel against the side of the stable and wanders toward me. He has one of those confident saunters, the kind you see in movie stars—head slightly dipped, peering flirtatiously from under his brows.
I perch on the old picnic table in the corner of the field, my feet on the bench.
He climbs up beside me and takes the mug. “Thank you.”
“I don’t know how you take your coffee, so I just put a dash of cream in it. Figured that would do if you like it white, but not be too much if you prefer it black.” Saying that out loud makes it sound like I very much overthought it.
“What if I take sugar?” He looks at me side-eyed and smirks.
“Then you’re shit out of luck.”
His shoulders shake with a quiet laugh as he takes his first sip.
“Also I figured you’d never be a sugar guy.”
“Because I’m sweet enough?” he says with irony.
I want to say that sweet is by no means enough to describe what I’m looking at, but instead settle on, “Please don’t make grandpa jokes.”
“Ha,” he says, sniffing the drink before taking a sip. “Are you and your grandpa close?”
“Yeah, I spent most of my middle and high school vacations here. This place made me want to be a vet.”