Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
“What the hell, Randy?” Tad barks, but his brother’s already spinning back toward the porch, eyes wide and body panicked at the sight of me, seemingly, in Tad’s arms.
He gives a half-startled, “Uh…morning?” before bolting back outside. Tad follows after him quickly, and I follow behind the two of them in confusion and curiosity.
The cold hits instantly, sharp and biting, and then I see…
Well, I’m not entirely sure what I’m seeing.
A cluster of woolly shapes crammed half in, half out of a squat little building. Some of them are bleating, some are shoving each other, and one has what looks like a giant sack over its head.
The snow is trampled into a muddy mess, and the air smells…ripe.
“What in the actual hell?” I whisper.
Tad grabs my hand, already dragging me forward. “They broke into the feed shed.”
“The what?”
“Where we keep the grain.” He points with his free hand. “That idiot Nash—” he jerks his chin toward the sheep staggering blindly in circles “—managed to get a whole bag stuck on his head.”
I blink. “Oh my God! Is he suffocating?”
Tad snorts. “No. Just stupid.”
We’re running now, snow spraying up around us, my coffee splashing dangerously close to my wrist. “Why are they all shoving each other?” I call out, trying desperately to keep up.
“Because sheep are greedy little bastards. One gets a mouthful, the rest want in. It’s like a Walmart Black Friday circa 1995 in there.”
Randy throws his arms up when he sees us coming. “Wow, Tad! Isn’t this fantastic? A true vision of our sheep-farming excellence!”
Tad ignores him, letting go of my hand and wading into the wool storm.
The sheep with the bag stumbles into another one, knocking them both into the snow. Grain scatters everywhere, and suddenly, there’s a mad dash of bleating, wool, and tiny hooves scrambling over one another to get a bite.
Tad curses as he lunges forward to use some muscle against the flock. “Come on, Breezy. Help me block them in!”
I freeze. “Block them in? With what?”
“Your body!”
“My what?”
“I promise, Breezy. I would never put you in harm’s way,” he says as he nods toward where he wants me to stand. “I just need your beautiful presence right over there to distract them. They won’t do anything besides move in the opposite direction of you!”
Tad is in the thick of it, muscling sheep back into the shed while Randy wrestles the bag off the one’s head.
And somehow, against all odds, I find myself edging sideways in the snow, arms flung wide, trying to shoo woolly bodies back where they belong. My boots are not made for this. My pants are not made for this. I am not made for this.
But Tad glances back at me—sweaty and laughing—and suddenly, I don’t care.
Instead of being horrified, I’m laughing right along with him. Something about snow, sheep, and the smell of farm feces unleashes ducts I thought were clogged a long time ago.
I feel alive.
…
The sun is higher now in the sky, and somehow, the yard looks ridiculous and right all at once.
After this morning’s debacle with the feed shed, my clothes and boots were destroyed. Now, I’m in Tad’s clothes. His jeans hang off my hips like a tent, his flannel is huge, and his boots are about five sizes too big.
I look like some badly styled country music video, and I’m grinning anyway.
There’s mud on my cuffs and grain dust in my hair, and for the first time in a long time, I’m not thinking about how I have no idea what I’m going to do with the rest of my life or the fact that I’m currently squatting at my brother’s house with absolutely zero plan.
Instead, I’ve spent the whole morning pulling sheep out of places sheep should never be, slipping through mud, and laughing more than I probably have in months.
After we got the feed shed under control, Randy didn’t ask any questions about what I was doing at Tad’s place. He just gave me a quiet nod, the kind that said he’d seen more than he’d comment on, and went about his morning. He’s been out in the back fields ever since, working the snowplow near the creek that’s started backing up. But Randy Hanson is steady like that. Quiet when Tad is not. He’s brooding in a way that somehow feels protective instead of cold.
Tad is fixing the last bit of fence near the feed shed. His jaw is set in a firm line, and his strong hands work the wire with competence. He glances over, and for a second, his face softens before he goes back to focusing on the task at hand.
And I’m currently sitting on a bale of hay, taking a short break while watching him work.
When my eyes catch sight of the discarded and hardly drunk to-go cup of coffee he made me this morning, I can’t stop myself from pointing out the giant elephant in the room.