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It’s dark, but I can see the frustration souring his face, casting deep lines in his brow.
Guilt hits me like a wrecking ball.
I hate being responsible for all of this trouble and stress and secrecy.
I abhor what my mess has done to this gorgeous man and his friends.
“He’s grabbing his welder and torch to help me fix the barn door,” Grady says numbly as he walks back to the open door of his truck.
“Tonight?” I ask, surprised.
“Yep, tonight. I’ll back this trailer into the pole shed, but we won’t be able to close the door. Your boy needs a better place to crash. I hate thinking about him being cooped up in this trailer for even a day.”
“It’s a solid trailer,” I say. “Bruce won’t be able to get out.”
He reaches in the truck and retrieves his phone off the console. “Maybe not, but people can see inside it. They can see him. Already had to fill one more person in tonight on the fact that I’m housing an illegal tiger, and I can’t say I fancy doing it again.”
Ouch.
I get it now, even if it makes me feel like total crap.
“Sad to say we’ve got a new problem, too,” he says, palming his phone.
After swiping the screen, he passes it over.
It’s a grainy picture, dark and blurry, but the unmistakable silhouette of a large cat shines darkly, running through a field of grass.
“Oh, shit.” I purse my lips, already sure it’s Bruce. “Who took this?”
“Whoever posted it on that Face-booger site everybody uses. Probably Thelma Simon, the town’s biggest gossip who runs the Earhart Bed and Breakfast. Drake said she reported him skulking around her property,” he says. “It’s blowing up the Dallas Community forum, too, and making its way to other sites. People are forming search crews to look for it. A lot of folks are supposedly debating whether it’s the biggest damn cougar they’ve ever seen or something else.”
Oh my God.
My heart beats like mad as my worst fears come true.
He snatches the phone back as my hands go limp.
“Drake showed it to me,” he continues. “People are tagging the police department’s page and county officials, asking what they’re doing about this.”
“Crap, crap, crap,” I mumble, rubbing my temples furiously, knowing how crazy people get on social media.
The tiniest rumor can take on legendary proportions.
This is so not good. We’ve just entered disaster territory.
“There’s more. Power’s blown out all over the county,” he says. “Crews have already been dispatched. It’s only a matter of hours before they show up to fix the downed poles, including my yard light.”
“You called them?” Even before he shakes his head, I know he hasn’t. It’s just an impulsive question.
“No, but it’s a big enough light, and their system will tell them the power’s disabled. They’ll show up to fix it sooner or later. We have to get Bruce back in that barn ASAP.”
Forget sleep, I’ve got plenty of motivation to stay up for the next week.
“What can I do to help?” I ask, feeling another gut-punch of guilt.
“Do you know how to drive a tractor?”
“Sure do! Dad took me around a lot of farms on our travels.”
“Okay. Once I get this trailer backed into the pole shed, we have to take the door off the barn. We’ll use the bucket on the tractor to lift the door off, then fix the track and the rollers, and get the door back on.” He ticks each task off his fingers, a mannerism that makes me grin.
By the time Hank returns, Grady already has a chain around the barn door, standing in the bucket with me lifting him high enough to get the chain hooked on.
He gestures to lower the bucket.
I do, and he jumps out and climbs in the tractor next to me.
“I’ll lay the door on the ground!” Grady shouts to Hank.
Hank gives a thumbs-up and opens the tailgate on his pickup.
Over the next couple hours, while the men work like fiends on the repair, I use rakes and a flashlight to find and erase the paw prints Bruce left in the mud.
When they’re ready to lift the door again, Grady puts me back on tractor duty.
I’m pleasantly surprised at how smooth it goes, getting the door’s rollers back in the fixed track.
It’s still dark out, barely a slash of sunlight twinkling over the horizon, but from what I can see, the door looks like it’s as good as new.
“Now how do we get that tiger back in the barn?” Hank asks after I’ve parked the tractor out of the way.
Grady looks at me, waiting for an answer.
Fingers crossed, I say, “We’ll back the trailer in as close to the opening as possible, and I’ll coax him inside.”
“Coax or scream?” Grady asks.
The good-natured glint in his eye gives me the first sense of relief I’ve had since finding Bruce and scrambling our way through this makeshift cover-up all night.
