certain Hannah wouldnât burst in without getting the green light.
âCome in!â
Hannah flung open the door again with a laugh. âBreakfast!â
âThank you, Hannah. Nice waiting, too.â Casey smiled at the girl. âCan you do something for me? Would you take Hercules out to use the bathroom while I get dressed?â
Brockâs daughterâs face beamed at the thought of being able to carry Hercules for the first time.
âI know youâll make sure heâs okay.â Casey was reassuring herself as much as she was reassuring Hannah. It was hard to let Hercules out of her sight. He was so small and vulnerable. But she had heard about Hannahâs affinity for animals from Taylor, and she had seen how kind she was with her own dog, Lady.
Casey yawned several times, wiped the sleep out of her eyes and stretched her arms high above her head, before she scooted to the edge of the bed with a dramatic sigh. Rest time was officially over for her. Today, she had to go see how the Beasthad fared in the storm, figure out how to get it towed if need be and then figure out whether or not she was just going to stay for a short visit with her sister and then head back to Chicago. She wanted to stay in Montana for the summerâit was too late to put in a request to work summer school. And she had been looking forward to this trip for months. Sheâd hate for it to all fall apart, but she couldnât imagine staying with Taylor and Clint, in their small rental, for three months. Even though Taylor would try very hard to make her feel like she wasnât a bother, she knew that she would, in fact, be an intrusion on the newlyweds.
Casey went into the tiny attached bathroom to fix her hair, if possible, and wash her mouth out with mouthwash. When she got a load of herself in the mirror, she started to laugh. She looked like a redheaded Medusa. She had tried to tame her hair before bed, but it hadnât worked. Now, it was even worse after a night of sleep.
âWhatever.â Casey made a face.
She took off the white undershirt Brock had let her borrow. After getting dressed, she made the bed, and then left the folded undershirt on the comforter, along with the pajama bottoms she hadnât used. Brockâs pajama bottoms had just slipped right down her hips.
Finally, she retrieved her beloved Jimmy Choo boots from beneath a nearby chair and stared at them sadly. They were ruined. Her beautiful, expensive , Jimmy Choo boots that she had vision-boarded for months, that she had saved a little every month to buy, were caked with red clay and still wet from the day before.
âYou poor, poor boots. You didnât deserve this. I didnât deserve this.â Today, she wasnât even going to try to be careful with them. There was no use shutting the gate after the cow got out. Resigned to their untimely demise, Casey shoved her feet into the boots and headed downstairs.
âGood morning.â Casey was met with a cornucopia of breakfast food smells when she entered the kitchen.
âMorninâ,â her host greeted her. âCoffeeâs hot, mugs in the drying rack are a safe bet.â
âBless you.â Casey poured herself a cup of coffee.
âIf you need milk or sugar, theyâre somewhere in the fridge. Just fish around.â
âI take it black.â She took her coffee to the table.
Brock was manning the stove in a âKiss the Chefâ apron, while Hannah, who had already had her breakfast, was on the floor formally introducing Lady and Hercules in the light of day. They had met informally in the cellar, but this was the first time that they were nose to nose, so to speak. Lady was lying down on the floor, her head between her two outstretched front legs, obviously trying to do her best to make friends, while Hercules was yapping as loudly and as ferociously as he could manage in order to assert his dominance in the
Stephen L. Antczak, James C. Bassett