Chapter Four

“Is he breathing?” I held my own breath hovering over Chance until I saw the rise and fall of its little stomach. It had shaggy long hair and was spotted like a cow, but its eyes bulged from its head more like a frog. The poor goat was only a baby. One I’d just raced into with my car while fighting over a damn vibrator.

At first, I didn’t actually think I’d hit him. But then I watched in horror as he fell straight over, all four legs standing straight up stiff, like something out of a bad movie. Now we were both standing over him, waiting for something to happen, neither of us quite sure what to do.

Without warning, the goat flipped himself and was suddenly standing on all four feet. Startled, we both jumped back. Chance’s arms spanned wide as if to protect me from a killer beast.

The baby goat took a few cautious steps, and then proceeded to walk directly into my BMW, as if the two-ton mass of steel wasn’t even there. “Oh my God. I must have hurt his head. Look how confused the poor thing is.” I reached out to touch the wounded animal, and Chance grabbed my arm, stopping me.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to pick him up. Look at him. He’s hurt. I ran him over.” I skirted around Chance and leaned down on one knee, extending my hand in peace to the sweet little goat. “And it’s all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Yes, your fault. If you hadn’t been distracting me, I would have been paying more attention to the road, and this would have never happened.” The goat nuzzled into my hand. “Oh my God. Look how cute he is.” I petted the top of his head, and he snuggled even closer.

“It’s not my fault. If you weren’t so uptight about your sexuality, you would have been calm when I found your magic wand.”

I stopped petting the goat’s head. “I am not uptight about my sexuality.”

Chance folded his arms across his chest. “Admit that you pleasure yourself then. I want to hear you say it.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Uptight.”

“Pervert.”

“A pervert is someone who has sexual behavior that is wrong or unacceptable. That’s your problem. You think pleasuring yourself is wrong. I find it perfectly acceptable. In fact, I rather like the thought of you using your little magic wand.”

I was pretty sure my eyes resembled the poor goat’s—bulging from my head. Just then, a truck whizzed by us. One of those double trailers that always made me nervous to drive near. A whoosh of wind in its wake reminded me how close to the road we actually were.

“Come on. It’s dangerous out here,” Chance said.

“What are we going to do with Esmerelda?”

“Who?”

“Him.” I scratched my nails behind the goat’s ear, and he made a low humming noise that sounded like he was saying, “mommmm.”

“Let him go.” Chance waved his arm in the direction of the wooded area behind him. “Back where he came from. He’s fine.”

“He’s not fine.”

“Looks fine to me.”

“I think he has a head injury.”

Chance shook his head. “He’s fine. Watch.” He clapped his hands and made kissing sounds as if he were calling a dog. “Come on buddy. This way.”

Esmerelda made no effort to move, quite content with her head pressed against my chest and her body between my legs.

“You need to let go of him.”

“I’m not holding him here.”

“Not physically. But he’s got his head buried between your cleavage and his body between your thighs. No male is going to walk away from that willfully.”

“See. Told you. Pervert.”

Another truck flew past. This time he sat on his horn as he breezed by, and I went from squatting down to tumbling back onto my ass. The goat…well, he took one step and fell over again—all four legs stood straight up in the air. I couldn’t believe I’d damaged such an adorable baby goat.

“See. He’s hurt. We can’t leave him here.”

“What do you expect us to do for him? Belt him into the backseat of the car and take him to a veterinarian for a full work up?”

Two hours later, we were finally pulling off the highway in Sterling, Colorado to take our passenger to the Sterling Animal Hospital. It had taken Chance nearly a half-hour to unpack and repack the back of my car to make room. He wasn’t happy about it.

“Snowflake?”

“No.”

“It’s from the children’s book…”

“Heidi. Yes. I know.”

“You do?”

“What? You just assume I’m uneducated because I don’t walk around with a stick up my ass like your Harrison?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh yeah? So what made you assume I wouldn’t know a classic literature story?”

“I don’t know. You just don’t seem like the type.”

“Well maybe you should stop typecasting people. Not everyone fits into neat little compartments you know.”

We were both silent for a while, with only the woman’s voice from my GPS interrupting occasionally to direct us to turn.

“Mutton.”

“Excuse me?”

“For the goat. A name.”

“We are not naming him mutton! That’s sadistic.” We’d been arguing over names for the last hour or so. I favored names from Greek mythology or classic literature, whereas Chance wanted to name him one of the many dinners the poor baby could be turned into.

We arrived at the animal hospital, pulling up to an open spot right in front of the door. I made Chance carry the little guy, even though the door was only about ten feet away. Holding Esmerelda Snowflake, he looked…hot.

Was I that demented? Because I actually thought he was even sexier carrying a goat.

Inside, the women at the front desk confirmed it wasn’t just me. Their eyes feasted on the bulge of his biceps as he carried our injured passenger to the front desk. He was quite the sight. I started to smile. Until he spoke.

“My friend slammed her BMW into this little guy while she was trying to get a grip on her vibrator.” He smirked at me and winked at the receptionist. She blushed. I wanted to punch him.

“I’d like to get him checked out. I didn’t think I hit him, but he just seems…off.”

Chance snickered and mumbled under his breath, “He’s not the only one.”

Fifteen minutes later, we finally saw a doctor. He checked out the goat as if it were an everyday occurrence. One hand held him down on the examining table, the other pressed on his belly, checked his eyes, and wiggled all four legs. It seemed like a thorough physical to me.

“Everything seems to check out just fine. He has the usual congenital myotonic symptoms, and he probably suffered from a thiamin deficiency at some point. But those conditions don’t come from a car accident. In fact, I don’t see any signs that this little guy was even hit. It was probably just the fainting.”

“The fainting?”

The doctor chuckled. “This here is what is commonly known as a fainting goat. It’s a genetic disorder. Popular around these parts. Some farmers even show them. They faint when they get nervous. All the muscles in their bodies freeze up, and they basically just tip over. Only lasts about ten seconds. Doesn’t cause any pain, but it’s unusual to see for the first time.”

“But…he’s confused, too. When he got up, he walked straight into my car. And kept banging into things during the drive here.”

“Well, that’s likely because he’s blind, too.”

“Blind?”

“Thiamin deficiency, I’d guess. Unfortunately, it’s becoming a more common problem. Improper feeding, particularly too much grain and too little roughage. Greedy farmer trying to fatten up the animal quickly. One of the side effects of the deficiency is blindness.”

“Let me get this straight,” Chance said with a skeptical tone. “We didn’t hit the goat, but he faints when he’s scared and he’s blind.”

“That’s right.”

Chance erupted in laughter. It was the second time I’d seen him lose it in the last twenty-four hours. His chest heaved, and a deep throaty sound echoed through the room. I couldn’t help it. It got to me. Next thing I knew, I was hysterically laughing. too. We laughed so hard, tears streamed down our faces.

“What are we supposed to do with him?” Chance chuckled as he spoke to the doctor.

“Whatever you want, I suppose.”

“Where do we bring him?”

“Bring him?”

“Is there, like, a shelter for animals we can bring him to?”

“For goats? Not that I’m aware of. Although there are quite a few farmers around. You can probably get one of them to take him in as part of their herd.”

“The same type of farmer that tried to fatten him up to make a quick buck and blinded the poor thing?” I asked.

“Well, there are good farmers out there and bad. Just like anything else.”

“And how do we tell the good from the bad?”

The doctor shrugged. “You don’t.”

We’d been in the car almost ten hours already. Chance was driving, and our new passenger was sound asleep in the back seat, actually snoring. I didn’t even know goats snored. “We should stop soon. It might take us a while to find a hotel that allows pets.”

Chance’s eyebrows shot up. “Pets? You think we’re going to find a hotel in the middle of nowhere that accepts goats?”

“What choice do we have?”

“He’s staying in the car tonight, Aubrey.”

“He most certainly is not.” I folded my arms over my chest. “He cannot stay locked in a car overnight.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” I was angry he was ready to leave the goat in the car without so much as a blink of an eye. “Because what if he gets scared?”

“Then he’ll faint.” Chance chuckled.

“That’s not funny.”

“Sure it is. Come on, Aubrey. Lighten up. Your being uptight is what got us into this mess in the first place.”

I had no idea where it came from; the confession just blurted itself from my lips, “I pleasure myself. Okay? Does that make you happy to hear?”

Chance grinned. “As a matter of fact, it does.” He shrugged. “I pleasure myself too, Aubrey. In fact, the next time I rub one out, I’m going to picture you.”

He did not just say that? I was appalled. But also sort of turned on. I opened my mouth to say something back to him, then closed it. Then opened it.

Chance glanced over at me and then back to the road. “Well, well, well. Aubrey, babe. Whatta ya know. You fancy me pleasuring myself to your pretty face.”

“I do not.”

“You do, too.”

“I do not.” I totally do.

Surprisingly, Chance let it drop. He pulled off to the side of the road into a parking lot of what looked like a nicer version of Wal-Mart. It was an oversized warehouse of a store, only the front had a stone façade. Cabela’s The World’s Foremost Outfitters.

“What are we stopping for?”

“Supplies.” He parked the car. “I’ll be out in ten minutes. You can stay with Billy the Kid so no one steals him.”

I was outside the car stretching when Chance returned, both of his arms filled with bags. I bent at the waist, finishing a rotation of stretches and leaned to my right to greet him.

“What is all that?”

He didn’t respond for a minute. I bobbed up and down slightly, leaning into my bend and then looked up at his face to find what had made him quiet. He was looking right down my shirt. It wasn’t his fault; I was basically putting it on display right before his eyes. My shirt gaped in the front giving him an eyeful of my cleavage. I stopped bouncing. Eventually, his eyes lifted and found mine watching him. Our eyes locked. I knew that look. I’d seen it before. In the mirror after I’d gotten a look at his ass.

He shook his head and blinked a few times. “Gear.”

“What kind of gear?”

“Tent, lantern, kindling wood, sleeping bags.” He shrugged. “Basic camping supplies.”

“For what?”

“Camping.”

“You’re going camping?”

He shook his head and shoved the bags wherever he could find any free space. The trunk and backseat were packed to the brim when I started this trip. And now I had an extra passenger, a goat…and apparently camping gear. “We’re going camping.”

“Ummm…I don’t camp.”

“Then Curry over here.” He pointed to the backseat. “Is sleeping in the car.” Chance closed the trunk, and his hands went to his hips. “What’s it going to be, Aubrey? Camping or he sleeps in the car alone.”

Apparently I was going camping. There’s a first time for everything.