Page 48 of The Goat Next Door

“She’s been tracking you since we got here,” Brooks says, stopping two feet away from us.

His eyes scan my black denim dress, a slow, appreciative glint appearing in them that makes my stomach do that unauthorized little flip again.

“You didn’t wear white.”

“You told me not to. I know how to follow orders,” I say, standing up and dusting off my knees.

I take a half-step closer into his space, tilting my head up so my hair spills over one shoulder. “Your uniform is… highly effective, by the way. Very authoritative. I feel an overwhelming urge to check my smoke detectors. Or perhaps submit to an immediate safety inspection.”

Brooks lets out a low, rumbly laugh, the sound warm and easy, though his eyes darken slightly as they trace the line of my neck. “The uniform is ninety percent wool, Ember. I am currently roasting like a Sunday ham.”

“A very dignified, premium-cut ham,” I clarify with a smirk, my voice dropping to a playful murmur. “Though if you need someone to help you unbutton the rest of that heavy wool, I suppose I could volunteer my services for the sake of public health.”

He lets out a grunt, his jaw shifting as a slow, dangerous smile appears at the corner of his mouth. “Watch it, city girl. Marge is standing right by the coffee, and she’s already armed with a ladle.”

“Brooks! Bring the girl over here!”

A shout comes from the back corner of the bay, where a group of older men are sitting around a folding table with a cooler of domestic beer. One of them is a massive man with a thick white beard and a faded Suncrest Hollow Fire Department t-shirt.

Brooks rubs the back of his neck, looking at me with an apologetic grimace. “That’s Ben. He was the assistant chief when Tommy was alive. He’s been trying to get me to drink a Budweiser since nine this morning. Come on. If I don’t introduce you, he’ll spend the next three weeks asking Marge who the ‘weird girl’ at the memorial was.”

“I am not weird, Brooks. I’m unique,” I mutter, but I follow him anyway, Sophie holding onto my left index finger as we weave through the tables.

Ben looks up as we approach, his eyes tracking from Brooks straight to my face.

“So you’re the one who bought Arthur’s place,” he says. “The city girl who won the lottery.”

God.

I’m going to die as “the city girl who won the lottery,” aren’t I?

Apparently, mentioning to one single customer at my first bakery shift that I “accidentally became a millionaire” was a catastrophic strategic error.

Because now the entire valley knows.

Not in a malicious way, exactly. More in the way small towns treat information like an Olympic relay sport.

I told one woman while trying to fill an awkward silence at the register after accidentally giving her sourdough instead of rye, and within forty-eight hours I had somehow become local folklore.

The city girl with the lottery money.

The goat farm millionaire.

At this point I’m fairly certain if I sneezed in public, somebody’s aunt would know by dinner.

“I am Emmy,” I say, offering my hand. “And the funds have been liquidated into rural real estate, Ben.”

Ben stares at my hand for a second, then lets out a booming, chest-rattling laugh that has half the table turning around. He shakes my hand with a grip that nearly crushes my knuckles.

“I like her, Brooks. She doesn’t have that nervous twitch the summer students usually get when I talk to ‘em. Sit down, girl. Eat a hot dog. Tell me what you’re gonna do with those three broken John Deeres Arthur left in the tall grass.”

For the next two hours, I am fully integrated into the Suncrest Hollow senior advisory council.

I sit on a metal folding chair between Ben and an old mechanic named Walt, drinking a lemonade out of a plastic cup while they quiz me on my plans for the property.

Walt listens to my description of the window casing I tried to nail down this morning and shakes his head, a slow smile wrinkling his leathery cheeks.

“You’re using the wrong fasteners, girl. Cedar’s soft. You use a galvanized casing nail, not a ball-peen hammer. You’re just bruising the grain. I’ll drop off a box of the right ones on my way to the hardware store Tuesday.”