by Mia Ross
When the small doe had gotten bored, Bekah let her go and brushed fur from the front of her pants. Then, out of nowhere, one of the pygmy goats hopped from the bale of straw he’d been standing on and into the pen with Bekah. Taking aim, he ran straight at her and bumped her hard enough to knock her back a step.
Drew kept the camera on them, capturing the spontaneous play session complete with the goat’s nah-ing and Bekah’s breathless laughter. He chased her around the pen, getting in a shot whenever he could, while the wide-eyed fawn watched their antics from a safe corner behind the water trough.
“I surrender!” Bekah finally announced, plopping down on the ground to make it official. The small goat danced and jumped in place, as if he was celebrating his victory over her. Being from a large extended family, Drew had seen his share of entertaining children, but he couldn’t recall ever seeing anything quite so adorable.
“He’s a real handful, isn’t he?” Drew asked, capping his camera to protect the lens while he scratched the little terror between the ears.
“We found a family who wants to adopt him,” Bekah told him with a bright smile. “They have a Great Dane who needs company when they’re at work and school, and they thought this little guy would be perfect. They have a big, fenced yard, and three boys to play with. He should be really happy there.”
Although she sounded pleased with the arrangement, Drew caught the wistful tinge in her voice. Stepping over the fence, he sat down on the edge of the water trough and gave her a sympathetic look. “You’re gonna miss him, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.” Reaching out, she gathered him into her lap for a hug. “I’m gonna miss all of them when they go. But that’s what we’re supposed to do—find them a home or get them back to the wild where they belong. They aren’t meant to stay here forever.”
Something told him she wasn’t only talking about the animals, and he felt his own mood sinking to match her tone. “Are you thinking the same thing about yourself?”
“I wish I could afford to stay,” she confided sadly. “But much as I love it here, I have to be practical.”
“If money’s a problem—”
“It’s the biggest one we have, which is why I’m working so hard on Animal Palooza. If we can make it through the year, the center has to have a full-time veterinarian,” she argued in a maddeningly logical tone. “That’s what the animals need more than anything, so that’s where the money should go.”
“But the staff—”
“Can be found anywhere,” she said, cutting him off gently. “With a dedicated vet and Sierra, the hard stuff will be done by experts, and the general animal care can be handled by volunteers. I appreciate you trying to create a spot for me, Drew, but I’ve run the numbers a hundred different ways, and that’s the only way they work. Even then, it’s a pretty thin line between this place staying open and closing.”
“That’s what the fund-raiser’s all about,” he reminded her.
“Any extra money should go into a reserve fund, for repairs and other big expenses that crop up when you least expect them to. You can only patch the roof on the main building so many times before it has to be replaced.”
“That’s true enough, but you’re great with the animals. When Sierra gets to the end of the semester and is spending most of her time studying, you’ll pretty much be running the place. These guys—” he motioned around the pens filled with youngsters “—can’t wait until finals are over.”
Bekah processed that in silence, looking around her with a pensive expression. When her gaze came back to him, that stony resolve he’d seen before had mellowed considerably. “I hadn’t thought of that. I have to stay until Sierra’s tough classes are finished, anyway, or at least until she figures out I’m the worst tutor in history and fires me.”
“She told me you’re a fantastic tutor, and she doesn’t know how she’d ever have gotten through her midterms without you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Bekah scoffed, but the satisfied gleam in her eyes said otherwise. “She’s a smart girl, and she would’ve figured out a way to pass those exams all on her own.”
“Passing isn’t enough for her,” Drew commented with a chuckle. “She wants to blow the curve for everyone else.”
“I’ve noticed she can be awfully competitive.”
“Comes from being the middle child,” he explained. “You’re always trying to outdo one of your siblings. When I was younger, I was pretty much the same way.”
Apparently he’d struck a chord with her, and she turned to him with curiosity sparkling in those soft blue eyes. “It’s hard to believe that, since you’re so easygoing now. What changed?”
“Our father died,” he said quietly. “After that, our stupid rivalries didn’t seem to matter anymore.”
He didn’t normally share that kind of detail about himself with anyone, not even his closest friends. He was Drew the Goof, the guy you could depend on for a good laugh when you needed one. His heart didn’t often get dragged down by anything, but when it did, he felt compelled to mask his emotions with a smile.
Because that was who everyone expected him to be. The problem was, as he’d gotten older and life had become more serious, folks expected him to be the way he’d always been. And quite honestly, he’d outgrown the role of class clown years ago.
Bekah, on the other hand, didn’t have those expectations. Because she’d met him so recently, her impression of him was still forming, which meant he had a chance to show her who he truly was beneath the smile he usually wore. But only if they spent enough time together for her to learn what he was really about.
He wasn’t sure why her staying mattered so much to him. But it did, and he figured that if he waited long enough, it would eventually make sense.
“Drew, I’m sorry,” she murmured, reaching out to cover his hand with her own. “I didn’t mean to bring up sad times for you.”
It was the first time she’d intentionally made physical contact with him, and he relished the feel of her soft skin on his. Forcing himself not to stare at their hands, he gave her a lopsided grin. “It’s not all bad. I have great memories of him—we all do.”
“When you keep someone in your heart, they’re never really gone. My aunt Mary used to say that, and I always felt it was a nice thought.”
“It is. Especially since it’s true.”
Bekah gave a delicate shrug, but she didn’t pull her hand away. She seemed to be in a sharing mood, and he took the opportunity to learn a little more about what made this complicated woman tick. “You don’t agree?”
“Maybe. Before I got here, most of the people I met weren’t worth holding on to.”
“What about now?”
That got him a shy smile. “There’s a few I wouldn’t mind keeping around.”
“Am I one of ’em?”
“Maybe.”
This smile had a hint of flirtatiousness in it, and he knew she’d intentionally repeated herself, adding the smirk for his benefit. Drew wasn’t quite sure what was going on between them, but he knew he’d never forget this sunny afternoon he’d spent with Bekah and the animals.
The day when an edgy, closed-off runaway finally opened herself up to him and allowed him a glimpse of just how beautiful she was. Inside and out.
* * *
It was the middle of the night when Bekah drifted out of a strange dream about a forest fire, disoriented by something she couldn’t quite identify. While her brain gradually came into focus, she caught the sounds of bleating and whining coming from the baby barn. It must be a leftover image from her conversation with Sierra about caring for the wild infants, she reasoned as she rolled over to go back to sleep.
Then she smelled smoke.
Bolting upright in bed, she snapped on the lights, squinting against the sudden brightness while she stumbl
ed around searching for her barn boots. She found them under the small kitchen table where she’d left them and pulled them on over her bare feet.
She nearly yanked the door off its hinges in her haste to get moving. Running for all she was worth, she paused outside the window in the side door of the stock barn and braced herself for what she might see inside.
When she forced herself to look, to her immense relief there were no flames. A hazy curtain of smoke hung in the air, and the animals were clearly agitated, but other than that, they seemed fine. She raced around back and saw what had awakened her from a dead sleep.
The storage barn was on fire.
Fueled by stacks of hay and straw, not to mention dozens of bales of dry wood shavings, flames were finding crevices in the weathered walls and climbing into the dark sky. While the animals weren’t in immediate danger, if the fire couldn’t be stopped, it wouldn’t take long for it to reach the two wild-animal barns and, just beyond that, the kennels and animal hospital.
She let herself into the clinic and picked up the cordless phone from its charging stand. With trembling hands, Bekah dialed the one local number other than the center that she knew by heart. Thankfully, Drew answered on the first ring.
“Bekah, what’s wrong?”
“The feed barn is on fire,” she answered crisply. “We need hands here. Lots of them.”
Leaving him to figure out the rest, she clicked the phone off and headed into the baby barn to start moving the helpless wild orphans someplace safer. The small ones would be easy enough, but the larger animals were another story. She might be able to coax the terrified creatures out of their pens, but then where would she put them?
Hoping an answer would come to her, she started with the cages. They were covered in dark canvas, which seemed to be keeping the birds inside them reasonably calm, so Bekah left the fabric on. She couldn’t resist peeking inside Rosie’s and found a pair of glittering black eyes staring back at her. The hawk didn’t seem panicked, though, which Bekah took as a good sign.
“That’s my brave girl,” Bekah murmured, lifting the cage carefully to avoid jostling its occupant. “We’ll get through this, won’t we?”
Rosie squawked in reply, and Bekah couldn’t help smiling at the thought that the hawk seemed to be trying to reassure her, too. Once she’d moved everything she could lift alone, she faced the pens holding an assortment of understandably nervous animals and waited for inspiration.
Nothing.
So, since there was no other choice, she waded into the goat enclosure and scooped up the tamest pygmy nanny they had. Clearly terrified, she struggled in Bekah’s arms, bleating at the top of her lungs the whole way out to the temporary corral they kept out front for visiting days. There was a roof over top of it, so they’d be dry and out of the way of the rescue team here. Stopping to catch her breath, she felt her spirits dropping. If they all fought her like this, how on earth would she get them out safely?
Her answer came in the glare of headlights, and she turned to see a heavy-duty pickup hauling a long stock trailer imprinted with the Gallimore Stables logo. It circled the side yard and neatly backed up near the door she was using to evacuate the animals.
When Drew stepped out of the cab, without thinking she launched herself at him in a grateful hug. When she realized what she’d done, she got a grip on her runaway emotions and shook her head. “Sorry.”
“No problem. Everyone else is on their way over. What can we do?”
It was then that she realized his two brothers were climbing down from the truck cab, and she felt her cheeks warming with embarrassment. “I’m trying to move the babies, but they’re all panicked, and some of them won’t cooperate. I’m not strong enough to lift them on my own.”
Mike and Josh headed inside, their hands filled with what looked like dark hoods.
“What are they carrying?” she asked.
“When we’ve got a horse that won’t go into the trailer, we cover its eyes, and it doesn’t give us so much trouble. We’re hoping it’ll work with these guys, too,” he explained while he lowered the trailer’s large rear door to form a ramp.
Clearly, they’d handled frightened animals before, she thought with relief as she hurried inside the compartment to follow his instructions. By the time Mike and Josh emerged with two blindfolded fawns, Drew and Bekah were inside the trailer waiting to man the movable partitions that would separate the various species from each other.
“Fire department’s on their way,” Mike told them as they passed each other. “I told them not to use the siren, but—”
A loud wail sounded in the distance, and Bekah fought the urge to scream in frustration. “These animals are scared enough already. That’s only going to make it harder for us to handle them.”
“I’m on it,” Drew assured her, clicking his phone on. After a moment, he said, “Sierra, it’s me. Where are you?” When he had an answer, he went on, “You need to connect with the fire trucks headed this way and tell them to shut off their sirens before they scare every critter here to death.”
Apparently, he got the response he was after, because he hung up without saying anything more and got back to work. They were making good progress in clearing out the baby barn when two older fire trucks roared into the parking lot and skidded to a halt in the loose gravel. Josh motioned toward the source of the blaze, and they continued on to the storage building that was now fully engulfed in flames.
While the crew fought to bring the fire under some semblance of control, Mike and Josh made several trips down the lane to the horse farm to get the wild animals settled in an empty barn. Meanwhile, Drew and Bekah dragged, carried and hauled tamer tenants from the kennels and lined up their cages under the picnic pavilion out front to wait for their turn in the trailer.
“Don’t worry, Bekah,” Drew’s younger sister, Erin, told her confidently. “They’re scared, but no one’s hurt. I’ll keep an eye on them while you’re relocating the others.”
That was when she realized that at some point, most of the Kinley clan had gathered at the center. She was glad to see Maggie, Lily and the kids weren’t there, because this was no place for children. Plenty of people she’d never met were lending a hand, and two of the firefighters were juggling a family of ducks that was making a concerted attempt to escape the chaotic scene.
Seeing all these people working together to save the animals was so touching, it caught her completely by surprise.
Uncharacteristic tears flooded her eyes, and she blinked them away while she swallowed down the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. Hard as she was trying to keep it together, she knew she wasn’t doing a very good job when Drew appeared beside her, concern clouding his eyes.
“You okay?”
Not trusting herself to speak without sobbing, she nodded and took a deep breath to steady her voice. “It’s just so remarkable how everyone came to help in the middle of the night like this.”
“We’ve done the same for them over the years,” he explained in a gentle tone. “That’s what neighbors do.”
“I’ve never had that, I guess,” she confided, whisking away a few tears that had broken free of her control. Gazing up at this man who’d come to her rescue time and again, she said, “It’s nice to know you’re not all alone, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is.”
Gathering her into his arms, he deftly turned her away from the smoky view. His well-worn T-shirt felt soft against her skin, and beneath her cheek she felt the steady, comforting beat of a heart that had proven to be much larger than she ever could have imagined.
After indulging in a few moments of relative quiet, she pulled herself together and got practical. “I think I’ve done all I can here. I should get over to the farm and make sure our critters are all okay.”
“You got it.” Motioning her ahead of h
im, he walked her over to the truck he’d driven in, which was loaded down with the last of the cages ready for transport. Once they were on their way, he said, “Your place probably isn’t livable right now. Would you like to stay at the farm until we fumigate your stuff?”
“Definitely,” she agreed with a yawn. Looking over her shoulder to check on their passengers, she went on, “Do you have a cot and sleeping bag I can borrow?”
“Sure. Why?”
“These poor guys have been through a lot, and I’m sure they’re still terrified. I want to stay in the barn with them to help them settle in better.”
“That’s real thoughtful of you, but you need a better night’s sleep than you’ll get out there. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
Sometimes this intelligent man could be incredibly dense. “Did you ever have a sick pet?”
“A few times.”
“What did you do?”
“Okay, you got me,” Drew admitted with a chuckle. “I snuck ’em upstairs and let ’em sleep on my bed.”
“Well, I can’t do that with this many, so I’ll have to settle for the opposite. Your barns are clean enough for most people to live in. Trust me—I’ve slept in worse places.”
He didn’t say anything to that, telling her she’d made her point. When they came around the last turn in the lane, she was stunned to find the big farmhouse and front two barns fully lit up. She got the impression that they were drawing the frightened animals toward a safe, comfortable place to spend the night, like beacons in the darkness.
And her, too, she realized with exhausted gratitude. Because she knew how it felt to be lost and terrified about what might happen to her. Now that she’d found another way to live, she was happy to have those dark days behind her.
Drew backed toward the open barn doors, and they climbed out to start arranging cages inside the cleared-out storage space Erin had reserved for their whimpering cargo. After one trip, Drew paused to stare at nothing in particular.