My fingers tighten around the clipboard.
I hate that sign more today than I did when it was nailed there.
Because today, strangers are coming here. Donors. Families. People with cameras and opinions. Most of them kind, I hope. Some of them curious. Maybe a few looking for reasons to judge.
And I have to stand in front of all of them and smile like those words didn’t crawl under my skin and settle somewhere tender.
Like I don’t already blame myself enough for the ones I couldn’t save.
A hand touches my elbow.
I look down to find Livy beside me again.
Her eyes follow mine to the gate.
“I hope they don’t come today,” she says quietly.
My heart squeezes. She’s too freaking smart. Too intuitive.
“Me too, baby.”
“If they do, Rory said he’ll make them leave.”
I glance toward Rory, who is pretending not to listen from twenty feet away and doing a terrible job of it.
“Rory is not security.”
“He’s tall.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“He has boots.”
“Still not the same thing.”
“He once carried a goat under each arm…adult goats.”
I open my mouth.
Close it.
“That is surprisingly intimidating,” I admit.
Livy nods like I have finally caught up.
“Besides,” she adds, “Mr. Moretti said he was coming. He’s probably good at making people leave.”
My stomach dips at his name.
Absolutely ridiculous.
I am a grown woman. A mother. A business owner. I have wrestled frightened horses, bottle-fed baby goats at three in the morning, negotiated hay prices, and once chased Bobcat Billie with a laundry basket when she escaped her temporary pen.
Sort of.
It was more of a strategic retreat on my part, but still.
The point is, I do not get flustered because one dangerously handsome man with an accent and shoulders the size of a barn door says he’ll see me tomorrow.
