I was just about to take my first sip of coffee for the day when a deafening crash from outside made me jump.Even Portia stopped eating and lifted her head.
Immediately, my mind went to Midnight.Did something happen to the foal?Did Raven reject him and try to kill him.
Panic ran frantic steps through me as I raced for the door, slid into my shoes, and ran across the gravel driveway from the house to the barn.
Portia was hot on my heels, grunting with every step.I flung open the barn door and raced through it, drawing the attention of all the horses.I reached Raven and Midnight’s stall, preparing myself for the worst before I peered over the side, only to find them snuggled up together on the ground.Midnight was asleep and Raven must have just been as well.Groggily, she lifted her dark head and glanced up at me.
Oh, thank god.
“You’re all good?”I asked her.
She blinked at me, then gently nuzzled Midnight.
Nodding, I checked on the rest of the horses.They were all fine too.
So what the hell was that noise?Leaving the barn, I headed to the smaller stable where I kept the donkeys, and before I even made it there, I knew that it had to be that ass, Piñata.
Sure enough, there he was,notin the fenced part of the field at all, but booking it across the open pasture toward the wooded area that I shared with the school principal that Danica and Cameron didn’t like.
That fucking donkey had kicked a hole in the side of the barn big enough to get out, then proceeded to hop the fence.And now he was on the run.
No wonder his previous three owners got rid of him.He was a menace.
Maybe I could find a dog food company or something that wanted cheap donkey meat.
It was still getting light out, and the shadows and mottled sky played with my eyesight.One minute I thought I could see the beast; the next minute he seemed to have vanished.
I raced after him, my pant legs getting soaked from the tall grass, my toes already squishing in my drenched socks through my loafers.Since of course, I’d slid into the wrong shoes, and these were far from waterproof.
Cursing under my breath as I sucked in lungfuls of chilly morning air, pushing it out to create clouds in front of me, I scanned the tree line in search of Piñata.
Nothing.
The trees were a mix of towering evergreens, various deciduous trees, and gnarly, twirling madronas.But the canopy was thick enough that it blocked out almost all light from reaching the inside, and I might as well have been looking for the stupid donkey in a black hole.
I growled and pressed on, ignoring my drenched feet and the way my jeans clung to my calves now that they were soaked.
“All animals were precious.All animals were precious,” I kept telling myself.Determined to harness Erin’s calmness and love of all Mother Nature’s creatures.
Something tells me even she would have considered sending Piñata to the dog food factory after this stunt.
I reached the trees and could see nothing but shadows.Shrubs and trunks, limbs and needles, but no donkey.
Standing still, I tuned into my surroundings, trying to hear him and his hoof steps, or maybe him eating something.But the birds were singing their morning song and drowned out any sign of a jackass.
I grumbled again, then spun around at a sound behind me, only to find Portia, making her chubby way through the grass that was taller than she was.She came to stand beside me and glanced up as if to ask, “Now what?”
“Come on,” I said in Italian, charging forward into the trees, the damp earth pungent and acidic at the back of my throat as I inhaled.
We slowly made our way through the woods, careful not to trip on all the roots and fallen sticks.I didn’t really come over here much, but by the looks of things, the winter storms from last year and early this year had loosened a lot of large, dead branches, which now created a shadowy spiderweb of pointy sticks across my path.
I ducked under one big branch only to see a light in the distance flick on.
That must be the motion-sensor light at the principal’s house.
Did Piñata activate it?
I suggested sending him over there yesterday—as a joke.Did that donkey hear me and think I was being serious?
