Page 15 of Just (Fake) Married
This was how hypothermia started, I thought as I approached the alpacas, who were clustered in the middle of the road.
“Hey!” Harmony’s voice floated through the snow and wind and over the animals’ heads to my ears. Beneath my coat, the hair on my arms stood on end, a primordial warning of danger. “Sorry about this. The alpacas found a weak spot in the fence and staged a break out.”
She didn’t recognize me yet. Didn’t see my face under my hat.
Cautiously, I approached her and the animals as she pushed on their backsides to get them moving in the direction she wanted.
“Hi, Harmony,” I said.
Across the backs of a dozen animals, her eyes flew to mine. Green as the grass in the high meadows. You would think all these years later, those eyes wouldn’t slice through me the way they did. Or wouldn’t have the power to make me check my chest for open wounds.
And yet…here we were.
“Ethan,” she said, her voice as cold as the wind blowing the snow across the highway.
“Please don’t hit me?” I put up my hands as if she was going to punch me.
She rolled her eyes so hard she nearly fell over, and I let myself smile, which only made her frown. Honestly, I’d forgotten how fun it was to bother her. How easily she let me under her skin. We had a poisonous kind of chemistry.
A border collie stood beside her, barking in the wrong direction.
“What’s wrong with your dog?” I asked.
“Nothing is wrong with Jenny,” she said.
“She’s barking at nothing.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe she’s barking at something only she can see.”
That would be exactly like Harmony to have a dog that saw ghosts.
From out of the snow came a white goose with one wing flapping, honking defensively as if I was the one who didn’t belong here. I took a step back and she settled next to Jenny, glaring goose daggers at me until the dog settled down and stopped barking.
“What’s the deal with the angry goose?” I asked.
“Her name is Bruce.”
“You have a female goose named Bruce?”
“She came with that name.”
“Okay, but why do you have her?” I asked.
“She’s an emotional support goose.”
“For who?”
“Jenny.”
“Jenny, the dog?”
I felt like I’d been dropped down a rabbit hole. A really, really cold one.
“I’ll just be moving these guys along,” she said, softly clucking and pushing the alpacas back across the driveway.
“I can help,” I offered.
“No need. They’re my problem,” she said. “You can get back in your car where it’s warm. I’ll have the road cleared in a few minutes.”
