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CHAPTER 1
Macy
“What do you mean there’s a goat in your Jeep?” Nadia, my Fort Collins roommate demands over the Bluetooth speaker as I round the bend and pass the Welcome to Emerald Creek town sign. The once weather-worn, paint-chipped block of wood has been replaced with a brighter, shinier version since I was last home. It feels like a good omen.
I need a good omen.
I need all the good omens.
“Well, I already had the kennel from transporting that malamute?—”
“So naturally you switched the dog out for a random goat?”
The young goat lets out a long baaahhh as I make the turn onto Evergreen Pass Road.
“You offended her. She’s not a random goat.”
“How did you get her?”
The gravel crunches beneath my tires as the view stuns me into silence. It’s been a couple of years since the last time I came home. Even longer since I made my way out to the Stone Ranch and soaked in the breathtaking view of the rolling hills shadowed by massive mountains. Though I’ve not been without mountains in Colorado, the sky feels more expansive here. Giving the landscape an awe-inspiring feeling of forever. Of home. It never fails to steal my breath.
“Macy? You there?”
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“The goat?”
“Wyatt.”
“Your ridiculously hot oldest brother, Wyatt?” Nadia practically purrs.
“Can you please not call him that?”
“What? You have hot brothers. I’m just calling it like I see it.”
“You have at least thirty-nine other crushes on men you’ve never met. Can you pick one of them to call hot instead?” Because Nadia answers with playful laughter, promising she has every intention of making me even more uncomfortable unless I intervene, I rush to explain the goat in my Jeep. “Wyatt was supposed to transport this goat to a ranch for someone, but he got a call. I happened to have a kennel. So, he tossed her inside and ran with lights flashing.”
The goat was not a fan of the red and blue strobes of light. The blood-curdling scream she let out as my brother sped off in his patrol truck still rings in my ear.
“Is it normal for law enforcement there to have random goats in their cars?”
The young goat answers Nadia with a high-pitched holler that causes me to duck my head, as though a bomb went off. I catch a patch of gravel and swerve toward a pull out as Nadia lets out a string of curses over the speaker. Lifting my foot off the gas, I let my Jeep slow until I can safely straighten out and regain traction. My ears will still be ringing with screaming goat when I drop into my bed tonight. Lucky me. I just hope she doesn’t follow me into my dreams.
“What the fuck was that?” Nadia sounds a little breathless, no doubt from the nonstop string of swear words she let out a moment ago.
“My passenger. You’ve really got to stop offending her.”
“Dammit, Macy, I think my eardrum burst. Pretty sure that thing isn’t a goat. It’s a demon.”
“She’s too cute to be a demon. I’m taking her to an old family friend,” I continue explaining.
“Oh?” Nadia’s perky tone warns me I’m about to get peppered with questions about hot cowboys. Another day, I might entertain her man-crazy conversation. But I’m exhausted from the nearly ten-hour drive. I haven’t even gotten a chance to unload my luggage because Wyatt pulled up two seconds after I opened the back of my SUV and tossed in the goat before I had a chance to say hello.
“Remember me telling you about the Stone Ranch? How Paps inspired me to become a veterinarian when I was only—Hey!” I snap at the young goat who’s got her snout wedged between the metal rungs of the kennel, lips smacking against the zipper of my suitcase. “Do not eat my suitcase or we will have words.” I rattle my nearly empty soda cup from the last gas station I filled up at, but the goat just wriggles her lips closer to my zipper, nudging it open an inch.
“Paps?” Nadia repeats, sounding unimpressed. “I remember that he sounds…old.”
“Oh hey, have you been to the mailbox today?”
