Page 48 of Single All the Way

Esmerelda, in all her shaggy white glory, eyed Max disdainfully from the covered entryway of the bakery as he slowly approached her.

As I got closer, I spotted the cookie in Max’s hand. So much drama for a four-inch disk of sugar.

I took the harness to Max, moving slowly to avoid spooking her. Max grabbed it with an outstretched hand and whispered, “We’ll meet you at the van.”

Inside the bakery, a handful of people had gathered to watch the operation through the glass door.

When I reached Cade on the sidewalk, about twenty feet down from the llama, I stopped, looked at him, and said words I’d never in a million years thought would come out of my mouth.

“I’m here to give the llama a ride home.”

Cade laughed. “Better you than me. Max seems close to capturing her.”

“Hallelujah?” I joked. “Life is weird.”

“Indeed. Ben’s unavailable?”

“He’s saving a horse.”

“And you’re saving his llama.” Cade laughed again.

“I’ve got her,” Max called, his voice gentled.

Sheriff Lopez had diverted traffic around the square, clearing the street in front of the bakery, so I jogged back to the llama limo and pulled it close to where Max had the fugitive. The snow was now coming down so hard I needed to turn on the windshield wipers to see.

I got out of the llama getter, determined to not look like a sixteen-year-old boy honking in the driveway to pick up a date, but the truth was, I stood by the driver’s door and let Max and Cade load her.

As I watched them lead Esmerelda to the back doors of the van, using the cookie like a carrot, I made a point of not shrinking up against the vehicle. The llama didn’t eat people. I knew this. As they passed, she gave me the side-eye, as if she knew I was the one who’d discovered her escape. I was the one raining on her sugar parade.

“You’re getting a cookie,” I pointed out to her. “Spoiled beast.”

Mrs. McNamara approached me from the side, holding out a bakery box. “Just in case,” she said. “Tansy came out the back way with an extra dozen.”

“Either that llama’s going to gain a hundred pounds or I am,” I said, smiling, sincerely grateful because I still had to somehow get the llama into the barn.

The back van doors shut, and Max came around to my side. “One llama locked up for your transporting pleasure.”

“Thank you so much, Max,” I said. “I literally could not have done that without you.”

“Ben knows my whiskey brand,” he replied, laughing. “It was no problem. She’s pretty docile, really.”

I eyed the llama, whose funny-looking head was facing forward, close to the metal mesh that would keep her from taking a bite out of me on the way home. She met my gaze as she smugly chewed her cookie.

“Anything else we can help you with?” Cade asked kindly, obviously having no trepidation around llamas.

For a split second, I considered asking this llama-wrangling team to follow me home and get Esmerelda in the barn for me. But the snow wasn’t letting up. Harper and Danny were waiting for Max, and for all I knew, the McNamaras had people waiting for them too. I could put on my big-girl panties and get this fucking llama in her pen by myself.

I shook my head and forced a warm smile. “I’ve got it from here. Thank you all.Somuch.” I hugged each one of them in gratitude, watched them walk away with more than a little anxiety, then climbed into the driver’s seat without a glance at my prisoner.

I started the engine and pulled the van over to the right lane, turning the wipers up a level against the relentless wet snowflakes. The most direct route to get her home would be to take a right and circle the square instead of winding through residential areas.

There were a lot of cars out tonight, in part due to the backup from Ms. Traffic Stopper herself, so it was slow going. As the car in front of me stopped, I hit the brakes, trying to figure out what the holdup was. Then I spotted a gloved hand popping out of the driver’s window and motioning me around them.

Slowly I drove forward, waved at the courteous driver, then realized the next car was pulled to the curb as well…and the one in front of that. They were all letting me pass them, as if I was driving a parade car with the president of the United States in back.

“You’re getting a pretty high opinion of yourself, aren’t you?” I said as we took a right turn onto Honeysuckle Road by Henry’s and headed home.

She huffed out a snort that startled me so badly I went airborne in the seat, my heart taking off in a sprint. In my defense, it was the first sound I’d heard her make tonight, and it was right behind my ear.

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