“Neither did I?—”
“I thought I was just asking her on a date for you, when she launched herself on me. Story didn’t speak to me for a month.”
“That’s because she was in love with you. Still is.”
“I’mnotgetting into this again,” I snap, all my annoyance and frustration from everything that’s happened in the past twelve hours resurfacing.
I still remember that day at the fair as the first time I’d ever properly been angry with Miles.
“I don’t know how you’ve not been punched more, Milo.” Alex chuckles.
Miles’s response is a drawled, “I know when to dodge.”
Lando holds his hands up. “Sorry, just to rewind because I wasn’t really listening before, but you and Story? You’re friends again?”
“There is no me and Story,” I say as firmly as I can. Not sure it’s firm enough for me to believe it, though, but it’s worth a try. “We’re not friends again. She’s Max’s teacher. That’s it.”
“Then why the booth?—”
“They’re both on the Valentine committee,” Miles explains, using a tone he usually only reserves for Max. “Hendricks got too caught up reminiscing about old times and had a lapse in judgment.”
“Ah. Got it?—”
I’m glad someone does because I sure don’t, and whatever Lando is about to say next is interrupted by my phone ringing.
“If that’s Sienna?—”
“It’s not, it’s the surgery.” I cut Miles off mid-snarl and answer, “Hendricks Burlington.”
“Hendricks?”
I recognize her voice immediately even though I’m confused why she’d be on the end of the line patched through from the vets. “Story?”
All three of my brothers sit up straighter. Miles practically leans across the table in a bid to hear what she’s saying.
“You have to come . . . Churchill . . . stuck . . . rain . . .”
They’re the only words I hear through the patchy signal we suffer from in the depths of the countryside. The panic in her voice stays consistent, though.
I stand so quickly that my chair is only stopped from clattering to the floor by Lando’s quick reflexes. “Story?Where are you?”
“Honeysuckle . . . La?—”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. Sit tight.”
Three sets of eyes and concerned faces stare up at me. “I don’t know what’s happened, but it didn’t sound good. I think she said something about Churchill?—”
“That bloody goat.”
Alex is looking toward the back doors leading out onto the lawns. The floodlights do a good job of illuminating how hideous the weather is. “She can’t be out in this, surely.”
I snatch up a set of car keys, along with my surgery kit. “Dunno, but I’m going to find out.”
“Want one of us to come with you?”
“No, I’ll call if I need anything. If Max wakes up, just tell him I’m at work. He shouldn’t, though.”
“Take one of the estate Land Rovers, then you have the walkie-talkies in case there’s no signal.”
