Chapter One

“You’re not closing again, are you?”

Jensen startled from where he’d been daydreaming behind the counter, watching the snow fall outside. “Sorry?” He turned to look at the Chinese-American man standing behind him, currently pulling his apron off.

Alex huffed out a laugh. “I asked if you’re closing again, Jens. That’s like four times this week.”

Jensen, nicknamed Jens since he was a kid, shrugged. “I don’t mind. There’s almost nobody here at night, and I like cleaning.”

Alex looked skeptical. “Man, we have got to get you a date or something. It isn’t good for you to be here with just Angie for company all the time.”

“What, you think I’m going to get handsy with him or something?” Angela asked from the back, where she was filling a mop bucket.

“No, I think he’s going to become more like a sixty-year-old woman than he already is.”

Angela reached a hand around the door jamb to give Alex the middle finger in response. “Just for that, I’m scheduling you for closing next week!”

Alex rolled his eyes and turned back to Jensen, who was dismantling the espresso machine to clean it. “Seriously, Jensen. Let me set you up with someone. Emma has a ton of friends, and I know at least two of them are single, gay, and really hot. She would be thrilled to set you up with them.”

Jensen blushed and ducked his head. “I…don’t think I’m ready for that, Alex. But thanks. I do appreciate you looking out for me.”

The other man shrugged. “Suit yourself. Have a good night, Jensen.” He stuck his head in the storage room. “Night, you old biddy!”

“Get fucked, Li!” Angela laughed and threw a rag at Alex as he hurried out from behind the counter and ran outside.

Jensen watched him retreat through the falling snow and chuckled as he turned back to cleaning the machine. He hummed along to the instrumental Christmas songs playing over the speakers, mind pleasantly blank.

At twenty-six, Jensen Gotterman was well aware he was nobody’s idea of a catch. He was short, only 5’5”, with skin the color of sour cream and red hair that was almost blindingly bright. Freckles covered his face, neck, shoulders, and arms, and a good chunk of the rest of him as well. He wasn’t in bad shape, but he didn’t exercise much either. His gray eyes were too big for his face and made him look permanently startled. He sighed as he caught sight of himself in the chrome of the espresso machine.

“Are you sure you don’t want Alex to set you up with one of Emma’s friends?” Angela asked kindly from behind him, making him jump.

“What? No! I…that would be a mess, Angie.”

She raised an eyebrow. Angela was in her sixties, with steel gray hair, shrewd blue eyes, and a wicked sense of humor. She was short and matronly and had run the small coffee shop in Grand Lake, Colorado, for decades. “Emma is sensible and good at reading people, even if she is dating a twit like Alex. I’m sure if she sets you up with someone, they’ll be decent and worth a shot.”

Jensen shook his head. “It isn’t that. I’m really just not ready to date again after Eric.”

“Ah. I see.” Angie began to clean the sinks. “I respect that, of course.”

“I know it’s been over a year and everyone thinks I should be moved on by now, but I’m on my own timetable.” Jensen turned back to cleaning, not wanting to meet her eyes.

“No, no I understand. Recovery takes however long it takes. I’m not pressuring you, I just worry you’re not happy, that’s all.”

Jensen turned to look at her after he finished reassembling the coffee maker. He knew everyone meant well and they just wanted him to be happy, but it still meant a lot of headaches when they tried to meddle. “Besides, Angie, if I left you’d wind up closing by yourself more often.”

She snorted. “Jensen, dear, I’ve closed this place on my own for years. If I need to do it again so you can go have some fun and get laid, I’m not going to complain.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, well, you’ll all just have to set up someone else, I guess.”

She chuckled. “Could you lock the door? I flipped the sign, but I didn’t lock it after the woman in the corner left.”

“Sure.” Jensen maneuvered around the counter and to the entrance and was just about to throw the deadbolt and close the curtains when he spotted a box sitting directly outside the door. At first, he thought it might be trash, but then he noticed that someone had closed it with tape, and it wasn’t blowing away, despite the fact the wind was pretty vicious.

He carefully opened the door and got closer to the box, cautious, listening hard for any sign it was a bomb or something dangerous.

“Jensen? What are you doing? It’s freezing out there.”

The box was moving. And making a great deal of very pathetic animal noises. Jensen crouched down and carefully pulled one of the flaps back enough to see a terrified black eye surrounded by white feathers. It was a large bird, and it was shaking and squawking, obviously terrified and upset. 

He quickly picked up the box and went into the café, locking the door behind him.

“What the heck is that?” Angie asked, looking at him curiously.

“Someone left it out front. There’s a live bird in it!”

“What? Like a chicken or something?” She grabbed a pair of scissors from the back room and came over to where Jensen had set the box on a table.

“No…I don’t think so.” Jensen took the scissors and opened the box carefully.

Inside was a huge white bird with half its feathers missing, huddled in an old towel, shaking. Its chest was bald and dark, and most of the feathers on the rest of its body looked ratty.

“Oh, my God…that’s a cockatoo.” Angie stared at the bird. “What happened to it?”

“I don’t know, but it has to be freezing. Do we have any other old towels? What do they eat?” He was slightly panicked and trying to keep calm now. It was obvious the bird was suffering, but he had no idea what the hell to do for it. He couldn’t recall a time he had ever been this close to a bird, besides maybe feeding ducks at the pond.

Angie pursed her lips. “I have some old coats in the lost and found. I’ll go grab a few. I don’t know what the hell it eats. Maybe some fruit?”

Jensen shrugged helplessly. “We should probably call the cops…this is definitely animal cruelty.”

The bird was looking at them, beak open, following their movements. It wasn’t moving out of its box.

“You’re right there…” Angie murmured. “You call the cops, I’ll grab the coats and ask the internet if birds can have a banana.”

Jensen pulled out his phone and called the sheriff’s office. He quickly explained the situation, and Mrs. Riley, the night secretary, assured him that one of the officers would walk over in just a moment. The sheriff’s department was just a few buildings down from the coffee shop anyway. He hung up and looked at the bird.

“Why did someone do this to you, huh?” he asked the bird.

The bird made a weird, garbled squawk and continued to look at him.

“Okay, the internet said that bananas are okay, which is good because that’s all we have. I put it in some warm water and mashed it up.” Angie set the bowl full of mush in the box near the parrot, which made a half-hearted attempt to lunge at her. Angie quickly pulled her hand out before it could do anything. “Hey, bird! We’re trying to help!”

The bird picked its way over to the bowl and investigated it, then tasted the banana water mixture. Deciding it was acceptable, the bird stuck its beak in, then tilted its head back to swallow.

“Look at how quick it’s eating… man, how long has it been in that box?” Jensen murmured.

A knock on the door startled both of them, and they turned to see a woman in a sheriff’s hat and thick shearling coat waving at them. Angie hurried to let her in.

“Damn, it’s cold out there!” The woman came inside quickly and unzipped her coat. Deputy Jeanie Green was in her forties and often popped in for coffee and pastries during her shifts. She was tall and had slate-gray hair, and crow’s feet were just beginning to show at the corners of her eyes.

“Hey, Jeanie. Thanks for coming over.”

“No problem… shit, that is a cockatoo. What the hell?” Jeanie approached the table with the box full of bird carefully. “It was just sitting outside the coffee shop?”

“Sealed into the box with tape,” Jensen replied.

“You gave it the food, I assume? There wasn’t any food or water in the box with it?”

“Yeah, Angie gave it the banana and the water. We had to check online if it was safe.”

The bird had eaten a lot of the mush and was investigating the bowl for the last of it.

“We need to get it to a vet. I don’t think they’re supposed to have their mouths open all the time,” Jeanie murmured. “It sounds like it’s wheezing.”

“Let us finish closing really quickly, and then we’ll drive him up to Blake’s,” Angie replied. “He’s the only one in the area I can think of who’d be willing to see a bird like this.”

“He’s not an exotic vet, though,” Jeanie replied.

“He sees chickens and ducks, at least. Anna only sees dogs and cats, and that business partner of Blake’s is definitely not going to deal with birds. Bless his heart, but he’s not even good with farm animals yet.”

Jeanie sighed. “You’re probably right. I’ll call his office and let him know we’re coming. I hate to bother Blake when he’s been running all over dealing with farm emergencies all week. Beth was saying he’s losing weight again.” 

Jensen watched the exchange in silence as he quickly finished sweeping the floors. The cockatoo seemed to be paying attention as well, as though it understood that it was being discussed. Jensen had no clue who Blake was, but then again, he didn’t have any pets, so the identity of a veterinarian wasn’t much of a priority.

Jeanie called the veterinarian’s office as they finished the last of their closing procedures. She tried multiple numbers but didn’t get any answers. Jeanie and Angie bickered a little longer, then seemed to decide the best course of action was to just head to the vet’s house on the edge of town. Jeanie said he always shut his phone off at night, and she didn’t know his landline number. Jeanie went back to the station to grab her patrol SUV and pulled it into the alley behind the coffee shop as close as she could get to the door. Angie and Jensen finished their duties, then carefully re-boxed the cockatoo and hurried through the snow into the warm and waiting car.

“I wish the bastard lived closer to town,” Jeanie grumbled as they made their way out of town and toward an area on the edge of town with a lot of old houses and well-to-do families.

“At least he isn’t far into the backwoods or something. It’s maybe ten minutes in good weather.”

“Yeah, but this isn’t good weather.”

Jensen watched the darkness, thankful for the small clicking and cooing noises the bird was making because it meant it was still alive. Finally, they pulled off the main road and into the driveway of a large, two-story house that appeared Victorian in design. Whether it was actually that old was a mystery.

There wasn’t a single light on in the house, but the porch light illuminated a walkway that had been swept. Jeanie got out of the car and made her way to the front door, and then began alternating knocking and ringing the doorbell. Angie and Jensen hung back in the warm car, waiting for a sign of life before they braved the weather again.

Finally, several minutes later, a light came on upstairs. Jensen and Angie hurried to the front door just as it opened, not bothering to lock the car behind them.

The man who opened the door was tall and lanky and grouchy-looking, dressed in sweatpants and a t-shirt advertising a bar in town that Jensen didn’t think still existed. He was leaning hard on a cane, favoring his left leg. He looked nothing like Jensen’s bastard ex or any other man he’d dated.

But damn if Jensen didn’t feel an immediate shock of something seeing him.