Kincaid cried out and tried to shoo the goat off Marco. But the goat only turned to go for her ponytail instead.

“Oh no you don’t, sister,” Kincaid said, dodging. “We can’t be best friends if you mess with my hair.”

Taking advantage of the goat being distracted by Kincaid’s swinging ponytail, Marco turned and grabbed for Beula, deftly getting an arm around the goat and then hoisting her off the counter. The goat screamed like she was being murdered and then almost instantly calmed when Marco held her against his chest.

“There you go,” Marco said with the calm voice of a guy who spent his days with skittish animals. “You don’t want to fight. It’s good to know when you’re outmatched, my friend.”

“Aww,” Kincaid said, making goo-goo eyes at the animal. “You like Dr. Marco?” She carefully patted the goat on the head. “Of course you do. You have excellent taste.”

“For curtains,” Ash said before he could stop himself. Ugh. What was wrong with him? He was not this guy.

Marco sent him an oh-are-you-still-here look and then smiled at Kincaid as if she were the only one in the room. “Let me get our new friends outside before they do any more damage. I can give them a quick checkup, make sure they don’t need anything immediate, and then load them into the trailer I brought over.”

“You’re the best,” Kincaid said, still sending an adoring glance toward the goat. “Thanks for doing this.”

“Not a problem,” Marco said, heading toward the back door. “You might want to get a new lock on this one. Looks like the wind or someone knocked it open. You don’t want something worse getting inside.”

Ash took a deep breath, trying to center himself and get the proverbial stick out of his ass. “I’ll board up the door.”

About an hour later, the goats were fed, checked over, and loaded up. Ash had busied himself with boarding the door and then cleaning up the living room. He was carrying out a box of trash when he heard Kincaid laugh, the sound dancing on the breeze. He turned, spotting her at the bottom of the driveway near Marco’s truck. She was standing close to Marco, her back to Ash, and had her head thrown back with the laughter. Ash couldn’t hear what was being said, but he couldn’t miss the way the veterinarian was looking at Kincaid. The guy wouldn’t be good at poker. Even from this distance, Ash could see how spellbound he was. The dude had it bad. Ash knew that look because he’d worn it himself too many times.

Ash knew he should look away. It wasn’t his business. But he couldn’t seem to move from the spot where he was standing. So he watched as Marco reached out and gave Kincaid’s hand a squeeze. He watched as the guy bent to kiss her on the cheek and then lingered there, saying something against her ear that made her dip her head.