“I still think he would have been happier and safer in your care,” he said, resisting her upbeat mood. He had his own work to do here and taking care of farm animals hadn’t been part of the deal.
“I told you. The clinic doesn’t have the space to keep farm animals. Besides, I don’t even work there,” she said.
“Does this town let anyone walk in off the streets and treat Chihuahuas?”
“Very funny,” she said dryly. “I was filling in for the food-poisoned doctor. I’m a livestock vet.”
“There’s more than one kind of veterinarian?” he asked, only half kidding. Growing up, his mother had stuck firmly to her no pets rule. In fairness, the woman already had five kids. Adding an unruly dog would have only added more unnecessary chaos.
“Just like I imagine there’s more than one kind of accountant,” she said, nudging him with her elbow. “I work mostly with farms.”
“What a remarkable coincidence. Stan just so happens to be a farm animal. He can stay at your place,” he suggested.
She was already shaking her head, sending her curls bouncing. “I moved in over the summer, and it took me this long to get the house livable. The barn and the pastures are next on the list. It’s kind of a whole thing.”
“He could stay in your house,” he decided. “Problem solved. I’ll help you load him up.”
She put her gloved hands on his shoulders and looked up at him. “Ryan, Stan is staying here until I can find his owners or a foster farm. You can handle the fifteen whole minutes a day it will take to feed and pasture him while you’re here.”
“I’m not staying,” he reminded her.
He felt her eye roll was a bit excessive. “You’ve mentioned that,” Sammy said dryly.
Across the pasture, Stan pranced up to two of the chickens and then backed off when they ran at him. But something else caught his eye. Sammy was glittering again.
“What?” she asked, when she noticed him watching her.
“You’re sparkling,” he observed with a frown. He leaned in. The gold glints dusted one cheek and down her neck.
Her eyes widened and he realized they were practically in an embrace. “I’m what?” Her hands slid off his shoulders, but he caught them and held her still when she tried to back away.
“Are you wearing glitter?” he asked, turning her face toward the sun. Since he was there, he took his time perusing the rest of her face. Those almost purple eyes were wide and nervous. Her cheeks were flushed pink. Her lips were full and unpainted. A point in her favor since he’d never understood the need some women felt to cover everything up.
“Dammit,” she groaned, bringing her gloved hand to her cheek. “I thought I scrubbed it all off.”
“You’re actually wearing glitter?” He couldn’t imagine any of his female co-workers—ex-coworkers—showing up to the office sprinkled in bits of gold sparkle.
“Do not even think about making a stripper joke,” she warned him.
“The thought never crossed my mind,” he lied, picturing her in green pasties and a tasteful thong.
Mistake! With the hangover still present and accounted for, he felt light-headed the second his blood cruised south. Abruptly, he released her and took a self-preserving step back to think about sheep. Dirty, woolly, smelly sheep.
“I was crafting,” she sniffed haughtily.
He shot her a skeptical look. “I could see you dancing before I could see you scrapbooking.”
She frowned. “I’m not sure how offended I should be by that.”
“Sorry. Hungover. My internal filter isn’t working yet. What were you glittering?” Despite the throbbing headache, he was surprised that he had the energy to be curious.
“Holiday wreaths.”
“Oh, God. I knew you were one of those obsessive Christmas romantics,” he accused.
“Lighten up, Grinch. It’s for a fundraiser. I fell asleep at the table on some dumb glitter explosion bow. Woke up looking like I’d gotten in a fight with TinkerBell.”
“It’s not a bad look on you.”
Her eyes narrowed in his direction. “You’re imagining me in pasties right now. Aren’t you?”
He sucked in a breath of sharp winter air and choked.
“Wow. I was just kidding,” Sammy laughed.
“I was thinking about… how I need to find someone named Rainbow so I can get out of this sparkly holiday hallucination.” He’d most definitely been imagining her in pasties.
“Rainbow Berkowicz?” she asked with an arch of her eyebrows.
“Is there more than one Rainbow in this town?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“No. I don’t think I would,” he countered.
“She’s bank president. Are you trying to get a meeting with her?” She started for the fence and he followed.
“Not trying. Succeeding,” he insisted. “One meeting with this Rainbow person and I’ll be whining about being hungover on a cross-country flight.”
“That’s the spirit,” Sammy said. Then she wrinkled her perky nose. “Except she’s not taking any meetings until after the holidays.”
“That’s ridiculous. No one runs their business that way,” he scoffed as he fell into step with her.
She shrugged. “Her mother-in-law is coming into town for the holidays and it takes Rainbow a few days before and after the visit to prepare and recover.”
“Are you related? Does she live with you?”
She laughed. “No. Why?”
“I find it disconcerting that you know that much about someone you don’t live with.”
“Welcome to Blue Moon, where everybody knows everything about everyone else,” she quipped.
“It sounds unhealthy. I don’t even know the first names of everyone in my department at work,” he told her. “I’ve only met three of the neighbors in my building.”
“That’s depressing,” she said, strolling toward the fence with her hands in her vest pockets.
“That’s not depressing. That’s normal. It’s called having privacy.”
“Or is it called being too wrapped up in your own agenda to bother getting to know anyone?” she asked. “Around here, we care about each other. We lend hands and bake casseroles and do favors.”
He smirked. “You sound like a docent at a visitors center.”
“Would a docent wear pasties under her vest?” The sound of her unzipping that vest and the ludicrous possibility that she wasn’t teasing him distracted him enough that he nearly impaled himself on a fence post. The air left his lungs on a grunt.
“Serves you right,” Sammy teased. She climbed up on the fence and swung her leg over the top. “Can you get out this way or do you need me to open a gate for you?”
He would prefer walking through a gate like an adult. But he felt certain that the sparkly doctor would judge him for it. “I can handle climbing a fence,” he scoffed.
Gripping the top rail with his mittened hands, he dug the stunted toe of his boot into the chicken wire above a fence rail and climbed up next to her. Gingerly, so as not to crush his balls, he swung one leg over.