A Temporary Arrangement

She hid a smile as she went to the back door. “If you prefer. I’m sure you’re more of an expert at all of this than I am.”

She sorted through a pile of boots, found a small pair that had to be Keifer’s, and handed them over. The rest were size elevens. After considering her muddied shoes, still wet from last night, she took a pair of rubber work boots, found some ratty yellow gloves and stuffed one into each toe.

“These are going to look like clown shoes,” she muttered, looking up at Keifer. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

He nodded solemnly, though his mouth twitched.

The fog still hung low and heavy, tinged now with the faintest shade of rose. The cows had moved farther toward the road, where—luckily—she’d closed the gate last night.

“Do you ever see wildlife around here?” she asked casually as she followed Keifer down the lane toward the barn.

“’Possums. ’Coons. Deer. No wolves, though, if that’s what you mean.”

He stepped into a mud puddle with a splash and nearly fell, his arms flailing. “Whoa!” She steadied him.

She glanced around at the forest still shrouded in mist…where something rather large could hide.

“I think I saw a bear once,” the boy continued, “but it was pretty far away. Dad sees wolves, but not this close, so I never saw one. Pictures, though. Dad takes lots of pictures.”

“Pictures,” she echoed, trying to imagine the man she’d met as a photographer. “Really.”

The lane climbed a gentle hill and soon they were out of the ground fog. “For his book.”

“Like a picture album?”

“No, a book about wolves.”

She glanced at Keifer, but the boy kept trudging on with his attention on the ground in front of him. If the kid had said Ethan Matthews raised platypuses and giraffes, she couldn’t have been more surprised. “He writes books?”

“Not kid books, though.”

“Really.” Maybe the boy had things a little confused. The man she’d met at the hospital had hardly seemed the erudite, professorial type.

Ahead, probably another twenty yards, the first slivers of sunlight picked out a wooden barn that must have been constructed recently, and beyond it, a fenced pasture and a much older barn weathered to pewter-gray.

On the south side of the new barn, a ten-or twelve-foot pipe gate hung askew from just one hinge, its top bars bent.

“I think we’ve just discovered how your dad’s livestock got out,” Abby said, relieved. “He must’ve forgotten to chain the gate.”

“Dad doesn’t do stuff like that. He’s real careful.”

“Maybe when he got hurt out here, he couldn’t get it fastened. Let’s bring a bucket of grain from the barn and see if we can lure some of those animals back, okay?”

“I’ll get it.” Keifer ran through the gate and disappeared around the building. He returned a moment later, ducked into the barn, and soon came out with a bucket of corn that was obviously a heavy load for a kid his size. Puffing, he set it down at her feet. “I think this is weird, though.”

She caught the handle of the bucket in one hand and tested the weight of it, then started back down the lane. “What’s weird?”

Keifer chewed at his lower lip. “The pens for the sheep and goats were open, too!”

Abby switched the heavy bucket to her other hand and flexed her tender fingers. She smiled down at him. “He was hurt, so he was probably in a hurry.”

“No. I mean, he was—but I was out here with him when it happened. He never opened those other gates.”

Abby paused. “You said goats were smart and hard to keep penned, so maybe they just played Houdini.”

“Who?”

“Houdini was a guy who could escape from just about anything.”

“No.” Keifer’s voice held an edge of fear. “It wasn’t the goats. The locks were sawed off, Abby. Why would anyone do something like that?”

Abby eyed the muddy barnyard. “I’ll take a look if we actually get any of the livestock back up here,” she said. “Now, let’s see if we can round up some critters.”

THIRTY MINUTES LATER Abby was hot, muddy and frustrated.

The sheep and cows were nowhere to be seen, but shaking a bucket of grain certainly attracted the goats. They charged toward her as if that grain were their last, desperate hope for survival, then shouldered one another out of the way and nearly knocked her off her feet.

She hurried to the barn, with three irate goats butting at the bucket, and her.

Headline: Foolish Nurse Lures Angry Goat Mob With Grain—Trampled To Death. Or, Woman Chased By Goats—Spends Two Weeks In A Pine Tree.

Both sounded entirely too plausible by the time she’d finally trapped them in their pen.

Keifer, who’d brought up the rear, eyed them warily as she poured part of the grain into a feeder and quickly slammed the gate shut again.

Leaning against the gate to catch her breath, she ran a hand wearily through her hair. “I’ve definitely lost my fondness for goats,” she announced. “How about you?”

But Keifer wasn’t paying attention. He’d squatted by the gate to study something and held up a long heavy chain and padlock. “See, I told you,” he said.

She stared at the ruined padlock. Then turned slowly to scan the nearly impenetrable forest surrounding the little buildings on three sides.

Shadows seemed to coalesce, materialize, then slink away. Every boulder, every clump of under-growth offered a place to hide.

Someone had cut that padlock after Ethan left. Someone who’d wanted to cause trouble. But why?

And the bigger question… Where was that intruder now?

She turned to Keifer and reached for his hand just as a much taller shape loomed out of the mist not twenty feet behind the boy.

She bit back a scream.

CHAPTER SIX

ETHAN SPUN AROUND, expecting to find a ten-foot bear looming over him or an angry moose, ready to charge.

“Dad!” Keifer started to run for him, then faltered to a stop. His face looked worried as he stared at the heavy white bandaging that covered Ethan’s arm from elbow to fingers. “Holy cow.”

Ethan gave his arm a rueful glance, then welcomed Keifer into a one-armed hug. “I’ll be good as new before long.”