“Night, Sexy Sam,” he murmured.
Opportunistic ogling complete, she hurled the blanket at him and bolted for the door.
She was still thinking about him—and his bottomlessness—fifteen minutes later when she let herself into her own house. The fluffy, striped head of McClane—the surly six-year-old cat—popped out of a naked wreath on her dining table when she flipped on the lights.
“Hey, guys,” she sighed, wishing she could just sink into that couch, light a fire, and watch TV until she fell asleep like a normal adult.
But her kitchen sink held four days’ worth of dishes. Her table was buried under what looked like a craft store explosion. Ribbon, wire, fake pine cones, sparkly berries on wire stems. Her collection of every size of jingle bell was scattered across table and rug. McClane’s doing, most likely. He liked shiny things he wasn’t supposed to play with.
One wreath, she decided with a yawn. She’d just double down tomorrow and block off some serious crafting time.
“Who wants to help me wash dishes and make a wreath?”
Blue Moon Community Facebook Gossip Group
Sammy Ames: If anyone is missing a friendly male sheep, please contact my practice immediately.
Edit: Please call only if YOU or SOMEONE YOU KNOW is DEFINITELY missing a sheep right NOW. Not two years ago or one time in college. A currently missing sheep.
Edit: A SHEEP. Not a cow or a cat or your car keys.
8
Very early Saturday morning, December 21
* * *
Ryan couldn’t tell if the knocking was coming from inside his skull or from the outside world. Blearily, he pried one eye open. It was dark. But he wasn’t certain if it was still dark or dark again.
The knock sounded again.
“I can see you staring at the door,” a very smug, very female voice called. “Open up.”
The pretty vet, he realized, then decided he was too hungover to find anyone attractive.
“Go. Away,” he rasped, pulling the blanket up over his face. It didn’t help though—there were so many knit holes in it. Even the blankets in this town were ridiculous.
The door opened, and he heard footsteps.
“Morning, sunshine,” she called chipperly in a volume several decibels too high.
Morning. Okay. At least he hadn’t lost an entire day to an over-thirty hangover. Yet.
“You know, in the rest of the world, ‘go away’ means the opposite of ‘come in,’” he groaned.
“Town Ordinance 17-06 of 1985 gives any Blue Mooner the right to enter the premises of another Blue Mooner if they are concerned that a crime or a crisis is in progress,” she announced.
“Great. So you just legalized breaking and entering.”
“Technically it’s just entering since the door wasn’t locked.”
“That’s not my fault,” he insisted. Though who he could blame it on wasn’t immediately clear either.
“No one locks their doors here,” she said, sounding amused.
“Why the hell not? What stops someone from walking into your house and stealing your shit?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe being a good person?”
“This place is so weird.” Ryan pulled the blanket tighter around his head and willed the world to stop spinning.
“Whoa there, tiger. I didn’t come here to get an eyeful of Grumpy Junior.”
“Grumpy Junior?” he rasped. The cold air from the open front door finally reached his unprotected southern hemisphere. Peering through one of the face-sized holes in the blanket, he realized he was completely naked from the waist down. Fuck.
He snatched the blanket off his head and hurled it over his lap. “What the hell happened last night? Or is it still last night?”
It was pitch black outside the farmhouse windows.
“It’s six a.m.”
Which made it his three a.m. Great. He’d just managed to combine jet lag with a hangover.
“Where are my pants?” he rasped. “Did you… did I… did we…”
She looked annoyingly pretty standing there in slim cargo pants, scarred boots. A flannel shirt tucked in under a down vest and a soft green scarf. Her hair was a riot of thick curls in a color that made him think of honey. She was holding two to-go cups of what smelled like coffee.
She rolled those blue, blue eyes. Lavender fields, he remembered.
“I did not take advantage of you. You did not sexually harass me. And we did not, nor will we ever, have sex,” she said.
He felt a rush of relief, then a vague dissatisfaction, which was almost immediately eclipsed by a wave of nausea.
“Why are you here?” he groaned, trying to work his way out of the recliner. He managed finally to climb unsteadily to his feet and wrapped the blanket around his waist like a holey sarong.
She plucked his pants off the singing bass fish mounted to the wall and handed them over. “You abandoned a sheep. Drank yourself stupid. Confessed to getting screwed over, losing your job and your way in life, briefly mentioned a fetlock emergency, then screamed and took your pants off. Surprised me with the whole commando thing, by the way. You seem like the kind of guy who not only wears underwear but irons them.”
He rubbed at his eyes, headache throbbing. That all sounded vaguely, blurrily familiar. Also, he was pretty sure she’d insulted him a few times along the way in her recap, but he was too tired, too sick to care.
The holey blanket slipped off his hips and pooled at his feet.
Sammy gave a strangled sound and turned around to face the front door.
“That was an accident,” he insisted in a dry-mouthed rasp. Bending over to pick up the blanket made his head feel like it was going to pop like an overinflated lawn ornament.
“I’m starting to have my doubts,” she said wryly.
“Why were you here in the first place to witness my newest level of shame?” His fingers brushed something on his forehead. A sticky note. He peeled it off and read it.
“I brought your sheep back,” she told him.
She handed him one of the cups of coffee she held. Large and steaming.
“He’s not my sheep.” He took a long gulp of hot, glorious caffeine. It scalded his throat, but the pain was better than the rolling vertigo.
“You are currently in possession of said sheep until his owner can be identified.”
He wanted to slink off into a dank basement and die in a corner somewhere. He also wanted to throw up. In a distant third, was the scenario where he curled up with his head in the pretty vet’s lap and slept for three days straight.
He groaned. “What am I supposed to do with a goddamn sheep?”
“I’ll show you. Since you’re also in charge of Carson’s chickens.”
He made a grab for the jeans. The move had his head spinning, and he had to lean against the wall until the urge to puke his guts up passed.
“Just when you think things can’t get worse,” Ryan muttered.
“Are you always so cantankerous? Or is it just small-town life that does it to you?” she of little sympathy asked, patting his cheek on her way into the hideous kitchen.