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  “Just a few miles, but visibility is crap so I’m taking it very slow. Ten minutes or so.”

  “See?” Avery crooned. “No time at all.”

  The goat’s chin dipped, then his eyes closed, and he let his head drop against her chest. Avery felt a moment of panic, but she shifted her hand under him a little until she could feel his little heart going. She wondered if she should try to keep him awake. She didn’t know anything about shock and small farm animals.

  “Hold on,” Chey told her as they finally slowed to take the last turn. “The road back in to Doc’s place is a bit bumpy.”

  Though she’d never had a reason to visit, Avery knew the Falls’s one-and-only vet owned farm property not too far from the mill, and that his vet clinic was on-site. A few bouncy minutes later, they pulled up in front of a large, beautifully restored barn. Even in the fading light, the red building with white trim shone through the falling snow, looking cheerful and welcoming. Big pine wreaths sporting bright red bows had been hung on the double doors at one end, and a smaller pinecone wreath was hanging on the office door on the side, adding a festive touch to the scene.

  Someone had built a trio of snowmen, two large and one small, grouped just to the side of the shoveled pathway from the gravel lot to the door. They’d been decked out in colorful ski hats, scarves, and other whimsical touches, like the sunglasses and ski goggles on the bigger two, and the birdfeeder filled with seed cradled in the arms of the smallest one. The size of the barn and the cluster of pine trees they were huddled beneath had protected them from the worst of the storm, and Avery smiled, delighted by the whimsy and the friendly, hospitable vibe.

  There was a big house about fifty yards away from the barn, but it was mostly hidden in a copse of towering pines, making it hard to see. From what she could tell, it was a somewhat typical white clapboard farmhouse, though fairly large in size. Fenced-in paddocks and snow-covered pastures rolling in gentle slopes and valleys beyond the barn completed the scenic layout.

  It was common knowledge that Doc’s wife had passed away quite a few years ago, and they had no children. Avery thought it was a good thing that the clinic was here, so he wasn’t all alone. “Wow,” she said as they pulled to a stop and Chey cut the engine. “This place is like a postcard. That barn is gorgeous. I love the old-fashioned gambrel roof, and the hayloft doors with the white cross planks.”

  Chey had parked the truck right next to the office door. It was the only vehicle in the freshly snow-covered lot. “This is why I love you,” she said. “Barns can indeed be gorgeous. Most people don’t get that.” She released her seat belt and opened her door. “Wait till you see the interior. Stay there and I’ll come around and help you two down.”

  Avery nodded, waiting for Chey to open her door and take the goat before unbuckling and climbing down herself. She immediately wrapped her arms around herself. “I swear it’s gotten even colder.”

  “Jeez, you’re half-soaked. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t have another blanket in back, but I should have given you my coat.” Looking worried now, Chey turned toward the office door. “Let’s get inside. I’m sure Dr. Campbell will have something you can change into. I’ll get it back to him later.”

  “I’m fine,” Avery assured her. “I’m just worried about our little hitchhiker.” In truth, she’d begun shivering so hard her teeth were clacking, but she could remedy that once she was sure the goat was going to be okay.

  Chey opened the office door and ushered them all swiftly inside, then closed it behind them, mercifully blocking out the wind and snow.

  It was toasty warm in the small waiting room, but Avery couldn’t seem to stop shivering. Her clothes were wetter than she’d realized. She guessed she’d had a bit more adrenaline pumping through her system than she’d realized. That and worry or fear could block out all manner of discomfort, at least in the short term. Her short term had apparently expired.

  “Here,” Chey said, scooping the coat and little goat from her arms. “You don’t need to be holding what amounts to a cold, wet sponge against your body.”

  Avery’s teeth were chattering so hard she just nodded. “Do-do-you-think—” she started, then shook her head and tried harder to keep her teeth from clacking. “Is the doc-doctor in? There-there’s-no-one-he-here.”

  “I couldn’t call, no signal,” Chey said, looking more concerned now that she could plainly see and hear how cold Avery was. “I’m not sure what his Saturday hours are but it’s after four, so I’m guessing Louise—Doc’s desk sergeant, as he calls her—has gone home, along with whatever vet techs might have been on duty. But if Campbell is anything like Doc, he’s always—”

  “Here,” came a deep voice from behind them.

  Avery, shivering, with her arms wrapped tightly around herself, turned and saw him first.

  He was, in a word, breathtaking.

  If she’d had breath left to take, at any rate.

  About five-ten, she guessed, which was quite tall compared to her five-foot-four. His build might have been hard to determine in the white lab coat he had on, what with another heavier shop apron tied over it that seemed to be made of canvas and leather, but there was no mistaking those broad shoulders. And his chest—maybe it was that medieval looking apron—but it was, at the very least, not at all narrow. His skin was surprisingly tanned for this time of year, adding to his rugged aura, making her wonder where he’d been before temporarily taking over Doc Forrester’s practice.

  That, along with his hair—a dark tousle on top with close-cropped sides—set off sharp, green eyes, made somewhat exotic-looking by the dark slash of his brows, and his angular, well, everything. Add in the wide breadth of his tanned hands, now braced on his hips, the khaki-colored canvas pants, and the stance he’d taken in those well-worn, leather hiking boots, and she thought he looked like something from the graphic novels she favored. Animal Doctor, Super-Hero. Only this was no comic book. He was very, very real.

  Suddenly Avery was feeling a whole lot warmer.

  “Dr. Campbell?” Chey said, having turned now, too. She seemed unaffected by the appearance of the drop-dead gorgeous vet. “Sorry to barge in unannounced in the middle of a snowstorm, but we picked up an unexpected passenger.”

  The pygmy goat chose that moment to lift his bedraggled head and let out a startlingly loud bleat. The little guy didn’t sound pained or scared. More…hungry.

  The sudden burst of sound had startled them all, making Chey laugh and Dr. Campbell smile. Avery mostly tried not to swallow her tongue. That grin, the flash of white teeth, the way his eyes crinkled at the corners, all should have served to diminish the superhero vibe, made him seem more…mortal. And yet, no.

  “So I see,” he said, his grin widening as he added, “and hear. Let’s get him into an examination room and see what’s what.”

  That pulled Avery’s attention right back to his face. There was definitely a hint of an accent of some kind. She couldn’t quite place it. Maybe a blend of a few accents? There was a bit of the deep south there for sure, along with a British inflection of some kind? No. Australian, maybe? She wasn’t certain. He hadn’t said enough yet, and, admittedly, she wasn’t exactly thinking clearly.

  That was so atypical of her. She blamed it on her damp clothes, gooseflesh skin, and the residual anxiety over the snowstorm rescue, which still hadn’t been fully resolved. She’d be clearer once they had the doctor’s full report and she knew the little billy would be okay. At least it was sounding like their four-legged charge was recovering rapidly now that he was inside and warming up.

  Dr. Campbell crossed the waiting room and opened one of the three doors that lined the far wall. “Bring him on in here.”

  “I’m Cheyenne McCafferty,” Chey said as she crossed the room behind him.

  “Ben Campbell,” he said in reply.

  “Pleasure to meet you, Ben. Sorry for
the circumstances. Doc has a lot of nice things to say about you.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Ben said.

  “This is Avery Kent,” Chey went on as they moved toward the exam room. “We own Lavender Blue, the farm up near Bluestone & Vine, the Brogans’ winery. Doc Forrester has taken care of a few of my horses over this past year.” She paused to get a better hold on the bundled goat, who was becoming quite restless now. “We dug him out of a snowbank. Or, Avery did at any rate. We didn’t see it happen, but Avery thinks our little passenger here was thrown from the back of a pickup truck.”

  Dr. Campbell paused then, too, his eyebrow lifted in question as his gaze went from Chey to Avery, and back to Chey, who smiled again and said, “Trust me, she’s rarely wrong.”

  The handsome doctor smiled back at Chey, and Avery was close enough now to see her friend’s pupils expand.

  Ah-ha. Avery’s attention immediately sparked on that. Not so unaffected after all. Interesting. One of the challenges that came with having a fast-working brain was finding things to keep it occupied. Lately, Avery’s pet hobby had been mapping out the human dynamic of attraction and the elements necessary for attraction to deepen to affection, then on into love. It was something she had yet to fully experience herself, and the subject fascinated her. With all the huge life changes she’d been experiencing in the past half dozen years, Avery had opted out of allowing herself to be the subject of her little study, but it was better to observe when collecting data anyway. Chey would be perfect. She was Avery’s preferred subject, in fact. Avery just hadn’t been sure she’d ever have anything much to actually study.

  “Something about a swerve pattern,” Chey was saying, drawing Avery’s attention back to the conversation. “She managed to get pretty soaked during the rescue. Any chance you’ve got a spare lab coat? Blanket? Something to warm her up a bit? We kind of trashed the only blanket I had with me.”

  Avery smiled then. Not because of what Chey was saying, but how she was saying it. Chey was, essentially, babbling. The kind of nervous chatter one fell into when distracted by a member of the opposite sex. Chey was clearly exhibiting all the signs. There was even a bit of flush to her cheeks. This notion cheered Avery up immensely. She couldn’t wait to make some notes, organize her thoughts on this potential new beginning. She loved nothing more than putting her brain to work on a new project.

  “Absolutely,” he said, motioning Chey inside the examination room, seemingly oblivious to her reaction to him, at least as far as Avery could tell. And she was watching him very closely. For study purposes, of course.

  “He appears to be recovering pretty well,” the doctor went on, “but if he was thrown, I want to do a full exam, make sure we’re not missing anything.”

  Definitely deep south, Avery decided. Definitely flavored with a hint of Aussie. “Then what happens to him?” Avery asked, speaking for the first time.

  Ben looked directly at her and smiled. It made his eyes sparkle. Avery thought she might not need a change of clothes. Hers would dry any moment now simply from her increased body heat.

  “I think I know who he might belong to,” Ben said, his tone dry, maybe a shade disappointed.

  Chey and Avery were both surprised by that announcement. “Really? That’s…amazing,” Chey replied, starting to put the squirming bundle on the exam table, then changing her mind given his now rambunctious movements. “We didn’t even tell you where we found him.”

  Dr. Campbell paused in the doorway when Avery started to follow Chey inside, blocking her entry. “But first, I think we should attend to your more immediate needs.”

  Avery barely stopped herself from walking straight into him. They were close now, mere inches apart, and she had to look up to meet his gaze. Northern Lights green, she thought, assessing the exact shade of his almost hypnotic green eyes.

  “We should get you out of those wet clothes,” he said, his voice quieter.

  She shivered then, and it had absolutely nothing to do with being cold. Quite the opposite. Damp was still a fitting adjective, though.

  For the first time in Avery’s life, her big brain couldn’t seem to compute anything. No note-taking, no recording every last detail of this moment and her reaction to him to add to her latest research topic.

  In fact, the only words that came to her were…yes, please.

  Chapter 2

  “Yes,” Ben said into the phone the following morning. “He’s fine. Fortunately, the snow provided a cushion when he landed. The elements played a role in the slow recovery. He was likely already half frozen before the accident.” Ben smiled as Charlie Pruitt let loose a rather colorful tirade on the trials and tribulations of his goats finding their way into the open bed of his pickup truck unannounced and unnoticed.

  The older man’s annoyance with the pygmy goat didn’t worry Ben. He’d met Charlie several times already and he knew the man’s heart was as big as the moon. His animals were also well taken care of and Charlie was the first one on the phone if he thought there was the least little problem. But he really needed to fix this goat situation. “We’re just lucky two Good Samaritans came by when they did.” And that one of them was exceedingly quick on the uptake. Ben didn’t know of too many people who could have assessed the situation as quickly as Avery had, and realized something had flown out of the truck bed. In fact, he couldn’t think of anyone who could have done that, especially in those weather conditions.

  Charlie finally wound down. Ben knew the tirade was also out of fear and not a little shame for letting one his animals get into such dire circumstances in the first place. “I’ll pass along your thanks,” Ben said. “And Charlie? Maybe you should think about finding a different place to park your truck. Or at the very least post a reminder on your dash to look under and through everything piled in the back before taking off. Park close enough to something they can climb up on to jump in and they will. Just know that once in, they won’t jump back out if they can’t see the landing pad.” He chuckled at the response, thinking he’d have to find a way to use “like trying to herd grasshoppers with a spoon” in a sentence someday. “You can come by and get him this afternoon. We’ll be plowed out by then.”

  He hung up and turned his attention to that exact issue. He needed to make sure the locals Doc Forrester had hired to plow out the long road leading back to the barn and farmhouse would be able to get to him sometime that morning. As the only vet servicing the Blue Hollow Falls area, from Hawk’s Nest Ridge all the way down to Buck’s Gap, it was important that he be as accessible as possible, both coming and going. Making house calls—or, more typically, barn calls—was also a regular part of his routine. After a snowstorm like the one that had ended up walloping them last night, emergency calls would be almost guaranteed today.

  Yet, snow plowing wasn’t where his thoughts turned. They turned in the same direction they had since he’d walked into his waiting room the previous afternoon to discover two snow-covered women with a bedraggled goat. One of those women in particular.

  The same one who drew him from his thoughts when he heard her talking to the now sprightly little goat who was housed in a small stall just a few yards away from his barn office.

  “Well, look at you,” she said. “You clever little stowaway. Maybe you’ve learned your lesson? No more jumping off the roof of your goat shed into unattended truck beds? No more burrowing under truck bed tarps?”

  Ben heard a cheerful, rather loud bleat from his newest charge, followed by Avery’s burst of laughter.

  “Is that a ‘yes, ma’am, won’t happen again, ma’am’ bleat, or an ‘in your dreams?’ I can’t tell.” She giggled then at another loud bleat. “Well, don’t expect me to trash any more of my expensive footwear to come save you. Although, come to think of it, now that these boots are ruined, I have the perfect excuse to bow out of future party engagements. Maybe I should be the one thanking you, hmm?”

 
; Ben stepped out of the office in time to see the goat, the hooves of his forelegs braced against the low stall door, pressing his head against Avery’s chest as she leaned over to hug him and give him a good rub on the back.

  “I don’t know,” Ben said as he walked down the packed dirt aisle toward the pair. “It seems a lot of trouble to get out of a social engagement. Maybe a simple ‘thanks for the invite, can’t make it’ would involve less trashing of outerwear.”

  Avery straightened and looked at him, still smiling, then turned back to the goat to carefully dislodge the sleeve of her coat from his nibbling teeth. “I don’t have any invitations at the moment.” She then scolded the happy little goat: “Save it.” Once free, she looked down at the front of her coat. Ben had washed and dried it the night before, but it could no longer be called a white snow jacket. Or even a gray one. “On the other hand, what difference does it make?” She offered the goat her sleeve back. “Here. Knock yourself out.”

  “I’d really rather he didn’t,” Ben said, closing the remaining distance. “He’s still recovering from the last time he did that.”

  The goat let out a rather plaintive, pouty sounding bleat at that, which had them both bursting out a laugh.

  “Bada boom,” Avery said, making an air drum riff, her hazel eyes sparkling with laughter.

  “We’re here all week,” Ben said with a chuckle.

  “We could take this act on the road. ‘The Vet, The Goat, and The Brain.’” As soon as the last part was out of her mouth, she immediately turned back to the nibbling little billy, not exactly embarrassed, but perhaps realizing she’d revealed too much, or sounded a bit self-aggrandizing.

  After his own observations, he didn’t really need to ask her to explain. While he and Cheyenne had settled the goat in, Avery had checked road conditions and learned the storm had caused numerous road closings between his place and theirs.