Luis laughs. "She'll come around. So will Maggie. Give it time."
"Time is literally the only thing I have."
"And you know what?" He pulls another staple and drops it in his pocket. "You might hate it here. But two months in a place like this — honest work, fresh air, no distractions — it's good for the soul."
"My soul was doing just fine before it got sentenced to Duster." I hear myself and wince. Luis doesn't deserve my sarcasm. He's the only person in this town who's been consistently kind to me. "Sorry. That was — I don't mean to be negative. It's not all bad. At least I'm getting a real tan. I've only ever had spray tans and those ruin the sheets."
Luis shakes his head and smiles. "There you go. Silver linings."
A rustling sound comes from behind me and something nudges the back of my knee. I flinch — I'm still not used to being approached by animals — but it's just a goat. A small one, brown and white, with a wispy beard and eyes that are slightly too close together, giving her a look of permanent bewilderment.
"That's Beyoncé," Luis says. "Maggie's mother named her. Don't ask."
Beyoncé nudges my knee again and then trots past me and plants herself next to Luis. He reaches down without looking and scratches the top of her head.
"I rescued this one," he says. "Found her tied to a fence post off the highway about three years ago. Someone just left her there. No water, no shade." He scratches behind her ear and Beyoncé closes her eyes. "We've been friends ever since."
I crouch down to pick up a handful of staples that have fallen in the dirt and I'm barely on my knees when something lands on my back. Two hooves, then four, then the full weight of a small goat standing on me.
"What the —"
"Don't panic," Luis says calmly. "She does that. Likes to climb on things. Wheelbarrows, hay bales, people. You're just the nearest elevated surface."
A car approaches and slows down on the road. I hear a door opening and then the click of a camera.
I turn my head just enough to see while Luis tries to shoo Beyoncé off my back. It's a Range Rover and a man with a long-lensed camera is taking pictures through the window. Beyoncé jumps off me and I straighten myself and brush the dirt off my knees with shaking hands. My heart is hammering and every instinct is telling me to shout at the photographer, but that's exactly what he wants. My angry face. The face of a villain.
"Hey, relax," Luis says, ignoring him. "You're not doing anything wrong. You're repairing a fence. There's nothing here to be ashamed of." He hands me a post and nods toward the hole we've dug. "Just keep working. This isn't a story."
I take the post, lower it into the hole and hold it straight while Luis packs the dirt around it.
"They'll get bored," he says. "Fence repair doesn't tend to go viral."
16
MAGGIE
The check has cleared. I check my account twice to make sure and the sight makes me smile. I was two weeks away from having to choose between a vet bill and a feed delivery.
Hank is overdue for his dental float as I couldn't justify the call-out fee. I also need to call the lumber yard in Cawley to order the materials for the pig barn wall, pay the invoice for the feed supplier and order the supplements Dolly needs for her joints.
Good news all around and my day couldn't get any better.
I head outside whistling and find Sloane at the clothesline behind the house. She's unpinning her clothes and folding them into a canvas bag she borrowed from me. Two pairs of shorts, three T-shirts, a tank top, underwear, socks.
It's been a full week and in that week, she's mucked out the pig barn every morning, scrubbed troughs, hauled feed, and helped Luis repair the fence. Yesterday I showed her how to clean the goat shed, which I'd been putting off because goats can be unpredictable and some of ours are pushy. Especially Derek, who has a habit of headbutting things he doesn't approve of. ButSloane held her own and all in all, it's been much better than I anticipated.
"Got everything?" I ask.
"Yeah. All dry."
"Good. You heading back to LA for the weekend?"
"No." She doesn't look at me when she answers.
"No?"
Sloane holds the bag against her chest. "My father's cut me off for the duration. Life lessons and all that. I can't afford a driver to take me to LA, and public transit — it's a long way. I'd have to change buses three times and I just know someone would film me. I can't deal with that."
