Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I have to fight to get the door open against the wind. The second I manage to wrench it open, something hard and feathery smacks straight into me.
“Oomph!” I throw my arms out on instinct and also on reflex as I curl back into the house. The door misses slamming me by an inch, but the chicken that just flew right into my arms is safe, so I let the bird go and bravely open the door again.
This time, nothing bangs into me. I let the wind swing it shut, but I make sure all my appendages are out of the way. It’s hard to race across the yard when the wind wants to blow me over.
I now get why the big barn door on the one side where Thaddius is standing, trying to herd the sheep inside, is a sliding door. If it weren’t, I guess it would be hell to try and open something that big and heavy, but this way, the wind can’t really take it either. It’s protected by the barn’s wall.
Thaddius is calm and rugged. His hair is all over the place, a whirlwind in the gusts, and his T-shirt is plastered against his muscular frame. He’s sweating even in this wind, but he’s the one doing all the work. He just raced across the fields at full speed, and now he’s trying to tuck animals inside while they’re panicking. The sheep keep escaping, bleating, and baaing piteously, unsure where to go.
I don’t think I’m going to be effective outside, so I step into the barn. As the window screams around the structure, rattling the wooden boards and grating against the metal roof, I wrangle the first sheep I can find. I have no idea who belongs in which pens, so I just steer the poor thing into the first enclosure and get the door shut.
“That’s it!” Thaddius encourages. I don’t think it matters where they go at this point as long as they’re inside and safe.
We work together, with Thaddius encouraging and herding the sheep inside and me taking them to their enclosures. It’s a miracle that, once they’re inside, they don’t rush back out when I have to open the door to get more than one into one pen because there aren’t enough pens for everyone to have their own, but maybe they know this is the safest place for them.
Again, I can only hope like hell about the safe part of that.
I go back again and again. Maybe it’s natural instinct kicking in for the sheep. I think they like to stick together in a herd, so they want to join the ones already inside. I keep going at it, expecting to have more. I step back to the barn’s entrance one more time, not really even looking where I’m going or what I’m doing. I just hold my arms out for another hurtling blur of wool to careen against me so I can usher them to their pen.
“Nina!” Thaddius suddenly yells my name, and I jerk my head up.
It’s not a sheep careening for me. It’s a wild, frightened donkey running at full speed.
For the record, I had no idea donkeys were actually cheetahs in disguise.
I squeeze my eyes shut, unable to move, and brace for death by donkey.
As a loud bray echoes through the barn, I’m slammed up against the wall. Literally slammed, but I can feel a hand behind my head, bracketing it so it doesn’t hit the wooden studs of the wall. I can feel the press of sweaty skin against my own sweaty skin and smell the salty, earthy smell of a man who has worked outside all day under a gruelingly hot sun. My heart is beating wildly, but not from fear. Or, well, okay, maybe it’s adrenaline, but it’s not the near-death kind of adrenaline I’d expect. It’s a totally different kind altogether.
“Are you okay?”
I slowly open my eyes. Thaddius. Thaddius, with all his hard muscles and warm skin and the smell of divine goodness, pressed up against me. My body is definitely still in shock. Otherwise, my lady bits would register that for sure. He saved me. Thaddius saved me. “I’m still in one piece,” I squeeze out in gasps.
“Good. God, that’s…good. Just stay here for a minute. I’m going to shut the rest of the pens and get the doors closed.
Now that Herman Merman is inside, he seems a little bit calmer, and his braying sounds more friendly and less panicked. Maybe I shouldn’t like that he nearly donkey-ed right over me, but I can’t say I blame him. His instincts were telling him to get out of the storm—and get out of it fast. If the animals are this spooked, it’s going to be a doozy.
Taking a shaky breath, I focus on getting my shit together instead of how sad my body feels the second Thaddius is no longer slammed up against me.