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“Yes, for the third time, I checked the mail.”
“You’re sure nothing got stuck way in the back like it does sometimes?”
“I’m sure.”
I let out a dramatic sigh, allowing my shoulders to slump. This wait is worse than the three-year wait after my undergraduate to get into veterinary school. So much is riding on my acceptance into the oncology program. My ten-year plan needs this single puzzle piece to complete the picture of the future I’ve so meticulously planned. “I wish they’d just break my heart and get it over with,” I mutter.
“You’re not going to manifest a spot if you keep talking like that.”
“I know, I know. You’re right. I’m just…anxious.”
“Well do something to raise your vibration. You’re repelling your desires right now.”
As if Nadia’s advice conjured it into existence, a massive arch appears at the top of the hill like a welcome sign. Stone Ranch. The sight of it feels like a warm, comforting hug. It’s a place I ran off to during the majority of my youth. It’s here that I realized how much I loved animals. How much I wanted to help them. To save them. “I think I have that covered right now.”
“Good.”
“Call you later?”
“You better. And before you ask again, I’ll let you know the second your letter arrives,” Nadia promises.
“And you’ll overnight it to me if I’m still in Emerald Creek?”
“To your brother’s house. Yes, I have the address.”
“Sorry I’m being such a pain in the ass.”
“You can make it up to me with hot cowboy pictures.”
I turn onto the ranch driveway, admiring the familiar massive log cabin sitting on the crest of the hill. The view from the Stone’s living room is so stunning it doesn’t seem real. I can’t count the number of cookies Gina fed me as a kid, one for each time I snuck away from home to play with the misfit animals at the ranch before one of my brothers showed up to take me back. The Stones have always treated me like a granddaughter. I spent more time with them than my divorcing parents.
A smaller house sits back and to the left of the main one. The big barn, less red now than it’s ever been, stands weathered but proud behind a thick patch of hundred-year-old trees. I take the right fork in the gravel drive toward it, hoping to find Paps outside before Gertie has another screaming fit and startles the whole place.
Just around the trees, I spot an elderly man walking toward a golf cart. Paps moves slower and stiffer with each visit I make home, but he’s still going strong for a man turning eighty this weekend.
I stop the Jeep just short of his golf cart and turn in my seat to address the brown and white goat. “I’m letting you out in two minutes.” She looks so adorable and innocent. It’s hard to believe in this quiet moment of utter cuteness that she could get the part of murder victim screamer on any horror film she wanted. “Please don’t throw a fit—and stop chewing on my suitcase.”
“Do my eyes deceive me or is that Dr. Macy Knight?”
“Hey Paps!” I hurry to him and wrap my arms around his tall, thin frame. “It’s good to see you.”
“I didn’t know you were in town.”
“Just got here.” I can’t tell him I came back for his surprise birthday party, so I focus on the precious cargo instead. “Wyatt said you’re expecting a goat?”
Paps’ face lights up. “You got Gertie?”
“Gertie. I like it.”
I lead him around my Jeep and open the back to reveal the brown and white goat, hardly the size of a border collie, chewing on my suitcase again. Tiny horns poke out from the top of her head. She catches sight of Paps and goes from calm to excitable in two seconds flat.
“You two know each other?”
“I met her the other day,” he admits.
“Oh?”
“Won’t say where. Just that she wasn’t wanted on account of her screamin’ and well, there’s always room at Stone Ranch for the misfits.” Paps spots a leash bundled up beside the crate. I’m honestly surprised Gertie didn’t focus her attention on it instead of my luggage. “But don’t tell Ryder.”
