Page 72 of The Goat Next Door

“Saw you took the utility truck out around eight on Thursday. You’re playing a dangerous game, Chief. If you’re trying to stay under the radar, you’re doing a piss-poor job.”

My fingers pause on the zipper of my light work jacket. “The church basement sump pump was sticking. The float valve was clogged with silt.”

“Uh-huh. Sure. A real ‘sunk-in-the-mud’ situation, huh?” Davis wiggles his eyebrows, his grin widening. “And I suppose the city girl’s driveway was sticking too? Because Mel saw the big municipal Ford nose-down on her porch steps right around nine-thirty. Sounds like you were looking for some… high-clearance action.”

I feel a slow, tight heat creeping up from my collar. “The hollow road was under six inches of moving water, Davis. Her truck has four cylinders and tires the size of donuts. It was a public safety decision.”

“Nobody’s arguing the logistics, man,” Davis says, his mouth twitching. “Just surprising to see you executing a private extraction for a girl who doesn’t even know where the main water shut-off is. Usually, you just send the junior guys with a couple of sandbags and a pamphlet. You’re really putting in the work here. Like, literally.”

“The junior guys were out on the ridge,” I say, the locker door shutting with a sharp ring. “I was already mobile.”

“Right. Mobile. And very motivated.” Davis drops his boots off the crate and stands up, stretching. “Whatever you’re doing out there, just make sure she knows how to bleed her propane lines before the summer heat hits. That old furnace is going to act up with the humidity. You don’t want to be over there all night… or do you?”

“She doesn’t even have the pilot light lit,” I mutter. “She’s been using kerosene lamps.”

Davis stops in the doorway, his teasing look fading into a rare, genuine softness. “She’s a city girl, Brooks. They come up here for the vibes, but the humidity doesn’t care about aesthetics. If she’s still here by autumn, she’s going to need more than a cute aesthetic to keep that house running.”

“She won’t be here by autumn,” I say. “She’ll be back in Manhattan the second the air turns crisp and the grocery store stops carrying those little organic avocados.”

“Maybe,” Davis says, clapping me on the shoulder. “But until then, she’s our neighbor. And we look out for the stock. Try not to get too attached, man. Or do. I’m not your boss.”

⋆ ✦ ⋆

By ten o’clock, I’ve swapped my uniform for a pair of grease-stained Carhartts, picked Sophie up from her grandmother’s house, and driven out to the timber frame I’ve been trying to finish for two years.

Sophie is sitting in the middle of the unfinished living room, her small sneakers dangling over a plywood sheet, her tongue sticking out as she lines up three plastic triceratops.

“Daddy,” she calls out. “Can dinosaurs live in the mud?”

“If it’s deep enough,” I say, reaching into my tool belt for a handful of staples. “Why?”

“Because Emmy said she has a big mud hole by her barn. She said Kevin went swimming in it and turned into a monster.”

I stop, the stapler hovering in the air. “When did you talk to Emmy, Soph?”

“Yesterday,” she says. “Nana took me to get a cookie.”

“She asked if you were still grumpy,” Sophie continues, completely unbothered. “I told her you’re always grumpy when the weather is hot because your neck hurts.”

“Sophie,” I say. “You don’t need to be giving the public a medical report on your father.”

“She’s not the public,” Sophie says with that absolute, terrifying logic of a five-year-old. “She’s our neighbor. She told me she has a goat that can jump over a wheelbarrow. Can we get a goat, Daddy?”

“No,” I say, hitting the stapler against the wood with a sharp thwack. “Goats are a disaster. They eat siding and they smell like wet wool.”

“Emmy’s around them all the time but she doesn’t smell like wet wool,” Sophie mutters, her attention shifting back to her plastic valley. “She smells like lemons. Like the ones in the yellow bowl at Nana’s.”

I don’t answer.

My mind is instantly back in the cab of the Ford—the smell of rain, the vanilla-lemon scent of her hair, and the small, wet smudge her breath had left on the glass.

She’s already infecting my kid.

She hasn’t even been in this valley for two months, and she’s already got the grandmas running logistics for her, Marge giving her the front counter, and Sophie talking about her like she’s some kind of magical creature who dispenses cake and goat facts.

I look at my tool belt, then toward the ridge lane.

The propane line, I remind myself. It’s an official safety check. Entirely within the district grid.