Page 22 of Xel: Broken Bond

“Perfect,” I said, relieved all over again. Okay, so maybe if Xel kept being this helpful, I would have to learn to overlook the lack of in-depth conversation. He clearly wasn’t stupid, for all his reticent ways, so maybe this was just more of a ‘speak when you’re spoken to’ sort of thing.

And if that was the case, then it was probably up to me to be a bit more forthcoming with conversation. Lectures about animal care were all well and good, but they couldn’t take the place of sharing real thoughts and feelings.

Deal with the donkey first, I mentally scolded myself. I could navigate my own self pity later.

We headed back inside the stable, and Doot helped by holding the various doors open while I led Huckleberry out of his stall, with Xel bribing him the whole way with tempting mouthfuls of fresh grass. It was a long, slow process, particularly when we got to the ramp of the trailer. Huckleberry stopped, and for a few long minutes, it seemed he wasn’t willing to go any further. The ramp shifted a little under his weight, and for a creature used to being so unsteady on his feet, that was enough to frighten him.

But Xel was endlessly patient – far more so than anyone I’d ever know, outside of the other staff at the sanctuary – and he stood on the ramp, holding out the grass, backing slowly, slowly into the trailer, until hunger finally won out against caution. Huckleberry plodded anxiously up the ramp, lifting his feet highto try and avoid tripping, and was rewarded with the rest of the armful of grass once he was finally standing inside the trailer.

“Nice work,” I said to Xel, a wealth of appreciation in my voice – not just for his help, but for the completely unruffled way he’d delivered it. He seemed like the sort of man who’d be handy in a crisis, able to keep himself and everyone around him calm.

“Thank you, sir,” Xel replied, and his tone caught me off guard for a moment. It was warm and slightly husky, like honey poured over hot toast, and the little smile on his face was full of satisfaction. And god, he was gorgeous when he smiled. I had the insane thought that I was going to have to give him a reason to do that more often… and then I quickly squashed the idea. Not that I wanted him to be miserable. But swooning over him like a lovesick teenager was entirely inappropriate. Job done, we eased around Huckleberry and out of the trailer.

“I’ll call the vet out to give him a thorough check over,” I told Doot, as I secured the rear door. “We’ll let you know how he goes. He’s got a long, slow recovery ahead of him, but I can’t see any reason why he shouldn’t do well, in the long run.”

Doot nodded and shook my hand again. “Good to see you again, Cole. Don’t be a stranger. We should get a beer sometime. And you too, Xel. Thanks for your help.”

“Yeah, we should do that,” I said, knowing that both he and I knew I didn’t mean it. There was no way in hell I was going to go and sit in a pub and let a bunch of half-drunk busybodies gape at me for the whole evening. “Take care of yourself. I’ll see you next time.”

I eased the car back onto the driveway, listening to the faint thumps as Huckleberry learned to balance himself, and then we were off, heading back towards the sanctuary, where we’d have a whole new pile of work to do.

After five minutes or so on the road, Xel said, “Doot seems like a nice man.”

“Yeah, he is,” I agreed. “Cares a lot about the animals. I guess that makes his job a pretty stressful one. It’s not all animal neglect and inhumane conditions, but there’s enough of that that it can get draining.”

“We should invite him over. For a beer.”

I looked sharply at Xel, before fixing my eyes back on the road. “What? Why?”

“He said we should have a beer. And forgive me if I’m being presumptuous, but I got the impression that you wouldn’t enjoy going out to a pub or a restaurant. But there’s no reason why we –you– couldn’t invite him to your house for a social evening.”

The fact that Xel was being rather insistent about it made me once again re-evaluate my impression of him as being on the laconic side. I’d displayed no particular enthusiasm for the idea, and yet he was pressing it – which was fairly un-dimari-like behaviour. So could it be that he was pushing the idea becausehewanted another opportunity to socialise?

“No, I don’t think so,” I said, feeling a wave of regret even as I said it. “It’s just one of those things people say, but they don’t really mean it.”

There was silence for a moment. Then Xel said, “Then perhaps we could simply invite him over to check on Huckleberry in a week or two? I’m sure he would be interested to know how he’s recovering.”

I knewexactlywhat he was suggesting. And yet I didn’t have the heart to say no. “Yeah, sure,” I said, already knowing I was going to regret this. “Maybe in a couple of weeks.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

XEL

Unloading Huckleberry when we arrived back at the sanctuary turned out to be even more difficult than loading him into the trailer. The main problem was that he needed to exit the trailer backwards, which, for an animal that was none too steady on his feet, seemed to take a monumental amount of courage. Offering him hay didn’t help, nor pellets, nor even a sneaky taste of carrot, though he certainly wanted the treat, for all his reluctance to move in order to get it. The yard we were attempting to put him in was next door to the other donkey already in residence here, so Huckleberry would have an immediate companion. But even that didn’t manage to tempt him down the slope.

Finally, my master stood back, leaning against the fence with his arms folded, looking tired, but not angry. And that was strange enough that I stopped to take note of it. My old master had always been short tempered, irritated the moment something inconvenient happened, and all too willing to scold any of the staff if he couldn’t have what he wanted straight away.But my new master, though he was clearly frustrated, had not once lost his temper, either with me or with Huckleberry.

“Maybe we should just go and get some lunch,” he suggested finally. “Give Huckleberry some time to think about it, and we’ll probably think clearer too, when we’re not doing it on an empty stomach.” I’d noted from the clock in the car that it was well past midday at this point, and so I was inclined to agree with him.

I was about to say as much when a high pitched shout got my attention, and I turned to see a tall, purple-skinned woman coming towards us from across the paddock. She was taller than Bo, and dressed in cut-off shorts and a muddy shirt, which was far more casual than Bo’s dress style seemed to be. “You’re back,” she called, as she came wading through the grass. “Oh, you must be Xel. So good to meet you, Bo told me all about you, I’m Leesha, I help fill in when things get too busy, and Cole here is an absolute darling, I’m sure he’ll teach youeverythingyou need to know about animal care, he taught me a whole heap when I first started working here, is this the donkey? Oh, he’s in a bit of a state, isn’t he?” Leesha climbed right into the trailer, squeezing up past Huckleberry to stroke his face as she paused to take a breath for the first time since she’d started talking. “He doesn’t want to get out of the trailer, does he? Oh, that’s a silly boy, but you just need to see how many friends you’re going to have once you’re out there in the big, wide world…”

She kept up the running monologue, and Huckleberry stood up straighter, seeming both baffled and startled by the very loud creature who was now invading his safe little space. Affronted by Leesha’s noise and the way she was getting her face right up in front of his, he took a wary step backwards. And then a second step. And a third, until Leesha had somehow cajoled him all the way down the ramp and backed him into the yard. And the instant she had, she swiftly closed the gate, then turned to my master with a look of triumph on her face.

“You’re welcome,” she said, when he simply stared at her in stunned silence. Then she turned and winked at me. “Sometimes you need to just not give them too much time to think about it,” she explained, and I was a little relieved to hear that now, her voice was a much more moderate tone and her tempo back to a normal chatty rhythm, rather than the breakneck pace she’d started with. “I do tend to talk a lot, though,” she added, and I felt my scales ripple in embarrassment as I realised my relief was apparently showing on my face.

“I’d be very pleased to get to know you,” I told her, meaning it with all sincerity. “I have a lot to learn about the sanctuary, and I’m sure it would help my master to have more assistance in training me.” And by the stars, having someone around who actually enjoyed chatting would be marvellous. My master was very willing to explain things about the animals, but seemed to struggle with much conversation beyond that. And given that I knew barely anything about animals at this point, I was finding it difficult to find anything sensible to say on that topic.

“Thank you,” my master said belatedly, and Leesha surprised me by sashaying over to him, throwing an arm around his shoulder and kissing him on the cheek. His scarred cheek.