Page 124 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

Something slams into the back of my leg, jolting me back to reality. “Whoa!”

“Oh, sorry,” a woman says, putting her arm around a kid and drawing him closer to her side. “He was too busy staring at the donkeys to watch where he’s going.”

“I get it.” I give the boy a knowing wink. “They are all way more worthy of attention than me.”

Up ahead of us, there’s a ringing sound.

All around me, heads turn toward Frankie, who’s now swinging an old brass bell.

“Time for the first talk,” she calls out at the top of her voice. “Anyone interested in the history of the sanctuary, come gather in the big barn.”

I gaze up ahead at the building that less than a week ago was my temporary home. A building that my dad and brothers repaired so Skinner couldn’t blackmail Frankie over code violations. A building that means more to me than any one of the multimillion-dollar structures I’ve built.

I let the crowd flow past me, using them as cover before I bring up the rear.

The inside of the barn has been cleaned and swept out. Rows of folding chairs are set in neat rows before an older man who’s sitting facing them—Frankie’s grandpa, I assume. There’s an easel on either side of him holding large boards covered in photos. Behind him the old tractor has been uncovered and polished up to provide an authentic,shiny backdrop.

As people fill the seats, I glance up the stairs and wonder what it’s like up there now.

Down here, there’s not enough space for everyone to sit, so thankfully there are enough people standing at the back to shield me from view. I shuffle behind a woman wearing a freshly autographed Gabe Woods jersey as Frankie appears at the front next to her grandpa and stoops to whisper something in his ear.

He looks up at her with an affection in his eyes so deep that it makes my blood run warmer.

She squeezes his shoulder, straightens to look at the crowd and coughs to get their attention.

Everyone falls silent, apart from a child near the front who’s dramatically resisting sitting on his father’s knee.

“Thanks for coming, everyone.” Hearing Frankie’s voice again gives me a full-body tingle. One that makes me want to close my eyes and sink into the sound of it.

“I hope you’re enjoying the day, walking off your turkey dinners and breathing some fresh air as a break from the Black Friday sales,” she says. “I’m Frankie, granddaughter of the incredible Sam Channing.”

“That’s me.” Sam raises his hand and gets a laugh.

“He started the sanctuary with my grandma, Donna, before I was born. And I’m going to hand you over to him to tell you the story of how all this came to be.”

Sam eases himself out of his chair. “I’ve just gotten two new knees, and my physical therapist tells me I have to keep using them. So here we go. Just please forgive me if I’m a bit wobbly up here.”

There’s an appreciative smattering of claps.

“When Donna and I bought this land, there was nothing here.” He points to one of the photographs.

I peer over Hockey Jersey Woman’s shoulder, but can’t make out the picture from this distance.

“It was just seventy-five acres of pastureland with a house on it,” he adds.

My attention instinctively reverts to Frankie.

Love pours from her eyes as she watches Sam run through the history of how they inherited the first four donkeys and thought they were the only ones they’d ever have. But, not long after, someone asked if they could temporarily take in two more whose owner had passed away while a new home was found for them. It was supposed to be a one-off. But word soon got out and a shelter in New Jersey that was at capacity asked if they could take their overflow.

Before Sam and Donna knew it, they’d fallen in love with the gentle and loving animals and were setting up a nonprofit and recruiting a host of dedicated volunteers.

He has some great stories that amuse everyone. There was the time one donkey escaped and the search for him became a local TV news story, but the mystery was solved when the animal strolled into shot while the reporter was standing in front of the camera. The time they took in a new donkey and woke up at two a.m. because she’d given birth overnight and no one had any clue she was pregnant. And how Frankie learned to bottle-feed orphans and muck out the stables before she was a teenager, and how it helped shape her into the incredible human she is today.

It’s all I can do to keep from applauding and yelling, “Hell, yes.”

Sam sits back in his chair as he wraps up the stories.

“There’ve been some tough times here,” he says. “We had no clue what we were doing andlearned on the job, guided by the animals themselves a lot of the time. And of course there are times when it’s heartbreaking too.”