“Are you wiping your nose on me or is this some kind of barnyard hug?” he asked.
“Baaa!” Stan’s tail wiggled in delight, and he pranced toward the back door of the farmhouse.
“Hey. Wait up,” he called.
He didn’t know what the etiquette was for hosting farm animals inside the house. But he also didn’t feel like freezing his ass off outside anymore. Deciding that the sheep and the house were someone else’s long-term problems, Ryan opened the door.
Stan happily wandered into the kitchen.
Maybe the sheep just didn’t want to be alone? Ryan couldn’t blame him.
Alone is exactly what he would be as soon as he boarded that plane for home. Back to his dove-gray condo with a few tasteful paintings, a small collection of books that he never seemed to get around to reading, and a bed that he slept in alone.
Without a job to dedicate his life to, just what in the hell did he have?
He couldn’t blame the partners. The only thing worse than the idea that he was complicit in the fraud was the truth: that he’d been too stupid to see it. He should have seen it. The evasiveness, the runaround. He hadn’t dug deep enough. He’d been too busy building portfolios to build relationships with clients.
“Want some casserole?” he asked the sheep.
“Baaaa!” The sheep nudged the empty plate on the living room floor and looked at him expectantly.
Ryan glanced up from the binder in his lap and shook his head. “I don’t know, man. I don’t think you need to have any more vegetable korma.”
Pouting, Stan wandered over to the blanket Ryan had put in front of the electric fireplace and flopped down.
Ryan glanced back down at the binder. So far, the only document inside was the notice from the bank on the incense-scented letterhead. Several re-reads of the letter hadn’t produced any new information. He held it up to the light for one last scan. He studied it carefully, reading each word for the bingo. At the top, partially obscured by the bank’s peace sign logo, he spotted something interesting.
“Aha!”
Finally, a break. It was a barely legible loan number. This he could work with. He cracked his knuckles, prayed his access hadn’t been revoked, and logged into his firm’s network.
Blue Moon Community Facebook Gossip Group
Blue Moon Sheriff’s Department: Nikolai Vulkov and wife Emma caught making out behind Fitness Freak Gym by Deputy Layla Gunnarson. Their $20 fine will go into the Indecent Exposure Fund, which purchases and distributes new winter clothing for those in need.
19
“Hang on. He turned you down for no-strings sex because he didn’t have enough time to analyze the decision?” Layla’s eyes narrowed over her slice of spinach tofu pizza.
Peace of Pizza was in its mid-lunch rush. But Sammy, Layla, and Eden had managed to snag a table near the open kitchen where Bobby, the popular dreadlocked pizza maven, was belting out Billie Holiday and expertly rotating pies in and out of the oven.
“Basically,” Sammy answered, spearing a piece of tomato out of her salad. “And that he was concerned he had too much on his mind to perform well.”
“No man is that practical,” Eden insisted, sawing through her stromboli with gusto.
“You haven’t met Ryan,” Sammy countered. He was probably already on a plane, heading out of her life forever.
Their conversation cut off abruptly as Nikolai Vulkov, tall, gorgeous, reformed ladies man stepped inside from the cold. His gray wool coat flapped behind him in the wind.
“Ladies,” he said with a wink.
“Hey, Niko,” Sammy said. “How was the shoot?” Niko was a fashion photographer with a glossy portfolio of luxury brand clients.
“It went well enough that we got all the shots in one day instead of two. Which means Baxter and I get to surprise my beautiful, hormonal wife with the buffalo chicken special she’s been craving since 3 a.m.”
Sammy glanced through the glass where Baxter the yellow lab wore a plaid Christmas sweater and chewed on his reindeer antler headband.
“She’s a lucky woman,” Eden told him.
“Not as lucky as I am,” he insisted.
“Your order’s ready to go, Niko,” Bobby called from behind the counter.
Every woman in the place watched as Niko paid, collected the dog, and left. A collective sigh of female appreciation rose up as he disappeared from sight.
“I don’t trust this guy,” Layla announced.
“Who? Niko?” Sammy asked.
“No. Ryan. Anyone would be honored to be invited into your pants,” her friend insisted.
Sammy’s gaze roamed the restaurant. Bobby had swapped out the regular orange lava lamps on the tables for the red and green ones. Sparkly cutouts of dreidels and Yule logs hung from the ceiling, drifting on alternating breezes from the pizza oven and front door.
“I think he meant what they all mean,” she said with a sigh.
She’d stayed up too late the night before, watching wreath-decorating videos on YouTube and massacring bows and pinecones. Then she’d spent another few sleepless hours replaying Ryan’s side-of-the-road kiss. His insightful conversation on horseback. His curt “Thanks for everything, Sparkle” when she’d dropped him off at Carson’s. Sometime around two a.m., she’d tiptoed into the gossip group on Facebook and cursed herself for looking so eager and hopeful in every one of the nine pictures her neighbors had managed to sneak of her and Ryan together.
Please like me, her eyes seemed to say in each picture.
“What do you think they all mean?” Eden asked.
“That I’m good enough to drive them around, or cook them breakfast, or babysit their little sister. But not good enough to take to prom or date. Or in this case, have a steamy one-night stand.” She was feeling sorry for herself. It made her want to slap herself in the face. There was no room in her schedule for a pity party and no tolerance for being annoying.
Eden and Layla exchanged a look.
“What?” Sammy asked.
“Sammy, I say this with love.” Eden patted her hand on the table. “That is the most asinine thing I’ve ever heard you say. And that’s including the time we were loaded on cheap rum, and you thought you saw Oprah in the ladies’ restroom at the skating rink.”
Technically, it had been a poster of Oprah.
“You’re making it sound like you get rejected all the time,” Layla said, steering them back on topic.
“I do,” she insisted.
“Do not,” Eden argued.
“Men look at me, and they see a little sister or a tomboy or a woman who puts her arms up cow asses. I wouldn’t expect you two to get it.”
“Us two?” Layla’s eyebrows raised as she took a bite of cheesy pizza.
“They look at you two and see beautiful, interesting sex goddesses. Men trip over their pants to have sex with you.”
“Technically that was only because Davis had a concussion and his balance was off,” Eden pointed out.
“And I haven’t gotten laid in—” The door of the restaurant opened and Huckleberry Cullen, the blond, built high school guidance counselor stepped inside. “A while,” Layla finished, seemingly very interested in her plate.