Page 14 of Burke (The Haven #2)

B urke didn’t hear from Shirley yesterday, hoping she made it to the bank on time.

So, when he woke up the next morning, a sense of unease crawled under his skin, probably because of these unpleasant financial circumstances surrounding Silvia and his concerns for Shirley.

He got out of bed, dressed quickly, and walked downstairs and into the kitchen.

Dwight was already cooking, coffee already on, but Burke saw no sign of anybody else.

As soon as he walked toward the front porch, a low-pitched warning came from Timber.

Burke slowed his steps until he gingerly came out onto the front porch and saw the doe and her fawn, eating the little bits of grass off to the side of the front yard.

It was the first time he’d seen them this close.

Just watching both mom and baby—happy, free, and content—made him smile.

Timber lifted a hand and pointed in a different direction. Burke froze. A black bear had his back up against one of the huge posts they’d put up to run hydro lines. The bear was completely unconcerned as he worked his back against the post, as if to scratch an itch.

Burke quickly sat down beside both Toby and Timber. “Don’t tell me that he’s another one you rescued.”

Timber chuckled. “No, but he’s been coming around a lot.”

“Is that good or bad?”

Timber shrugged. “I won’t say either way at this point, but, as long as he hasn’t caused any chaos, we’re fine.”

Toby inclined his head toward the bear. “We call him Big Mike.”

Timber added, “He’s not after anybody here, and he’s not causing any trouble, so I’m good with him popping by for a visit, since it goes along with everything else that we’re doing here.”

“I guess. It’s not as if he needs help, right?” Burke asked.

“No, not at the moment anyway. But I do want him to come if he does need help, and that means he needs to be comfortable here.” Timber studied the bear intently.

At that, the bear dropped down to all four legs, wandered around a little bit, sensed them up on the front porch, but, instead of walking away, he stopped to look at them. Then he slowly meandered around the yard, before finally disappearing out of sight.

“Beautiful animal,” Burke whispered.

Timber smiled and nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I want to keep this land up here.”

“Of course, it’s their land too.”

“Exactly,” he agreed, with a note of satisfaction. He looked over at him and asked, “Did you get any sleep?”

“I got some. Nothing quite like having my identity stolen to further steal from me, while I’ve got other things happening right now, to pull my strings and to wake me up. I seem to be thinking about the worst-case scenario of everything that can go wrong.”

“Of course,” Timber noted, with a smile, “but hopefully you’ll also have some good things to think about.”

“I haven’t heard anything from Shirley today—or yesterday,” he shared, with a worried look on his face. “I texted her, but I’m not sure she got the message.”

“She’s probably not up and awake yet either.”

“No,… probably not,” he conceded, “but I would feel better if she had sent me a note to say she was doing okay.”

“Then reach out again and ask her.”

He pondered that for a moment, then did exactly that. “Hope I didn’t wake her up.”

“Depends on what time she starts work,” Timber noted, his voice still mellow from watching the bear.

When Burke’s phone buzzed, he looked down and nodded. “She’s awake.” Then he smiled and shared, “She went to the bank yesterday, removed the money, and set up a new account and got new cards, all with extra alerts set up.”

“That’s good news,” Timber noted.

When Burke’s cell buzzed again, he frowned.

“Shirley thinks she saw Silvia heading into her bank immediately afterward.” He started texting back, asking if Silvia had accounts there.

“As far as she knows, her sister never had an account there, but Shirley can’t be sure.

So now she’s worried Silvia was there trying to get to Shirley’s money. ”

“That seems understandable and would be my first thought too.”

“Yep, mine too.”

“Of course, now that Shirley knows what her family has been up to, it will be hard to stay neutral.”

“I don’t even think she can stay neutral, not with cooperating with the police and realizing she’s at risk herself,” he added.

At that, Timber nodded. “Yet Shirley doesn’t have a whole lot of options when it comes to that level of deceit and fraudulent activity.”

“It’s certainly appreciated on my end,” Burke shared. “I just hope it doesn’t have repercussions for her.”

Dwight stepped out with a coffeepot and topped up their cups. “Now that we have the wildlife becoming as active as they are, we’ve got to keep the garbage contained around here.”

Timber looked at him and then slowly nodded. “Good point. Is there something more we need to do?” he asked, as he looked around at his property. “I would have thought we had most of it contained.”

“Most of it maybe,” Dwight conceded. “But most of it isn’t all of it. We just need to give the guys a heads-up. Breakfast won’t be long.” With that, he headed back inside with the coffeepot.

Burke looked over at Timber. “He really likes doing the cooking, doesn’t he?”

“He seems to. When he first got here, he was out there swinging a hammer with the rest of us, but very quickly he decided to use his skills inside, and he’s been a godsend.”

“He alone?”

“Yeah, mostly. Toby here is a hell of a cook too, and helps out when needed.”

“Of course, it’s not easy feeding us all.”

All at once their day started rather abruptly, as a big trailer came down the driveway while they were eating. “I wasn’t expecting them quite yet,” Timber muttered, as he stood up.

“What is it?” Toby asked, putting down the tongs and stepping outside.

“It looks as if the horses are here.”

“What about intake?”

“Let’s hope Tiffany was given a better word about timing than I was,” Timber noted. “I’ll give her a call in a few minutes.” But, sure enough, driving behind the trailer was Tiffany.

She pulled up and parked, then walked over to the driver’s side of the delivery vehicle and directed him to where she wanted the trailer parked.

As they got turned around and backed it up, she walked over, gave Timber a big hug, then looked at Burke and smiled.

“Are you settling in pretty well?” she asked in a teasing voice.

“A little too well maybe,” he replied, with a smile.

“Oh, now that’s easy to do here,” she noted.

“It’s a peaceful place to begin with. Then with the added opportunity to help set up a situation that will be so good for both the animals and the people who come through,” she added, “it’s pretty hard to not want to pitch in and do something.

” He just nodded. Then she walked back over to the driver with the horses, where they had a long discussion and started going over the paperwork.

She returned to join Timber and said, “I can take care of some of the paperwork, but the rest will require your input and signature.”

Burke got up and walked over to join them, as they discussed the horses.

When they were ready to unload, he opened up the big gates, then opened up the back of the trailer, and started leading the horses out, one by one.

Some of them were in okay shape, a couple rather desperately needed farrier work, and one was limping pretty badly.

He wasn’t sure whether it was the fetlock, the hoof, or something else. One of the other ones was skin and bones. He paused when he looked at her and whispered, “So sorry, sweetheart. We’ll get you fixed up.”

By the time he had them unloaded, he turned around to find Timber going over each animal’s condition with Tiffany.

She smiled at Burke. “You’re obviously used to horses.”

“I am,” he confirmed, with a gentle smile. “God’s creatures.”

She nodded. “But then I think all of them are God’s creatures.”

He laughed. “I won’t argue the point, but horses definitely have a soft spot in my heart.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” she noted. “If you want to give me a hand, we’ll move a couple over so I can start checkups. I want to record some stats for them and see just what kind of problems we’ve got.” She motioned toward her vehicle. “I brought a portable X-ray scanner with me too,” she shared.

When he raised one eyebrow, she nodded. “It’s one of those investments that you make, not sure if you really need to, but you do it because you want it.”

The next two hours were spent leading each horse into one of the treatment areas, where she did a thorough check of them, wrote down notes as to what they needed, and then they were separated.

Most went straight to a couple pastures, where they were happy to be left alone to do their own thing.

A few of them she kept in one of the paddocks up close.

Burke asked her, “Do you have a farrier?”

“No, I’ll have to call somebody in.”

He hesitated but added, “Look. I’m not licensed, but I’ve done plenty of it.” When she looked at him, he shrugged. “My uncle had a farm, and he was a farrier by trade.”

“In that case, until we can get somebody in, do you want to give us a hand to make these two a little more comfortable? They’ve got very overgrown and cracked hooves.”

“I saw that,” he noted. “It’s one of the reasons I offered. I’ll have to get some tools though,” he pointed out. “That’s something I didn’t bring with me.”

She nodded. “Do you want to make a trip to town?”

He winced. “Not really.”

She burst out laughing at that. Tommy soon came over and announced that he was heading into town to get supplies and asked if anybody needed anything.

She smiled at him. “You might be sorry you asked.”

He laughed. “Probably, but, in a place like this, we always need somebody to go pick up stuff. I’ve already got a list of groceries to pick up for Dwight, plus the list from the building crew. So, what do you need?”