The Best Friend Zone

“What’d you do to it?” I ask.

“Little dancing mishap. Overextended it, tore some ligaments, kinda ruptured a tendon. No big.”

“Fucking ouch.” I shake my head at her. “You shouldn’t have been climbing the gate over the ditch in that state.”

“It wasn’t my choice!” she says, slipping a hand over her face. “I just…it turns out goats are a bigger handful than I bargained for, okay?”

I chuckle again.

That’s Tory, all right.

Accidentally tumbling into mischief might as well be her specialty.

The lady always could make me laugh with her antics, though. Even the first time I saw her, when she and a group of other kids thought it’d be cool to steal a honeycomb out of my grandpa’s bee boxes.

They’d dared her, supposedly, giving her all kinds of shit because she was terrified of bee stings.

The other kids scattered as soon as they heard me coming, but she’d stayed behind to apologize.

That impressed Gramps when he found out. Honestly, it impressed me, too, owning up to her mess.

She’d been a scrawny kid with long brown cinnamon hair and big blue eyes, several years younger than me. In no time, she became the one I always looked forward to seeing every summer.

There was a small group of us back then. Summer munchkins, they called us.

Kids whose parents hightailed it out of Dallas as soon as they’d been old enough, and then years later, sent their own children back to North Dakota every summer. That was my dad and hers.

“So what’s got Dean so busy he’s sending you out here to drop off his goats instead of doing it himself?” I ask her, flicking a mosquito off the back of my neck. “Don’t tell me he’s busy with that hot rod racing thing again? Sheriff Wallace almost threw him in jail last summer over the noise.”

Tory snickers, covering her mouth. “Oh, no. He threw his back out. Just as he was supposed to get busy with his first few clients, including the Barnets.”

I nod, not over her words as much as the sassy look she shoots my way.

A likely story. Everyone in town knows her uncle and his abhorrence for real work that requires any stamina.

If Dean Coffey could stick to one thing for more than a week, he’d be a jack of all trades. His ideas always seem great in theory, but when he discovers there’s actual work involved in these get-rich-quick schemes, his enthusiasm fizzles fast.

“His back,” I say slowly, pressing my tongue against my cheek. “Right-o.”

“Yeah, he can barely crawl out of his recliner.” She grins, giving me a splash of those morning-blue eyes. “Except to get a beer and warm up a chuckwagon sandwich in the microwave, of course. Poor guy.”

I cringe. “Hell. Chuckwagon sandwiches. Everybody deserves to eat like a king a few times in their lives.”

“But don’t they do it by choice?” She half grimaces, half giggles. “Those things are like Uncle Dean’s entire diet.”

Laughing, we arrive at the tree and take a moment to recount the goats for good measure.

“A full dirty dozen,” I tell her, studying the animals as they bob around, chewing at whatever they can find that won’t have them risking their necks in the rain.

“That’s what I count, too.”

“Yeah, so now what?”

She shrugs. “Dean says I just leave them here. The guy I talked to, Tobin, he said they’d be just fine back here, as long as the gate’s shut. I’ll check back tomorrow and pick them up in a day or two, after they’ve had a chance to eat up the brush.”

The storm picks up, big drops of rain falling. I put my hand on her back, guiding her under the tree branches to keep us from getting wet. “We might as well wait it out with the little guys. Doesn’t look like it’ll last long. Don’t think the forecast is calling for bigger rains the next few days, so they should be good.”

With my hand still on her back, I push our way through the goats huddled together until we’re near the tree trunk. I keep an extra eye on that dark, wicked-looking goat with the shifty eyes and longer beard.

“Uncle Dean didn’t mention goats not liking rain,” she says, leaning against the tree.

“It’s true. Even before the first hint of rain, they’ve got a sixth sense about it and head for coverage.”

“How do you know?” Frowning, she eyes me skeptically.

“Gramps had a couple goats one time. Twenty minutes before a rain storm, this big billy would always be standing on the porch, wanting to come inside. Couldn’t get him off it, either, not until it quit raining, then he’d leave all on his own.”

“A billy like that one?” She points to the large onyx goat with the hanging goatee.

“Yep. Quite a resemblance.”

“Hope yours was nicer. He’s half devil!” she hisses.

Grinning at the way she glares at the goat, I ask, “So he’s the boy who started this mess, huh?”