The Mistletoe Kisser - Lucy Score Page 0,13

my sheep,” Ryan argued. “This woolly mammoth belongs to some irresponsible hippie. He ran out in front of my car. I don’t know if I hit him or if he’s hurt. Or if he’s a he,” he supplied, refusing to resume control of the makeshift leash he’d made with his own belt and supplies he found in his stupid car’s tiny hatch. “He answers to Stan.”

After “Hey, sheep” and “Stupid, jackass livestock” hadn’t elicited a response from the animal, Ryan had to get creative.

It had been easier than he’d thought to stuff the sheep into the passenger seat. Stan had hopped right in. Catching him had been another story. Ryan’s shoes were ruined. His jeans were wet from the snow he’d fallen in five or six times. And his hands were so numb he had serious concerns about losing digits.

Now he appeared to be in a stare down with the bigger, non-pajamaed goat. Ears flicking, it stalked toward him. Ryan took two steps back. Great. He was going to die by goat. It was a fitting end to a disastrous week.

“Back off, demon,” he said.

“She’s mostly friendly,” the man cradling a baby version of the yellow-eyed monster assured him. “She only hates me.”

As if to prove his point, the goat changed directions and head-butted the guy in the thigh.

“You mother-effer,” the guy hissed through his teeth.

Ryan wondered if he was cleaning up his language for the sake of the baby goats. This town was insane.

“Knock it off, Clementine,” the vet said sternly. The goat actually looked contrite.

Kneeling face-to-face with the sheep, the doctor stroked competent hands over Stan’s thick wool. The sheep’s tail fluttered like he—or she—was enjoying the attention. Ryan hoped it was a sign of sheep happiness and not an impending sheep shit.

“He ran out in front of me. I slammed on the brakes. I couldn’t tell if I hit him or a pothole. It took me half an hour to catch him and load him up,” he explained, still not quite believing this is what his life had come to.

“Where did you find him?” Goat Guy asked.

“On a farm,” he said, shoving his hand through his hair and finding more mud there.

“Whose farm?” the vet asked without looking up from her examination of the sheep’s legs.

“My great-uncle’s. Carson Shufflebottom. I think everyone here knows him as—”

“Old Man Carson,” Goat Guy filled in.

“Yeah.”

At the mention of his uncle’s name, the vet gave him a weird look.

“Carson doesn’t have any sheep,” the vet said, blowing a hunk of honey blonde hair out of her eyes. “Just chickens.”

Freaking small towns. Where everyone knew who had what livestock.

She stood, still avoiding his gaze and coaxed the sheep to walk with her around the waiting room. The beast pranced like a show pony next to her. He caught a glimpse of a bright, shiny smile as the vet beamed down at Stan.

She had one hell of a smile. The kind that if it was aimed in his direction had the potential to knock him back a step. People who smiled a lot made him suspicious. No one should be that happy all the time.

“You’re not Ryan, are you?” she asked, snapping him out of his suspicion.

He debated lying. God only knew what unstable Uncle Carson had told his hometown about him. Then decided it didn’t matter what a reasonably attractive veterinarian in a town he’d never visit again thought of him.

“I am,” he admitted.

“Listen, Sammy. I gotta get the kids and Jojo’s car back,” Goat Guy announced, hooking his thumb toward the door.

“Better hurry, Jax, or Joey will make sure you never finish that screenplay,” the vet—Sammy apparently—said. “Call me if Thor’s limp doesn’t get better.”

Jax—what kind of a name was that anyway—leaned in and gave the vet a kiss on the cheek. Ryan moved the too-charming man onto his Things to Dislike About Blue Moon list right between “the weather” and “free range farm animals”.

“You’re my hero, Doc,” Jax said with a wink and grin that in Ryan’s opinion weren’t at all charming. “Good luck with your sheep,” Jax said to Ryan.

“He’s not my sheep,” Ryan said. But his argument was lost in the chaos of the other man rounding up his four-legged army of weird and heading out the door.

A pretty, reindeer-antlered tech held the door for him and stood there grinning after him.

“Are you going to help him, Jonica?” Sammy asked the tech.

“I’m gonna watch and laugh for a minute before I offer any assistance,” she called over her