by Score, Lucy
7
Showered, changed, and accompanied by one Stan the sheep, Sammy pulled up to Old Man Carson’s farmhouse. The lights on the first floor were on, casting a cozy glow out into the winter night. There was an electric car the size of a ladybug parked out front.
The house looked the same as it always had. Sammy had been coming to the farm with her mother since she was old enough to hand the doctor the right instrument at the right time. Carson Shufflebottom was practically a historical figure in Blue Moon. He was in his eighties but looked closer to a hundred. His wife—an excellent gardener and horseshoes tournament champion—had passed away before Sammy was born. So Carson belonged to the community.
Neighbors brought him meals. Fellow old-timers kept him company at doctors’ appointments and Saturday diner breakfasts. As Carson’s age crept up, his ability to take care of the land and equipment declined, so farmer friends and visiting family stepped in to help with the upkeep.
It had been a favor to her to have Carson keep the scraggly flock of chickens she’d liberated from a neglect situation. He’d enjoyed having animals around again and spent hours in a lawn chair in the pasture, whittling and philosophizing with the newly free-range birds.
The bigger, higher-maintenance rescues were spread out amongst a network of soft-hearted farmers to foster rescued livestock until her own barn and pastures were ready.
If necessary, she’d give that list of farmers a call tomorrow to see if any of them would mind taking Stan the sheep for a few days while she worked on finding his owners. But for tonight, she was teaching Ryan “Why Should I Remember You and Here, Have a Sheep” Shufflebottom a lesson.
Sliding out from behind the wheel into the cold night, Sammy drew in a breath of sharp, crisp air that invigorated her lungs. “Let’s go, Stan,” she said, opening the back door.
The sheep happily followed her out of the SUV and trotted into the snow while she wrestled the bale out of the hatch and huffed and puffed her way into the barn.
The flock of chickens squawked at her from their temporary coop inside. “You guys can go outside tomorrow,” she promised them. Finding the first stall clean enough, she made quick work of spreading the straw for a comfy, temporary sheep bed. She added a scoop of pellets to the feed bin then found and filled a heated water bucket.
“Okay, bud. Head on in. Your grumpy roommate will let you out to graze in the morning, and we’ll go from there,” she promised.
Obediently Stan shuffled into the stall and shoved his face into the food bin.
Sammy secured the stall door and headed back out into the December cold. She debated just leaving, but her first kiss had grown into an adult ass. Ryan Shufflebottom needed to understand he couldn’t come to town, not remember her, and start abandoning livestock all over town.
There were rules, after all.
She’d just pop in, yell at him a little, and be on her way. If she kept the lecture short, she could finish a half-dozen wreaths before bedtime. Okay. That was a little optimistic. Maybe three wreaths.
Sammy took the porch steps two at a time and gave the front door an authoritative rap.
A muffled snarl sounded on the other side of the door.
In Blue Moon, that was good enough to be considered an invitation. She pushed open the front door and stopped short when she spotted him.
He was kicked back in Carson’s favorite recliner, wearing one of Enid Macklemore’s rainbow knit hats and one mitten. A mostly empty bottle of whiskey sat on the ancient metal TV tray next to him. It was wrapped in the matching scarf.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she groaned.
“Hey, vet lady,” Ryan crooned. Apparently Drunk Ryan was significantly more friendly than Sober Ryan. “How’s Stan? He’s a sheep, you know.” He picked up the bottle and drank straight from it.
“I am aware,” she said, crossing her arms and weighing her options. He was an asshole. But a drunk one. Her veterinarian’s oath required her to use her skills in the “prevention and relief of animal suffering.” Considering this guy’s manners, he was on par with a misbehaving baboon.
On a heavy sigh, she stomped back into the kitchen. The room was an homage to the 1960s, complete with bile yellow appliances and brown, peeling linoleum tiles. She found a glass, filled it with water, and returned to the living room.
He was hefting the whiskey again, aiming for his mouth but on course to make contact with his eyeball when she snatched the bottle out of his hands.
“Uh-uh, buddy. No more. Drink this instead.”
He took the glass from her and drank half of it down before making a face. “This clear whiskey is garbage,” he said, sniffing the glass.
“Drink the rest of it,” she ordered.
“You smell much better than you did,” he mused. “It makes you more attractive.”
If she slapped him now, he wouldn’t feel a thing and likely wouldn’t remember it. She’d save it for when he was sober.
“I’m so glad you approve,” she said dryly.
“My approval shouldn’t matter. You’re fairly beautiful. You should know that without someone telling you.” Drunk Ryan’s level of snark rivaled Sober Ryan’s.
“You’ve gotten really bad at giving compliments since we first met,” she observed.
“Ha. Joke’s on you. I was never good at it. ’Sides, why should I tell you you’re sexy when you obviously already know you are? Waste of time.” He hiccupped.
“What the hell happened to you, Ryan?” she asked. The guy she remembered had been mischievous, lively, flirtatious. The man he’d grown into was a grumpy pain in the ass. Maybe it was the military school his mother had threatened him with all those years ago?
She found a pack of lime green sticky notes on the skinny table at the foot of the stairs. The mirror above it was covered in Carson’s nearly indecipherable notes to himself.
Find lightbulbs.
Buy overalls.
Breakfast with BC.
Her eyes narrowed when she read the last one. In Blue Moon, BC stood for the Beautification Committee, and the Beautification Committee stood for trouble. Before she could puzzle out why Carson would be having breakfast with them, Ryan distracted her.
“Hey! Hey, Sexy Sam?”
She didn’t turn around fast enough, and he pegged her in the back with a cross-stitched throw pillow that said Farm Life.
“What?” she asked in exasperation.
“Why do you keep pretending like we know each other?” he asked. His bloodshot eyes narrowed, presumably to keep her in focus.
“Because we do know each other.” But only one of them had been memorable apparently. It was downright disheartening to know that she’d meant nothing to the guy who had given her her first kiss and set her on the right path.
She cringed when she thought of all those Solstice celebrations when she’d strolled past Mistletoe Corner, wrapping herself in warm, fuzzy memories.
Let Stan out into pasture, she scrawled on the note.
Looking around for a good place to put it, she settled on Ryan’s forehead. She gave the adhesive an extra smack just to make sure it stuck.
“Hey,” he mumbled.
“I seriously can’t believe you don’t remember me, you ass,” Sammy grumbled, wrestling the first loafer off his big, stupid foot.
“Why in the hell would I remember you?” he slurred.
“Oh, only because you were my first kiss, jerk. Under the mistletoe, surrounded by Christmas lights.”
He snorted with drunken derision. “That sounds like one of those stupid holiday movies.”
“Just for that, I’m leaving your other shoe on.”
“I was not your kirst fiss,” he enunciated with arrogance.
“Yes. You were.”
“Not. I’ve never been to this tie-dye holiday hellhole before today.”
“I was fourteen,” she lectured. “You were Ryan Shufflebottom from Des Moines visiting your great-uncle Carson Shufflebottom. We met in
the park during the Winter Solstice and Multicultural Holiday Celebration. We were both in line for fried tofu.”
He sat up abruptly, stopping mere inches from her face.
“Shufflebottom? Des Moines?” he squinted at her. “Tofu?”
“Ha. I told you,” she said triumphantly. And then—because she was a good person, damn it—she yanked off his other shoe and threw it in the direction of the first. “You were so sweet. So much fun. What happened to you?”
“First of all, I would never eat fried tofu. That’s dic-susting. Nextly, I was never sweet. And bullet point number B, that wasn’t me.”
Sammy threw her hands in the air. He could argue mistaken identity all he wanted. It didn’t matter. He’d already ruined the moment for her. “Fine. Whatever. It doesn’t matter what you were. It only matters what you are now.”
“What am I now?” he asked.
“A miserable, grumpy, superior, snide adult who seems like he’s never had fun in his entire life. I bet your bedroom walls are beige,” she predicted.
He frowned, furrowing his brow. “Hey. Those are my feelings you’re hurting.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m not sorry.” She took the empty glass and returned to the kitchen to refill it.
“Oh, come on,” he called after her. “You’re whining about some lame holiday peck from a guy who’s too busy getting pedicures and visiting sketchy massage parlors to pay his own rent. I’m the one whose life just unraveled. You don’t hear me bitching about it!”
She practically ran back to the living room. “You’ve done nothing but bitch about everything,” she scoffed, handing him the glass again instead of upending it on his head like she wanted to. “What’s the matter, Crabby Patty? Sad about being stuck in this ‘hippie hellhole’ for the holidays?”
“I could give a steaming crap about the holidays,” he said testily. “I’m much too distracted by the fact that my biggest client lied to my face for years, embezzled a fuckton of money from his own company, and got me fired because I damaged my firm’s reputation.”
Sammy eyed him in surprise. Maybe the Grinch had a reason to be grinchy. He flopped back in the chair, spilling water over the rim of the glass onto the crotch of his pants.
“They fired me,” he said quietly. “Didn’t even give me a chance to defend myself or remind them what I’ve done for them for the last twelve yucking fears.”
“That sucks,” she said, feeling the tiniest spark of empathy.
He eyed her suspiciously. “Yes. It does. I love my job. ’S my whole life.”
She knew the feeling. “What do you do for a living?”
“Corporate accountant,” he said. “And now Bart Lumberto, the buck-toothed weasel, is putting his ass in my chair behind my desk and gloating about it.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” she said. “I hope it works out.”
“Works out? Ha. That’s unpossible. Did I mention that I dislike this clear whiskey very much?” He raised the glass to her and then chugged it in two long swallows. While he was distracted, Sammy tucked the whiskey bottle behind the bizarre pile of shoeboxes on the couch.
“Oh! And”—he stabbed at the air wildly with one finger— “now I’m supposed to swoop in here and save the day.”
“Whose day?” she asked.
“Great-Uncle Carson. ’S a family thing. I shouldn’t talk about it.” His attempt at a whisper came out in the realm of a shout.
Grumpy Ryan was kind of cute when totally shit-faced. The observation annoyed her. “Is Carson in trouble?”
“Pfft. Only if ending up homeless in an air tunnel at one million years old is trouble.”
Oh, good. They’d gotten to the gibberish portion of the evening.
“It’s on me, disgraced corporate accountant guy, to swoop in and save the day.” To emphasize his point, Ryan slashed his arm through the air and knocked a tissue box and its crocheted cover to the floor.
“Where is your uncle?” she asked, trying to make sure there wasn’t a real emergency that needed to be dealt with.
“He’s in Boca with a fetlock.”
“I don’t think you know what that word means,” she said.
“His plane went through an air tunnel,” he told her.
“Oh, boy. Okay. Maybe let’s get some sleep. Regain some sanity. I’ll swing by in the morning and help you with the sheep and chickens. You can tell me more about the fetlock and the air tunnel then.”
He opened one eye and looked at her with suspicion. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why would you come help me with anything? Don’t you have other things to do besides help people do stuff?”
“It’s what we do here, Ryan.”
He screwed his face up. “That’s weird. You’re weird. You probably have a dumb gazebo that gets snowed on every Christmas Eve.”
She’d officially had enough. “I hope your hangover is terrible,” she told him. “Now go to sleep.”
“’Kay.” He obliged by closing his eyes and letting his head loll to the side.
She sighed, then pulled a green-and-orange knit afghan off the back of the couch. Just as she started to drape it over him, he came back to life.
“Pants!” Ryan yelled.
Sammy jumped back as he flung his limbs out wildly. Somehow, with an excessive amount of flailing, he managed to unzip his jeans. She caught a glimpse of absolutely no underwear and decided now was a very good time to leave.
“Uh. Yeah. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, backing away. “Merry Christmas.”
“I don’t want your pity Christmas spirit!” he roared. He shoved his pants down to his knees.
She was only human. At least, that’s what she told herself when she peeked for one whole second. Okay. Fine. Five seconds.
From where she stood, Grumpy Ryan had nothing to be grumpy about below the waist. In fact, he should be the happiest guy on the planet.
“Night, Sexy Sam,” he murmured.
Opportunistic ogling complete, she hurled the blanket at him and bolted for the door.
She was still thinking about him—and his bottomlessness—fifteen minutes later when she let herself into her own house. The fluffy, striped head of McClane—the surly six-year-old cat—popped out of a naked wreath on her dining table when she flipped on the lights.
“Hey, guys,” she sighed, wishing she could just sink into that couch, light a fire, and watch TV until she fell asleep like a normal adult.
But her kitchen sink held four days’ worth of dishes. Her table was buried under what looked like a craft store explosion. Ribbon, wire, fake pine cones, sparkly berries on wire stems. Her collection of every size of jingle bell was scattered across table and rug. McClane’s doing, most likely. He liked shiny things he wasn’t supposed to play with.
One wreath, she decided with a yawn. She’d just double down tomorrow and block off some serious crafting time.
“Who wants to help me wash dishes and make a wreath?”
Blue Moon Community Facebook Gossip Group
Sammy Ames: If anyone is missing a friendly male sheep, please contact my practice immediately.
Edit: Please call only if YOU or SOMEONE YOU KNOW is DEFINITELY missing a sheep right NOW. Not two years ago or one time in college. A currently missing sheep.
Edit: A SHEEP. Not a cow or a cat or your car keys.
8
Very early Saturday morning, December 21
* * *
Ryan couldn’t tell if the knocking was coming from inside his skull or from the outside world. Blearily, he pried one eye open. It was dark. But he wasn’t certain if it was still dark or dark again.
The knock sounded again.
“I can see you staring at the door,” a very smug, very female voice called. “Open up.”
The pretty vet, he realized, then decided he was too hungover to find anyone attractive.
“Go. Away,” he rasped, pulling the blanket up over his face. It didn’t help though—the
re were so many knit holes in it. Even the blankets in this town were ridiculous.
The door opened, and he heard footsteps.
“Morning, sunshine,” she called chipperly in a volume several decibels too high.
Morning. Okay. At least he hadn’t lost an entire day to an over-thirty hangover. Yet.
“You know, in the rest of the world, ‘go away’ means the opposite of ‘come in,’” he groaned.
“Town Ordinance 17-06 of 1985 gives any Blue Mooner the right to enter the premises of another Blue Mooner if they are concerned that a crime or a crisis is in progress,” she announced.
“Great. So you just legalized breaking and entering.”
“Technically it’s just entering since the door wasn’t locked.”
“That’s not my fault,” he insisted. Though who he could blame it on wasn’t immediately clear either.
“No one locks their doors here,” she said, sounding amused.
“Why the hell not? What stops someone from walking into your house and stealing your shit?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe being a good person?”
“This place is so weird.” Ryan pulled the blanket tighter around his head and willed the world to stop spinning.
“Whoa there, tiger. I didn’t come here to get an eyeful of Grumpy Junior.”
“Grumpy Junior?” he rasped. The cold air from the open front door finally reached his unprotected southern hemisphere. Peering through one of the face-sized holes in the blanket, he realized he was completely naked from the waist down. Fuck.
He snatched the blanket off his head and hurled it over his lap. “What the hell happened last night? Or is it still last night?”
It was pitch black outside the farmhouse windows.
