“Thanks,” I breathed out, ignoring how unbelievably good it—he—smelled. “I… appreciate this expression of human decency on your side. And accept it.”
Cameron sighed, and I knew he remembered his own words. “I’ll accept that you think I have great hair. I also believe I do.”
I started smiling, and as my lips bent, Cameron’s gaze dipped to my mouth. In the distance, the music came to an abrupt stop that was followed by one loud and boisterously clattering sound. As if an instrument had fallen to the ground and shattered. We both started to turn.
But a distressed baa stopped us. It was loud, and just as boisterous.
And it was also Brandy.
Losing her ever-loving goat mind.
My arms reached out in her direction. “That’s okay, Brandy,” I said in what I hoped was a soothing tone. “You’re fine. That was just a little scare. But you’re okay, I promise.”
But Brandy wasn’t okay. And she wasn’t soothed, either. Her head swayed side to side and her paws hit the ground back and forth. It didn’t take a vet, a zoologist, or even a person who was mildly informed about goats to know that the poor animal was rattled to her core.
Helpless, I reached out again.
Brandy jumped to the side, almost hitting a log that had been resting against the rock we were sitting on. I lunged myself to stop the blind animal from hurting herself. But I missed. Again.
“Adalyn,” Cameron warned, his voice right behind me. “Let me—”
“No,” I interjected. Because he was scared of them. I couldn’t possibly expect him to calm the goat.
So I resumed my quest, reaching for a panicked Brandy, but I—
Looked down, and found a trail of anxiety-induced poo.
“Oh God,” I said as I veered for the opposite side. But Brandy was still distraught—and therefore, very much pooping all over the place. “Brandy,” I tried again, seeing Cameron dash for me out of the corner of my eye. “Cameron, no,” I warned him, thrusting one hand in his direction and the other one in the direction of Brandy. “The goat,” I explained, watching how Brandy twirled and headbutted into my side with enough force to push me a step back. “The poo,” I added, stepping on something soft and feeling my shoe slide forward. “The flannel!” I finished, miraculously managing to grasp the jacket with both hands and throw it up into the air.
I landed on my ass.
“Jesus Christ, Adalyn,” Cameron barked. “Are you okay?”
“Tell me your jacket is safe,” I answered from the ground, blinking at the now dark sky above me. Hmm, pretty. “And I’m fine. The goat poo softened the blow.”
My suit on the other hand? Not so much.
A head popped into my field of vision. His lips were in an angry pout. Hands came around my arms. Sides. Head. Neck? I didn’t know, because before I knew how, or where his hands had been, I was upright and the hands were gone.
“Hey,” I complained. “I was fine down there. That was an intentional trip.” His brows arched. “I was looking at the stars?” I tried. Cameron’s nostrils flared. “Fine. I fell. But you can’t be mad, because I saved the flannel. And I really was looking at the stars.”
“Fuck the jacket—” he started.
But something behind him distracted me. Brandy. Heading for the water.
“Oh no.” I sprinted around Cameron. “Brandy!”
Cameron murmured something, or maybe he shouted it, I didn’t know. And I didn’t—couldn’t—care. I was too busy jumping into knee-high freezing water to make sure a blind six-month-old goat named Brandy, whose poop I was covered in, didn’t drown.
Cameron Caldani and his stupid flannel jacket would need to wait.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Adalyn
If I thought Cameron had been exasperating when he’d been indifferent toward working with me, that was because I had no idea how Cameron was when he was actually involved.
“You’re being stubborn,” he told me with that annoying arch of his brow.
“Me?” I scoffed. “You’re the one who’s been complaining about the color scheme for the new uniforms for a full hour. Honestly, for someone who dresses in technical wear that comes in colors like Smolder Blue, Northern Black, or Rocky Gray, you seem very keen on deciding what shade of green the socks should be.”
He let out a grunt.
The fifth one in the last hour. As if he was some… bear-man.
“What’s wrong now?” I asked. “Did I offend your fashion sense by saying the truth?”