“Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”
I lean against the fence for a minute watching the animals settle down while the sun climbs a little higher over the fields.
This place isn’t perfect.
The barn needs work. The fence needs fixing. And sometimes I question my life choices when a donkey screams at me before coffee. But it’s quiet and it’s mine.
I scratch Daisy behind the ears when she comes over and sits beside me. “Well,” I say, glancing across the pasture.
“Let’s see what kind of trouble today brings.”
For some reason my brain flashes back to a tall biker sitting at the end of The Rust Nail bar with dark eyes and a calm voice. Cole.
I shake my head slightly. “Not thinking about that,” I tell the goats firmly.
Kevin looks up from the trough like he doesn’t believe me.
The feed storeparking lot is already half full when I pull in.
Which is impressive considering it’s barely ten in the morning and most of the people in this town don’t fully wake up until their third cup of coffee. The gravel crunches under my tires as I park the truck next to a rusty farm trailer that looks like it survived at least two wars and possibly a tornado.
I shut off the engine and sit there for a second, mentally running through the list in my head.
Goat feed.
Chicken feed.
Cat food.
Dog food.
Fence wire.
Nails.
Probably duct tape.
Honestly duct tape fixes eighty percent of my life.
I climb out of the truck and slam the door behind me, tugging my hoodie down over the top of my head as a cold breeze rolls across the lot. My outfit today is what I like to callaggressively practical, which is a polite way of saying I look like a raccoon lost a fight with a thrift store.
Oversized faded hoodie. Flannel tied around my waist. Leggings with a hole in one knee. Mud-stained work boots. Hair piled into a messy bun that has absolutely no respect for gravity. What can I say, I’m a fashion icon.
Daisy pokes her head up from the passenger seat and woofs softly.
“Stay,” I tell her through the open window. She stares at me like she’s deeply skeptical of that instruction. “Guard the truck.” That seems to satisfy her.
The bell over the feed store door jingles when I step inside.
The place smells like grain, hay, leather, and the faint dusty sweetness of molasses blocks stacked near the counter. Tall shelves stretch toward the ceiling filled with everything from horse tack to tractor oil to suspiciously expensive dog treats.
“Morning, Rae,” calls Mr. Hollis from behind the counter.
Mr. Hollis is seventy if he’s a day and built like someone carved him out of a barn beam. He’s owned this store since before I was born and he has the kind of voice that sounds permanently disappointed in humanity.
“Morning!” I say, already heading for the feed aisle.
I grab a fifty-pound bag of goat feed and haul it over my shoulder like I’ve done it a thousand times. Which I have. The goats eat like they’re training for the Olympics.
