“Oh, I’m definitely interested,” he told her.
She felt her cheeks flush with pleasure. “What day works for you?”
“Wednesday?” he suggested.
She nodded. “Six o’clock?”
“Sounds good.” He kissed her again, but lightly this time—a casual brush that nevertheless caused tingles to skate through her veins. “I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
* * *
“There’s nothing like falling in love, is there?”
Daphne started and pressed a hand to her racing heart.
“You’re going to give me a heart attack one of these days.”
“You’ve been living with me for more than five years,” Alice pointed out. “You should be used to me by now.”
“How am I supposed to get used to you when there’s no rhyme or reason for when you’re suddenly going to show up?”
“I’m always here.”
“Okay,” she acknowledged. “But could you maybe make yourself scarce when I’m otherwise occupied?”
“You mean, in a passionate lip-lock with a handsome man?”
“At the very least.”
“You really like this one, don’t you?”
“I really do,” she said. “And you really need a hobby.”
“I thought people watching was a hobby.”
“A different hobby,” she clarified.
Alice laughed softly.
The sound surprised Daphne, who didn’t think the ghost—assuming that was an accurate term for Alice—was ever anything but sad.
“You seem... I don’t know that happier is the right word,” Daphne said. “But your mood definitely feels lighter these days.”
“I can see a light in the darkness.”
“How can I help?”
“Find Russell.”
She sighed wearily. “I don’t even know where to begin. All you’ve ever given me is his name.”
“Talk to Evan.”
“Why do you think Evan can help me find Russell?”
There was no response to the question, making her wonder if Alice had actually mentioned his name or if Daphne was projecting her own thoughts—because Evan seemed to have taken up permanent residence in her mind since his first visit to the farm.
“If you’re not going to give me any more guidance, I’m going inside—it’s cold out here.”
“Sweet dreams.”
But Daphne was too wired to sleep.
Whether it was the conversation with Alice or the residual effect of Evan’s kiss, she knew sleep would be a long time in coming. Instead, she sat down at her desk and opened her Twitter feed to review the postings from the open house.
She was pleased with the number of visitors who’d posted photos with #HappyHeartsAnimalSanctuary #ChristmasattheFarm and #AnimalLove. Tiny Tim was the star of many of the snapshots, and he looked suitably festive in his Santa hat and coat, but Winnie and Gretel were close runners-up. Several of the raffle winners who’d been present when their names were drawn at the end of the event had posted pictures of their prizes already, and the winner of the gingerbread village included an image of her kids setting up LEGO figures around it #PlayWithYourFood #ChristmasDessert.
Daphne added a few of her own pictures, then switched over to the Facebook page to check the postings there.
Desperately Seeking Daisy.
It wasn’t the first time Daphne had spotted the headline on social media over the past few weeks. Ordinarily she didn’t pay much attention to personal ads, but this one had piqued her curiosity, probably because of the date. Because a child born in 1945 would be seventy-five years old now—not a child at all.
Practically speaking, it was entirely possible that the missing Daisy wasn’t even alive anymore, in which case the search would not end happily for the Abernathy family. Still, she hoped she was wrong, and that the message would continue to circulate until somebody somewhere made a connection so that Daisy could be reunited with her family.
Because Daphne knew only too well how it felt to be missing a part of her family. Contact with her mom was sporadic at best and communication with her twin half brothers, Dirk and Dustin, from Cornelius’s second marriage, was almost nonexistent. But the hardest part was being estranged from her father and Brandon, and she didn’t know how to bridge the distance between them. And maybe, stubbornly, she didn’t feel that it was her responsibility to do so. Because she hadn’t done anything wrong, except maybe to follow her heart.
Was she making the same mistake with Evan?
She didn’t like to think so, but so far, her heart had proven remarkably unreliable.
And yet, she didn’t regret for a minute what she was doing at Happy Hearts. How could she when she’d been successful in saving so many beautiful creatures? Even if she hadn’t succeeded in making her father and uncles change the way things were done at Taylor Ranch, she was making a difference in the lives of the animals who made their home here.
But right now, she had something else on her mind.
She opened up a browser window and started to search for the elusive Russell Kincaid.
* * *
“When you invited me to come over for dinner, I didn’t expect a three-course meal,” Evan said as he lifted the last forkful of cheese and spinach manicotti to his mouth.
The starter had been a salad of baby greens with toasted pumpkin seeds and a vinaigrette dressing, followed by the main course of pasta and warm bread.
“Most people don’t consider bread to be a course,” Daphne said. “Or did you think the tray of triple-chocolate brownies on the counter is dessert?”
“I was hoping,” he said.
“In that case, I just might let you have one,” she teased. “Maybe even served warm with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce.”
“If people knew that you could cook like this, your table would be the hottest reservation in town,” he said.
She smiled, obviously pleased by his remark. “I like to experiment with different recipes. Although I don’t often take the time to make a meal like this if I’m eating alone.”
“That’s my excuse for not cooking, too,” he told her.
“But I’m sure you don’t eat out every night.”
“No,” he agreed. “But heating up a frozen pizza or throwing some chicken fingers into the air fryer isn’t really cooking, is it?”
“You’re actually saying that if I opened your freezer, I’d find only frozen pizzas and chicken fingers?”
“And French fries and ice cream.”
“Okay, that’s sad,” she said. “Except for the ice cream—that’s a staple.”
He chuckled. “Now I know how to lure you to my apartment—with the promise of ice cream.”
“Or you could just invite me to come over sometime.” She pushed away from the table to clear their empty plates.
“I could do that,” he agreed. “Though there’s really not much to see.”
“You haven’t yet decorated for the holidays?” she guessed, as she cut into the pan of brownies. “I’ve only just started here, but even the littlest touches go a long way toward putting me in the holiday mood.”
“I haven’t really decorated at all since I moved in,” he admitted.
“When was that?”
“Three—no, four years ago,” he said, a little surprised to realize that so much time had passed. Maybe he should do something to spruce up the place a little, except that he’d chosen the apartment because he liked the simplicity of the off-white walls and hardwood floors.
Daphne retrieved the tub of vanilla ice cream from the freezer. “Do you at least put up a tree for Christmas?”
“No.”
“Why not?” she asked, seemingly taken aback by his blunt response.
“I told you—Christmas is
n’t a big deal to me,” he said, reluctant to share the reasons why.
She added scoops of ice cream to the brownies, then drizzled chocolate sauce over the top. “Maybe a tree would help get you into the holiday spirit,” she suggested.
“The Yuletide Ghost Tour has all the holiday spirits I need.”
“I think we’re talking about different kinds of spirits.” She set the dessert plates on the table and returned to her seat across from him. “So what are your plans for Christmas?”
He picked up his fork and dug into the cake. “I’ll have dinner with my mom and grandmother and sister on the twenty-fifth. Nothing special.”
“You definitely need someone to remind you what the holidays are all about,” she said lightly.
“I’ve seen the Charlie Brown cartoon,” he told her. “I get the gist.” And more important, he didn’t want to be reminded—he wanted to forget.
She licked chocolate sauce off her lip. “What about your dad? You didn’t mention him.”
So much for forgetting, he thought ruefully. “I haven’t seen him since I was ten.”
“Your parents are divorced?”
Now he nodded.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“You didn’t,” he said, although the question had admittedly pried the scab off an old wound. “You asked a question and I answered it. It’s just not one that I have a lot to say about.”
“My parents are divorced, too,” she said. “My mom remarried three and a half years ago, and my dad’s currently on wife number three—but you probably knew that because they had a ridiculously splashy wedding to celebrate their nuptials.”
“I do remember hearing about the wedding,” he acknowledged.
“I wish I’d only heard about it, but as the groom’s daughter, I was expected to be there and smile appropriately for the family photos, conveniently disregarding the fact that my father’s barely spoken to me for the past five years because I had the gall to open an animal sanctuary in the same town as Taylor Beef.”
“He should be proud of you for following your own path,” Evan said.
“You’d think,” she said. “But he’s convinced that I came up with the idea for Happy Hearts either because I wanted attention or just to embarrass him, even after I pointed out that I could have accomplished both of those objectives more easily by getting knocked up.”
His lips twitched. “Did you actually say that to your father?”
She nodded, a little sheepishly. “I sometimes lose the filter between my brain and my mouth when I get emotional, and my dad knows just how to push my buttons. Like when he refers to the farm as Hippie Hearts.”
“So I guess he’s not a donor?”
“No,” she said, then her lips started to curve. “Not directly, anyway.”
“He gives you money indirectly?”
“As I already mentioned, my parents split up when I was really young and my dad married his second wife, Tania, almost as soon as the ink was dry on the divorce decree. But up until my mom remarried, she was collecting regular alimony checks from my dad.
“Jordan claims the payments were actually child support, because their prenup made her ineligible for spousal support.” She shrugged. “Whatever the subject line on the checks, the money was paid by my dad to my mom, and when I told her that I wanted to open a farm-slash-animal sanctuary, she immediately put up a chunk of what she said was his money.”
“Does your dad know?” he wondered.
“I haven’t told him,” she said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised if my mom did. She’d get a kick out of watching the vein in his neck pulse.”
“I think I’m starting to see where you get your spirit,” Evan mused. “Does your mom live in Bronco?”
“No, she and her new husband live in Billings.”
“My sister, Vanessa, is a high school science teacher in Billings.”
“It’s interesting,” Daphne remarked, “that your sister’s job is science and yours is based on pseudoscience.”
“If you asked her, she’d tell you that she decided to go into science because it’s based on evidence rather than anecdotes.”
“I take it she’s not into ghosts?”
His lips curved, just a little. “Not even when she worked at Bronco Ghost Tours.”
She smiled then, too. “But you love her, anyway. I can hear it in your voice.”
“Yeah, she’s all right,” he acknowledged, surprised not so much that she’d picked up on his deep affection for his sister but that he’d actually mentioned Vanessa’s name.
He was usually reticent to talk about his family—or anything else too personal—with the women he dated. But Daphne was so easy to be with that he seemed to have trouble remembering his own rules, and he had yet to figure out if that was a good thing or bad.
Chapter Six
Daphne had just started to load the dishwasher after dessert when her phone rang. She didn’t intend to answer it—she was enjoying getting to know Evan and looking forward to more toe-curling kisses before the night was over—but when she glanced at the screen, more out of habit than interest, she saw that the call was from Bronco Valley Pet Clinic.
“Sorry,” she said, “but I have to take this.”
“No worries,” he assured her, and took over the task while she connected the call.
She appreciated his willingness to pitch in—and the way his jeans hugged his butt when he bent over to position the dessert plates in the rack.
“Daphne?”
The voice in her ear forced her to tear her gaze away from her dinner guest to focus on the call.
Any disappointment that the evening had been interrupted was supplanted by eagerness to help as she listened to the vet outline the situation, and she ended the call with a promise that she’d be at the clinic within the hour.
“That was Dr. Liebert—one of the local vets,” she told Evan. “I hate to rush you off, but I have to go pick up a baby goat.”
“At eight o’clock on a Wednesday night?”
“It’s a twenty-four-hour clinic,” she explained. “Animals have emergencies, too. And this little one lost its mom a couple days ago.”
“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a baby goat,” he remarked.
“You’re welcome to come with me,” she said.
Barkley nudged her thigh with his nose.
“Not you,” she said regretfully as she scratched him behind the ears. “I know you’ll love the baby goat, because you love everyone, but we’ll give it a few days to settle in here before we make the introductions.”
The dog dropped his head, clearly understanding her tone if not her words.
“But I won’t be too long.”
Barkley trotted back over to his bed, clearly not appeased by her promise.
At least she had Evan’s company on the drive, and she was grateful for it. She was pleased, too, that he seemed to take an interest in her work and impressed by his awareness of some of the issues regarding the treatment of farm animals.
“So tell me more about this baby goat,” he said as they got closer to the clinic. “How old is he?”
“Four and a half weeks.”
“What happened to the mom?”
“She was attacked and killed by a coyote. Since then, the farmer’s been trying to persuade the other goat moms to help out with the orphaned kids, but none of them would bond with this little one.”
“So what are you supposed to do?” he wondered.
“I’ll take him back to Happy Hearts and we’ll bottle-feed him until he’s ready to be weaned.”
“The farmer couldn’t do that?”
“Of course he could, but someone who already works sunup to sundown doesn’t usually have the time to give a baby animal the care it needs.”
“I guess it’s lucky, then, that you have so much time on your hands,” he noted dryly.
She laughed at that as she pulled into the parking lot of the twenty-four-hour vet clinic. “Let’s go meet the baby.”
While Daphne talked to Dr. Liebert and signed the necessary paperwork, she left Evan in charge of the baby goat. Of course, he didn’t have a clue what that meant or what he was supposed to do, but one look at the furry creature with the big sad eyes was all it took for his heart to begin to melt.
Letting his instincts—questionable though they might be—guide him, he lifted the little goat into his arms. It was bonier than a puppy or kitten, with sharp hooves, but the way its skinny body trembled wasn’t different from any other animal that had been neglected or abused.
“I hear you’ve had a rough go of it the past couple of days, and I’m sorry for that,” he said. “But I promise, you’re going to a better place now, and Daphne will take good care of you.”
Of course, the kid didn’t respond. It didn’t bleat or baa or make any sound at all. But it did, after a few minutes, drop its head against Evan’s chest and close its eyes.
And only a few minutes after that, Daphne was back and they were on their way again.
She had a crate in the back seat of her truck, specifically for the safe transport of animals, but as soon as she tried to put the baby goat inside, it started making all kinds of noise, bleating as if its heart was breaking.
And maybe it was. The poor little thing had been through so much already, and now he was in an unfamiliar environment with strange people.
“Come on, baby,” Daphne crooned softly. “You’re not doing yourself any favors by getting all worked up.”
But Evan could tell that the animal’s distress was causing her distress.
“I’m sure he’ll settle down once we’re moving,” Evan said, wanting to be helpful.
“Do you think so?”
He shrugged. “Isn’t that why new parents often take their kids for a drive when they won’t sleep?”
“I guess we could give it a shot,” she said dubiously.
“Or, since he seems to like being held, he could ride on my lap back to the farm.”
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