“So you had an accident on a backroad or something and a strange woman took you home?” Elizabeth asked her youngest, propping a hand on her hip. “Have you never seen a single police drama or unsolved mystery documentary on TV?”
Zeke laughed and shook his head, then winced slightly as if it hurt. “Not a backroad and not her house. Flipped my bike in front of the motel and she took me to her room.”
“The motel?” Elizabeth repeated. “The motel here? Just up the road?”
“Yep.” Zeke took a long drink of his coffee.
“Why didn’t you call one of us?”
“Uh, because none of you have a hot brunette who will…” Zeke trailed off with a grin. “Never mind.”
Elizabeth rolled her eyes. And crossed herself.
Fletcher laughed. “You’re not Catholic.”
“Well, it can’t hurt, can it?” Elizabeth asked. “Maybe I embezzled money from a children’s cancer charity.”
“Is that worse than stealing from a church or better?”
“Worse. Obviously.”
Fletcher nodded. His mother’s musings about things she must’ve done in a past life to deserve the three boys she’d been given by the good Lord to raise were always dramatic and entertaining. And ninety percent of the time came up because of Zeke and Zander, no matter what she said.
Fletcher was regretting the fact that he had to leave shortly to get to school. But it was an in-service day, so he didn’t have to be there early. And if he wandered in a little late to the first meeting, he’d be forgiven as long as he showed up with beignets from Ellie’s.
“So what happened?” he asked his brother. “With the accident,” he added quickly. He didn’t need Zeke giving all the details about the brunette. At least not in front of their mother.
“I was coming down the road and had to swerve to miss a fucking goat.” Zeke leaned to shoot a look at the back table where Charlie and Griffin were sitting with Knox, Michael, and Donovan.
Griffin held up a hand. “Don’t even start.”
“I figured you were around there somewhere since Sugar escaped again,” Zeke said.
Griffin frowned. “You almost hit Sugar?”
Fletcher had to fight a smile. Sugar the goat had a huge crush on Griffin, and the only time she broke out of the goat pen—or, more specifically, asked for help from her goat friend, Stan, to get out of the pen—was when she was trying to get to Griffin.
Griffin acted annoyed by it, but they all secretly suspected he loved it. And Sugar.
“No, it was Sneezy, the little black one,” Zeke said. “He was struggling to keep up with the rest.” Zeke looked at Fletcher. “Benny had the rest of ’em rounded up, but she missed one.”
Fletcher had to laugh. Benny, short for Beignet, was Jordan’s new border collie puppy. She was a great dog. She was a fantastic herder. Even though she was Jordan’s, she spent her time—including her nights—at the petting zoo barn.
She’d gone to work with Jordan the first day and that had been it. They’d tried to keep her at the house with them at night, but the first three mornings they’d found her back at the barn. They’d figured if that was where she wanted to be, then she’d be a great guard dog against any roaming night creatures—or humans for that matter—that tried to get into the barn. She also loved to round the goats up when they got loose. Which was very handy.
The only problem was that she didn’t always take them back to the barn.
Actually, she never took them back to the barn. She just herded them into the closest structure.
Still, she’d helped keep the goats out of people’s yards and out of the street so that accidents didn’t happen.
Well, mostly.
“They were down by the motel last night?” Fletcher asked.
“She had them corralled up at the motel,” Zeke said. “I think she was waiting for somebody to open the door to the office.”
“So you swerve to miss the goat, flipped your bike, and then what?” Fletcher said, wanting the rest of the story before he had to leave.
And also wanting to change the subject away from his dog’s tendencies to herd goats into places like the bridal shop downtown and into various people’s garages around town.
“Wait, who got the call to take the goats back to their barn?” This came from Knox.
Yeah, that was another part of the goat shenanigans. When people found a little herd of goats and an overly enthusiastic border collie in these strange places around town, they called one of four people: Zander, Bailey Wilcox, Michael, or Knox. As city manager, he got the calls from people who didn’t know who else to call. Or the people who didn’t want to deal with calling Zander. Which was a lot of people.
Knox also appreciated the calls least of any of those people. And that was saying a lot. Zander really hated dealing with the goats.
“Well, I happened to get the call about Zeke’s accident, so I was already there and we took the goats back before anyone called about them,” Michael said.
Knox looked over. “You and Michael took the goats back to the barn?”
Zeke lifted a shoulder. “Sure, why not?”
“Well, I ask because you called me about coming to get the goats when you found them in the new kitchen of one of your remodels. Of course, you changed your voice and gave me a fake name, knowing I’d never show up if I knew it was you.”
“It’s not my fault you don’t have my number in your phone.” Zeke smirked at him. “Let’s just say I was… compelled last night.”
“Compelled by what? A concussion?” Knox asked.
“By a hot brunette who was all ga-ga over the goats,” Zeke said.
Everyone’s eyes went wide.
“This woman helped you gather up the goats and take them back to the barn?” Fletcher asked.
“Yeah, after she came rushing to my side to see if everything was okay.”
Michael gave a little cough that sounded to Fletcher like, bullshit.
Fletcher looked at his brother. “So you wrecked your bike in front of her motel and she came rushing over to check on you?”
Zeke shrugged. “More or less.”
“But someone called Michael?”
“Well, she called 9-1-1,” Zeke said.
“Oh, wow, Zander’s going to be so pissed he didn’t get that call,” Fletcher said.
Zeke nodded. “I know. Don’t think I wasn’t praying it wouldn’t be him.”
“So then after Michael checked you out, she invited you to stay the night? I suppose she felt the need to keep an eye on you to be sure your concussion wasn’t too bad,” Fletcher said dryly.
“Well, she definitely didn’t let me fall asleep for too long at a time,” Zeke said.
Elizabeth sighed. “Maybe your father did something bad in his past life too.”
Fletcher snorted.
“Behave,” Ellie told Zeke, swatting him with a towel before setting a plate of biscuits and gravy in front of him.
“What can I say? Even banged up and bleeding, I’m irresistible,” Zeke said as he dug into his breakfast.
They all laughed. But at the same time, no one could deny that things always seemed to work out for Zeke.