Page 41 of The Goat Next Door

“Just go, Ember,” he says, but the small, reluctant smile breaking through his grumpy expression is the last thing I see before I turn the corner.

10

Brooks

“The town motto used to be ‘Peaceful and Proud.’

It was changed to ‘We Try Our Best’ in 2003.”

— The Archive of Suncrest Hollow

The stove box takes up the entire bed of my truck.

It’s a floor model I found at the hardware store three towns over—nothing fancy, just a clean, electric four-burner that doesn’t smell like a potential gas leak.

The sales guy at the hardware store tried to upsell me twice.

Ice maker. Convection setting. Some kind of advanced moisture-lock baking technology.

I told him the woman this stove is for once nearly blew herself into low orbit trying to preheat an oven, so maybe let’s start with basic survival features and work our way up.

I back the Ford up to the Gilded Goat’s porch. The gravel crunches, a loud, angry sound in the middle of the quiet afternoon.

Sophie is at kindergarten until three, which gives me four hours to swap the units, drag the old green monster to the scrap pile, and check the water heater before my shift.

When I kill the engine, the valley is dead silent, save for the crows in the hollow and the distant, rhythmic thwack-thwack of a hammer hitting wood from the side of Emmy’s house.

I hop out and start unhooking the straps.

Emmy is standing on a six-foot ladder by the kitchen window. She’s wearing those oversized denim pants with one strap hanging loose, and her blonde curls are tied back with a piece of frayed blue nylon twine.

She’s trying to nail a piece of cedar trim into the rotting window casing with a heavy, rusted ball-peen hammer that looks like it belongs in a museum.

“You’re going to split the wood if you keep hitting it like that,” I call out, leaning my elbows against the tailgate.

She flinches, nearly drops the hammer, and twists around on the top step. Her face is flushed from the heat, a streak of gray wood dust is, once again, smeared across her jawline, but her red lipstick is, for some reason, perfectly intact.

As always.

“Brooks! Good morning,” she pants, wiping her brow with the back of her wrist. “I’m just doing a little emergency maintenance. It’s an authentic technique. I call it high-impact carpentry.”

“It’s called destroying twenty dollars worth of cedar,” I say, walking toward the porch. “Get down from there before you tip that ladder right into the drainage ditch and break your neck.”

She rolls her eyes like I’m being dramatic but climbs down, her sneakers hitting the grass with a light thud. She sets the hammer on the porch step and narrows her eyes as she catches sight of the massive box in my truck.

“What is that?” she asks, walking over to the tailgate. She tilts her head, looking from the box up to my face with a slow, teasing smirk. “Did you buy me an appliance, Chief? Are we exclusive now? Do I need to update my relationship status on LinkedIn?”

“It’s a floor model,” I say, already grabbing the hand truck. I focus on the straps so she doesn’t see the heat creeping up my neck. “Your old one is a hazard. I told you I wasn’t going to spend my day pulling you out of a kitchen fire. It’s electric. We’re capping the gas line today.”

Emmy stands there for a second, hands slipping into the pockets of her pants. The quick, sarcastic retort doesn’t come. She just looks at the white enamel of the stove peeking through the torn cardboard, her eyes softening into something quiet and heavy.

“You didn’t have to do that, Brooks,” she says. “I have money. I could have ordered something online.”

“Online takes three weeks to deliver out here. You’d be living on cold beans until July, and based on what I’ve seen so far, there’s at least a fifty-percent chance you’d somehow burn those too.” I say, adjusting the hand truck. “Grab the door for me. And try not to drop it on your toes.”

“I know how to hold things, thank you very much,” she retorts, instantly regaining her footing. She marches to the door and holds it open, her shoulders squared. “I’ll have you know I’ve survived far worse than a heavy appliance. I once moved an entire studio apartment during a blizzard in Manhattan.”

“A blizzard is just snow, Emmy. This is five hundred pounds of metal and a house that’s held together by termites and sheer stubbornness.”