Page 21 of Finding Gideon
“Bet that made you popular.”
“Oh, yeah. The groom's family loved me. The photographer got it all on camera. But the bride? Last I heard, she still hadn’t forgiven the pig.”
He leaned his elbow against the door, eyes still lit from the laugh. “Please tell me that’s your worst.”
“Not even close. I had a call about a llama that wouldn’t get out of a backyard swimming pool. Technically it wasn’t in the city—more Marin County—but the owners kept insisting it was ‘their suburban oasis.’”
Gideon let out a disbelieving huff, mouth parting like he wasn’t sure if he should laugh or be stunned. “A llama in a pool?”
“Yep. Name was Tofu. Sweet animal, just… very determined to stay where she was. Apparently she’d been spooked by fireworks the night before, bolted through an open gate, and decided the shallow end was a safe zone. Took three hours, a bag of baby carrots, and the world’s most patient pool cleaner to coax her out.”
Gideon’s laugh came quick and warm, the kind that made you want to hear it again. “That’s ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous, but possible. I’ve got pictures somewhere. And once,” I said, grinning a little, “I ended up helping track down a runaway tortoise.”
Gideon gave me a skeptical look. “A tortoise? Don’t they move at, like… glacial speed?”
“Usually, yeah,” I said. “This one was a patient of mine—an older girl, arthritis in her back legs—and her owner was a long-time client. She lived a couple of blocks from the clinic, so when I had a break between appointments, I walked over to help look for her.”
“And?”
“And we found her halfway down the block, heading toward the corner store like she had errands to run. Turns out she’d taken the neighbor’s open gate, cut through two backyards, and coasted downhill on the sloped sidewalk. For a tortoise, that’s basically high-speed travel.”
Gideon laughed, shaking his head. “And here I thought they just sat around eating lettuce.”
“She did—right after we caught her,” I said. “But for an hour, she was pure street racer.”
All too soon, I had to turn onto the gravel drive, the truck jolting gently as the tires crunched over the uneven stones. The road curved around a row of leaning mailboxes and opened upinto a farm—weathered, sun-bleached, a little lopsided in places but still holding strong.
The red barn stood proud despite its peeling paint. A wind chime made from rusted silverware clinked near the front porch. Fencing snaked around the property in uneven lines, posts bowed with age but stubbornly intact. A chicken strutted along the fence line like it paid taxes there.
“Welcome to Dormer Farm,” I said as I shifted the truck into park.
Gideon’s gaze swept over the barn, the fences, the sun-faded porch. “The place has got… staying power,” he said finally. “Like it refuses to quit.”
“Yeah,” I said, grinning. “That’s Lila in a nutshell.”
She was already waiting at the gate, one hand on her hip. She wore her usual uniform—faded flannel shirt tucked into well-worn jeans, both patched in more than one place, and boots that looked older than I was. Her white hair was cropped short beneath a sun-faded cap, and her face wore the kind of frown that had become a habit rather than a mood.
But underneath all that, there was warmth. The quiet, rooted kind. Everyone in town adored her. Or was at least smart enough to pretend they did.
“Malcolm,” she said, giving me a brisk nod as I climbed out.
“Morning, Lila.”
Then she looked over at Gideon, who was stepping out of the truck, brushing a hand down his shirt. She watched him for a beat too long—measuring, assessing—and then gave a single sharp nod, like she’d made some internal decision.
“So you’re the new help,” she said.
“Guess that’s me,” Gideon replied, steady but polite.
Lila let out a short laugh. For her, it might as well have been a giggle. “Hope you’re as useful as he says you are.”
Gideon's mouth curved just enough to suggest amusement. “Depends on what he’s been saying.”
That earned him a short, approving laugh before she turned toward the barn.
Lila led us toward a small enclosure near the barn, where one of her older goats—Lucinda, a grizzled doe with a cloudy eye and a deep distrust of men under forty—was waiting, tethered loosely beneath the shade of an old oak tree.
