Page 19 of The Worst Possible Plan

For the first time all day, my shoulders loosened slightly. Not much. Just enough that I stopped feeling like a human stress ball wrapped in animal fur.

I wrinkled my nose. “What’s that smell?” I sniffed around the room, thinking housecleaning had skipped me. Maybe something had gotten stuck under the bed or behind the dresser. Maybe a small animal had crawled into the walls and died. Given my luck lately, anything felt entirely possible.

But when the smell seemed to follow me around, it hit me.

“It’s me. I smell.” Damn. I smelled like a farm on a hot summer day. “Wonderful.” Not just a little farm smell either. Full commitment farm smell. The kind of smell that suggested I’d spent the day wrestling livestock. Which, horrifyingly, wasn’t entirely inaccurate.

I was covered in sweat, animal fur, and drool along with other slimy things that I didn’t want to think about just now. My shirt had mysterious brown stains that were “unidentifiable.” Somewhere during the afternoon, I’d also acquired a piece of hay stuck to my bra. I didn’t know how. I didn’t want to know how. Some questions were better left unanswered.

And then. That’s when I spotted it.

A glorious bottle of red wine sat on my dresser. A card rested next to it.

It was a gift from god.

“Hello, gorgeous.” I dropped my bag on the floor next to the bed and made for the dresser before snatching up the card, flipping it open, and reading.

Congratulations on your new job!

Love, Sarah, Dottie, and Lola.

Four wine glasses were also neatly placed behind the bottle. Yes, I knew that was because the wine was to be shared with them. Was it rude that I was about to drink it by myself? Maybe. Did I care at this point? Absolutely not.

Seeing the corkscrew next to the glasses, I grabbed it, uncorked the bottle, and poured myself a generous glass. I filled it to the rim like a champ.

As soon as I took my first sip, my taste buds did the tango. “Whoa.” I took another mouthful, letting the explosion of fruit rest on my tongue before swallowing. “Doesn’t even burn my throat.” This was the best wine I’d ever had. Which made me realize this was most probably from Lola. Only she could afford wine that tasted like it was sent from the gods.

I took another gulp and sighed, looking around my room. The silence felt nice. No volunteers or angry vendors or delivery drivers casually dropping off livestock like it was no big deal.

Most importantly, no Sheriff Walker standing there with those annoyingly observant brown eyes, looking at me like he’d already figured out I was building this entire job out of confidence, panic, and whatever information I could find on Google.

Unfortunately, the second that thought entered my head, his face appeared in my brain.

Captain Competent.

Wonderful. Exactly what I needed. Captain Competent and his competent ass.

I took another mouthful of that glorious wine, trying very hard not to think about what those jeans did for said competent ass.

I groaned and let myself fall on the edge of the bed.

Why did he have to be so calm all the time?

That was what bothered me.

Not how good he looked in that sheriff’s uniform.

It was the calm.

The man could stand in the middle of a livestock-related disaster and somehow look like he was waiting in line at the bank.

Meanwhile, I spent most of the day operating one minor inconvenience away from a nervous breakdown.

And why did he have to look like that? Like he’d stepped out of some small-town calendar called Men Who Fix Things and Make Responsible Decisions.

He seemed like the kind of man who probably remembered to change the batteries in his smoke detectors, definitely owned matching toolboxes, and probably read instruction manuals before assembling furniture.

I found that disturbingly attractive.