Page 24 of The Defiant Curse

“Yep. That’s Ivan,” he said.

She stared at him.

“You named the goat Ivan after your once boss?” she inquired.

He shrugged.

“I missed the bugger. Now, I get to boss him around. Ivan, get off the fucking fence! Ivan, stop humping the hay! Ivan…”

That amused her in ways she couldn’t explain.

“I mean, that sounds like something he’d do,” she joked, missing him too.

“And that one is Demeter,” he said, pointing at the beautiful all black one. “It seemed fitting. He’s the black goat of the herd,” he joked. “Literally and because if one of them is going to get into trouble and do stupid shit, it’s that one. He gets stuck in trees all the time when he escapes. He falls into the watering containers, and he likes to wander. We sometimes find him halfway across the estate doing stupid shit.”

She snorted.

Well, that did sound like Demeter. The man was all funny, little seriousness, and she missed that too.

Because she was curious, and knew if these two were named, they likely all were.

So, she sat down on a bale of hay, and they all crowded her.

“That’s Saint,” he offered. “He’s always trying to hump too, except it’s a goat, and not hay. That one is Raphael. He just stands there and stares off into the distance, even as the humping is happening—which I like to think happens in their bedroom too.”

Oh, holy shit.

She was amused.

“He will kick your ass,” she said, giggling. “There will be Archangel on Archangel violence.”

He snorted.

“Oh, no. That’s Biblical, I think,” he teased.

Then, he kept going.

“Saint, the goat has issues,” he stated. “He walks into things, and scares himself. He’ll randomly fall over. I also fear he’s as gay as the day is long too, I suspect, and going to start humping all of them.”

She was entertained in a way she’d never expected. It touched her soul. The simple joy caught her off guard.

When she started crying again, he sat beside her.

“You feel guilty for taking a break, don’t you?” he asked.

Elizabeth nodded.

This was exactly what she meant when she’d said he was wise. Her daddy would have nailed that too, and without her saying a word.

He reassured her.

“You can tell me.”

Elizabeth sniffled, but did open up.

“I feel like a shit wife and mother for walking away for a bit. I didn’t get to say goodbye to the baby birds, since they were in lockdown in Fiji.”

He dropped his arm around her shoulders and did his best to give her sage advice. She was known for it, and many of them took their cues from her.