Chapter 26 #2
I make sure my jacket is zipped up as high as it can go, take a deep breath as if I’m about to dive under water, and step outside.
I have only one foot out the door when I jump at yet another bolt of lightning. The thunder that almost immediately follows rumbles through my body.
Amid the brays, there’s a particularly plaintive one in the far back corner.
Hardly surprising. If it rocked me, how the hell must it feel to these poor guys when they don’t even know what’s going on?
Okay. I should probably check out that whimper before I go. I shut the door and turn around.
It’s Petunia.
I’m not sure a sight has ever ripped at my heart more than her little white form shaking and staring into the corner.
“It’s okay.” I approach her as slowly as I can, speaking in the most soothing tone a person whose cold wet clothes are sticking to them and who’s desperate to immerse themselves in hot water while drinking a beer could possibly be expected to muster. “I’m here. It’s all going to be fine.”
She lets me stand next to her.
I give her a moment to get comfortable with me there before I risk resting my hand oh-so-gently on her back. She flinches at the first touch and gives me a quick look over her shoulder. But I guess she decides I’m not an enemy because she doesn’t move away or kick or anything.
Making a shhh sound, I run my hand down her spine in long, slow strokes over and over.
“It will all be okay.” I make my voice as calming as possible. “It’s just rain and silly thunder. It’ll go away. And you’ll be fine.”
The trembling doesn’t stop. And it’s fucking heartbreaking. This poor little thing has no clue what the terrifying sounds are and the only person she has to rely on for safety is me—someone she hasn’t known long enough to trust.
“I’m right here. Right here. And I’m not going anywhere until you’re okay.”
Then I remember that Frankie stroked from her shoulder and down her front leg to calm her, so I inch my way closer to her head to get the right angle.
Her ears twitch and she turns her face away from me a little, but she stays standing in the same spot, and I’ll take that as a good sign.
“Is this what you like?” I ask, making the same long, slow movement I saw Frankie make, up and over her shoulder and down her leg.
A dribble of cold water from my hood runs inside my jacket and down the back of my neck, making me shiver, but I do my very best to contain any sudden movements.
“You like this, huh?” Her trembling is a little less violent.
“Don’t ever tell anyone what I’m about to do, Petunia, but I think you like this too.” And I softly launch into the first words of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”
Halfway through the song, her shaking dissipates even more—it’s not gone completely, but it has subsided.
This might be one of the high points of my life—a terrified living creature responding to my efforts to make her feel safe and cared for. I mean, how fucking rewarding is that?
I keep up the strokes and the soft singing, la-la-lah-ing where I don’t know the words.
Partway into my third rendition, she lowers herself to lie down. Her head’s still up, but this has to be a sign she’s feeling better.
“Good girl.” I crouch at her side and rub her back. “See, I told you everything would be okay.”
Wow, that was fucking amazing.
Also fucking amazing is that the bath and beer are now actually in my sights.
I ease myself up to standing. “Good night, Petunia,” I whisper right as the sky outside the window is illuminated by a bright flash.
Fuck.
I put my hands over her ears as if that will somehow stop the thunder from getting to her.
It doesn’t.
She’s shaking again.
She doesn’t get up, so that’s something, but the shaking is not good.
For the first time, she turns her head and makes full eye contact with me. Christ, the haunted look in her eyes, the pleading behind them, is enough to rip my heart right out of my chest and shove it through a shredder.
Frankie wouldn’t leave her, would she?
Of course she wouldn’t.
She’d sleep here with her all night if she had to.
“Don’t worry,” I say to Petunia in as gentle a tone as I can. “Don’t worry.”
There’s a stash of blankets in this stable too, so I ease myself gently away from Petunia and walk over to grab half a dozen.
Armed with something warm and dry to sit on, I kick a pile of hay together next to her and lay the blankets on top. If I’m going to be here a while, I at least need to be as comfortable as it’s possible to be in wet clothes that are becoming colder by the second.
I take off my dripping jacket, hang it on a nail sticking out of the wall, and park myself on the blanket stack next to the still-shaking little donkey.
“I’ll pet your back for however long you need me,” I tell her.
What’s that sound?
It’s my name.
Someone’s calling my name.
“Miller?”
That’s Frankie’s voice.
And I’m lying on a blanket.
Shit, yes. Petunia. Is she okay?
I crank my eyes fully open to find the white miniature donkey fast asleep next to me.
“Miller.” There’s a hand on my leg. Frankie is crouched near my feet, wearing the black wool coat she left in yesterday, hair plastered to her head.
She must have gone into the house, realized I wasn’t there, and ran straight out to check on the animals without even grabbing a rain jacket.
Her beautiful, flushed face is shiny with moisture, and there are little streaks of black makeup next to the big blue eyes that are smiling down at me.
“You stayed with her?” Her soft voice is full of warmth and gratitude. “Because of the storm?”
The look in Frankie’s eyes says I’m not just Petunia’s hero, I’m hers too. And that’s the most valuable accolade I could ever hope to achieve.
I reach down and take her cold hand from my leg and wrap it in mine.
I nod. “I did.”