Page 19 of The Thing About My Secret Billionaire

“It would be no problem to do that now, but okay.” She shrugs. “Anyway, so it’s those pants, the long sleeve T-shirts, two sweatshirts, gloves, and a hat, right?”

“Yup. And I need to get underwear.”

“Are you going to model that for me too?” The instant tomato-red blush in her face races down her neck as she turns away to dig in her bag as if she wished she could climb into it and zip it shut.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “I forgot that you’re not an old friend I can joke with like that.”

“I’m flattered I feel like an old friend.” And I turn back to the changing room, trying not to do a little happy dance that the plan is already showing signs of working.

I’m tipping the dirty water from my wipe-down of the cot and every surface in the loft down the drain near the barn door when Frankie strolls over. The way that yellow beanie and matching scarf frame her face is pretty startling.

“Since it’s getting dark, how about I show you how we get everyone in at night?”

“Sure. Let me just go grab my jacket.”

Minutes later we’re in the shelter at the far end of the enclosure that houses Waldoand his pals.

Frankie points to a large old metal lid that looks like it might have come from an oil drum, and an ancient-looking wooden spoon beside it.

“Grab those,” she says.

“The lid and the spoon?” What the hell for?

“Yup.”

I take my stiff new work gloves from my pocket and put them on before picking up the implements. “Now what?”

“Bang the lid with the spoon.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see.”

The second the spoon clangs onto the lid the first time, all the donkeys in the field turn to look at me, their ears pricked. Then they start to trot over.

I continue banging, and they continue trotting toward us. “Is this some sort of donkey-calling witchcraft?”

“Grandpa trained them. To make it easier to get them inside. There aren’t really any dangerous predators around here, so technically we could leave them out all night. But he likes to be totally sure they’re safe.”

“What’s that brown one doing?” I point at one that started to make its way toward us, but stopped and looked back.

“That’s Jack. He’s waiting for Jenny, the lighter one over there,” Frankie says. “He won’t come in until she does. Their nightly ritual.”

“Well, that’s kind of…sweet.” And it actually kind of is.

After Jack and Jenny make up the rear and enter the large barn, Frankie does a quick head count to confirmthere’s ten of them. “All present and correct. Let’s go do the little ones.”

As soon as we enter the smaller enclosure, four of the little donkeys, none of which come up higher than my hip, dart over to Frankie and nuzzle her pockets.

“You only love me for the treats,” she says, pulling out a couple of carrots.

“Do you carry vegetables with you at all times?” I ask.

“You never know when they might come in handy,” she says. “One summer when I was a kid, weeks after I’d gone back home, my grandma spent forever trying to figure out where a weird smell in the kitchen was coming from. Eventually she realized it was my jacket that was hanging on one of the pegs. In one of the pockets, she found a rotting carrot.”