Page 47 of Single All the Way

Panic welled up in me, but I fought it down and said, “Where’s the other llama?”

“Oh, no,” Ruby drew out. “Esmerelda, not tonight.”

Her dramatic tone would’ve been amusing, except I was so far into freaking out that I couldn’t appreciate it. I looked to Evelyn, who’d moved ahead of me, her head going left, then right, then left again.

“I don’t see her,” Evelyn said. “I have a bad feeling she escaped again.”

Shit, shit, shit. Worst nightmare, happening now. “What do we do?” I asked.

“She’s probably going to the bakery,” Ruby said matter-of-factly.

“Super.”

“You’ll have to take the van to get her,” Evelyn said.

“I’m going to text your dad and see if he’s almost home.” I knew he wasn’t. It hadn’t been a half hour since I’d talked to him. He’d probably barely arrived at the sick horse’s barn.

One of the horses—Bay, I thought—whickered in greeting as we reached the fence.

The four of us verified that we were down a llama. I stifled a whole stream of swear words and took out my phone as Evelyn led the other kids into the barn to feed the animals and opened the big doors. I typed a message to Ben.

SOS. Very sorry to bother you, but one of the llamas got out. What do I do?

I paced helplessly, trusting the kids could feed the animals. I settled my gaze on Betty, the brown and white llama, as she hurried toward the barn along with the horses.

When my phone sounded, I exhaled in relief and realized Ben was calling me instead of texting.

“Hey,” I answered before the first ring ended. “I’m so sorry to interrupt you, but I didn’t know what to do.”

“Do you know where Esmerelda is?”

“Not yet. We just realized she’s missing.”

“Fucking llama,” he muttered quietly. “I’m sure she’s headed to Sugar. Call Max. He and Harper know how to catch her and load her up. You’ll need to take the llamamobile to pick her up. The keys are hanging by the door.”

Just pick up the llama like she was a kid who’d gone to a party and was ready to come home. In the llamamobile. Sure thing.

“Can you send me Max’s number?” I said, fully aware time was precious on his end.

“I will. Max will be able to help with everything. I have to go. Sorry, Ems.”

Ems. The nickname soothed me ever so slightly in this otherwise panicked moment.

Almost as soon as the call ended, Ben sent Max’s contact info. Without wasting time feeling bad for interrupting his night, I dialed Max and explained the problem to him and let out my breath when he said he’d help me.

The ridiculously named llamamobile was stupidly hard to drive, thanks to an old, temperamental manual transmission nightmare. The worsening snowstorm didn’t help.

Grandma Berty had happily volunteered to take the kids to the play and had them pack a bag for a sleepover at her house afterward. She was incredible and maybe half-crazy to take on all four of them, but I trusted her completely and was grateful for one less thing to juggle.

By the time I made it the few miles to town, Harper had called to let me know Esmerelda had turned up on Main Street and actually tried to enter the bakery when Tansy Harrelson had gone in to pick up cookies for her daughter’s preschool class. Harper was waiting in the car with Danny while Max, Cade McNamara, and his mom worked on catching the rogue llama.

“How is this my life?” I asked out loud after disconnecting from Harper so I could find a place to park the llama transporter.

When I turned onto Main, traffic was stopped for the would-be cookie thief. I wish I was joking about that. On the bright side, hopefully that meant no llama roadkill today.

I shuddered. I might not love that llama, but Ben and his kids did. Probably Xavier too. I had to get Esmerelda home safely.

I pulled the llama buggy up as close as I could, a few doors down from Sugar, turned on the hazards, grabbed the harness, and got out. As I crossed the street toward the commotion, I took in the scene. Cade and Mrs. McNamara were handling crowd control, keeping the onlookers well out of the way, while Sheriff Lopez began addressing the traffic bottleneck.

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