Chapter Twenty-Six

Holy shit.

Blake abandoned his backpack. He had no fucking idea if goats were prone to killing people, but he sure as fuck wasn’t taking a chance.

Already on the ground, Zandra scrambled backward on all fours like a floundering crab. “Blake.”

“Stay behind me,” he said sharply, coming between her and the once docile Lisette. “No matter what move I make, stay behind me. Got that?”

“O-okay.” No surprise her voice shook. Who’d have expected that a goat would fucking attack?

“I’m going to back us toward the gate. You ready?”

“Yeah.”

He held the tripod legs, extending it like a weapon. Some weapon. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t hold up against a charging goat, but Lisette didn’t need to know that.

He waved his free arm, keeping his weapon pointed toward the goat, who seemed determined to get to Zandra. “Keep your distance, Lisette. I promise she doesn’t want anything to do with your guy beyond taking pictures of the two of you.”

What the fuck?

He was talking to a goddamned goat and holding a makeshift weapon. Good thing his Army buddies couldn’t see him now.

Lisette flared her nostrils and made a sound akin to a honking horn. But then she backed up from him, and based on what he’d seen her do earlier, this wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

They circled each other like a stand-off, and he heard Billy bleating behind him along with some serious fence rattling. Blake tensed. The goat was probably giving her attack strategies or something. Or maybe Billy figured his female was threatened so he’d tear the fence down. That wouldn’t be good, either.

Movement caught his eye behind Lisette, toward the gate they’d entered from, but he didn’t acknowledge it, focusing instead on the wide-eyed stare of the four-legged creature that seemed determined to take Zandra down.

Not on my watch.

It was bad enough the goat had gotten a good run at her. She appeared to be fine, but still…

Behind Lisette, Jean-Paul made a brisk movement, but there was no way Blake was taking his eyes off the jealous goat. Whatever the guy had planned, Blake was determined to keep the goat distracted.

The Frenchman uttered a few words, enough to make Lisette’s ears turn in his direction. A goat that understood French? The idea was preposterous to Blake’s logical brain, but at this point, it didn’t matter. He just wanted to get Zandra out of here.

And while he wasn’t quite sure how Jean-Paul managed it, the goat turned and trotted toward the fence where he and Billy waited for her.

As far as experiences went, this ranked right up there as one of the most memorable. And the most ridiculous. Who the hell got attacked by a goat? Especially by a goat who seemed to be setting up some sort of a hookup with her goat boyfriend?

“You need to listen to me before you get hurt.”

The words were uttered so casually, but irritation battled with panic and won. “I don’t need to be protected.”

Zandra clutched her camera close, adrenaline racing through her. She was shaken, no doubt about it, and she could’ve been seriously injured…but she wasn’t. She was fine.

“Oh, yeah?” He crossed his arms and glared at her. “And what if I hadn’t been here just now? What if Lisette hadn’t let up?”

“She’s not all that big. She just startled me, that’s all.”

“She knocked you down, didn’t she?” Blake stalked toward her, all two hundred pounds of muscled control. “What did you expect me to do, Zandra? Stand around and watch her trample you? Maybe turn around and walk away while you handled things?”

There was an edge to his voice, a desperation that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but it was there nonetheless. He cared. Fiercely. She saw that in the way he protected his mother, her brother, her. The knowledge tore down the last defense she was sure was firmly nailed into place.

And that’s when it struck her faster than a jealous female goat on the attack. Zandra had gone and done it. She’d barely won her freedom, won the ability to direct her life, and now she’d fallen for a man who had the power to distract her from what she wanted, from what she’d always wanted: to focus on her own needs and not worry about how her life would impact anyone else’s. Especially Blake’s.

Panic flowed through her, as heavy as the cheese fondue they’d had for dinner last night.

“I could’ve done this trip on my own, Blake. I didn’t need you.” Oh God. She was being unreasonable, and she knew it, yet she seemed powerless to take the words back. “I don’t need you.” She could do life on her own, wanted to do life on her own.

“You’re not doing another video now, are you?”

“Better,” she muttered, poking at the screen. “I’m taking the next train out.”

“Hey.” He gently turned her to face him. “What’s going on? This isn’t like you.”

“Or maybe it is.”

He raised an eyebrow but said nothing. And if she stared into his eyes for much longer, there was a better than good chance Zandra would change her mind, might actually come up with some compromise just to stay with him. She couldn’t do that to herself.

“Look,” she said, fighting to keep her tone even. “I need to focus on my own life. I can’t worry about you or what you think, act, or feel. That’s not my job.” She stomped toward the open gate. She needed to get away from Blake, needed to put some distance between them.

She stared at her cell phone. There were numbers and letters and something that was supposed to be the train schedule. But what the hell was it even saying? She stopped beside the backpack she’d abandoned before entering the pen as a rush of dejection flowed through her, unearthing every shred of doubt she was sure she’d stomped out weeks ago. She tried to stuff them back, took deep breaths, and concentrated on the blue of the sky, the bleating of the goats, the chatter of farm workers who passed by.

What good was it? What good was any of it if she couldn’t figure out something as common as a train schedule?

“Zandra? Are you all right?”

She waved Blake off. “I’m fine,” she said, infusing every ounce of determination into her tone.

“You don’t look fine.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “What’s wrong now?”

The concern in his voice reached out to her, made her want to lean on him, lean into him. But that was the problem, wasn’t it? She swallowed, took a deep breath, and stared into his eyes, and the caring she saw in them nearly undid her. “I can’t do this.”

“Do what?” He frowned. “I’m not following you.”

She held out her phone. “This. Almost two weeks of taking the train and I can’t even figure out the stupid schedule, let alone which section of the train we’re supposed to be in or even where our seats are supposed to be on the damned thing.”

God. If she couldn’t figure out something that people all over the world did every single day, how the hell was she going to navigate life? Simple: she wasn’t.

“I’m a complete failure.” Maybe she was continuing to be unreasonable, but frustration spilled over almost as fast as the tears that trailed down her face. “I’m going to have to be an accountant the rest of my life.”

And that was the worst of it. Everything she’d worked for, every battle she’d fought to get this far—the endless hours of walking the streets of Seattle, of taking shots of bakeries and homeless tent camps, of even the damned birds that dared scoop down on patrons at outdoor restaurants and food trucks. None of it meant anything in the end.

She’d failed.

“Hey. So you can’t figure out a train schedule. So what? That doesn’t mean you’re failing at anything.”

“Easy for you to say. You’re not afraid of failing at anything. You’ve got it all handled, all under control. Everything from what you do for the Army to what you’re going to do once you’re out of the Army.” She swiped at her tears. “Well, guess what, Blake? We’re not all built like you. Not everyone is perfect.”

“You’re perfect to me.”

The tears fell faster at the quietly spoken words. Maybe, but the fact remained he wasn’t perfect for her. Not with where they were in their lives. It’d only be a matter of time before they were both miserable.

She raised her head and caught his gaze, caught the small smile that tinged his handsome face. “I mean it, Zandra.” He swiped her tears away with his thumb and, hands on her shoulders, drew a deep breath, gazing at the cloudless sky like he was collecting his thoughts. “This time with you, it’s been really special, because you’re special.”

“I am?”

“You are.” He pulled her into a gentle hug, and all the reasons to walk away seemed to have escaped her. “I promise you are.”

Their gazes locked, and there was that fuzzy feeling again, the one that made her think that just because they weren’t together, together didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy each other’s company.

At least, that’s what she told herself as she took a deep breath and held out her phone with the train schedule still on the screen. “Would you please show me one more time how to read this thing?”