“How do we feel about goat yoga, Star Harbor?” she asked the camera with a teasing grin.
In the background, Winnie shouted, “She’s not a yoga goat! She’s a jumping goat!”
The video cut with perfect comedic timing, and I found myself gritting my teeth when I saw the likes: 12.7K.
Then I read the flood of comments: “This girl is magic.” “Stan knew what he was doing leaving that farm in her hands.” “I’d go to goat yoga even if it broke me.”
I stared at her face frozen mid-laugh, her hand wrapped around that silly goat like she’d known it forever.
Damn it, she is beautiful.
Not just the way she looked, though that didn’t help, but the way she didn’t even have to try. She was beautiful in the way she pulled people in just by being exactly who she was.
The community loved her.
Theybelievedin her.
Hell, I might have too ... if she hadn’t been standing in my way.
The next morning I stopped at the bakery to grab a coffee and hear myself think, but that didn’t happen—I barely made it through the entrance before I heard them.
Three Keepers—Cora, Harriet, and Lorraine—were seated at the back near the window, chatting like they were on stage.
“That Darling girl is something else,” Harriet said, folding her napkin like origami.
“She’s going to bring this town back to life,” Cora agreed, nodding toward her phone, where the goat yoga video played on a loop.
“I donated. Did you?” Lorraine asked, sipping her tea like she hadn’t just stabbed me in the gut.
I didn’t say a word, I didn’t need to. Cora glanced up, spotted me at the counter, and nudged the others. Their conversation slowed, lowered, but didn’t stop and that made it worse.
I paid for my coffee, muttered a tight thanks, and walked out with my jaw clenched. I was used to respect in this town, used to being someone people trusted with things that mattered.
Now? Now I was the guy standing in the way of the beloved local hero and her dream.
That night, I told myself I was just taking the long way home. I told myself I needed the drive to clear my head.
Instead, I ended up coasting up the road that ran alongside Star Harbor Farm, windows down, the air thick with the smell of cut grass and dusk, until I found her.
In cutoff shorts and a tank top, Elodie’s hair twisted into a messy knot, dirt smeared across her cheek like war paint. She was standing by an equipment shed with Winnie,stringing sparkly banners between the posts while the kid sang something that sounded like a cross between the “ABC Song” and a Taylor Swift chorus.
Elodie’s laugh rang out, and I swore I felt it in my ribs.
She looked so damn happy.
So grounded. Socertain.
This is what Stan saw—not just charm, but heart. Grit. A whole damn future with Elodie at the helm.
I got out of the truck before I even realized I was doing it. I took one step toward the fence, toward her.
Elodie didn’t see me; she was too busy living in that little golden moment with her niece.
I stood there, heart hammering in my chest like it might shake something loose.
I yearned to go to her. A huge part of me wanted to cross that line, start a conversation that might not end where either of us expected. I could tell her I missed Stan—that I didn’t know what to do next. That I couldn’t stop thinking about her no matter how hard I tried.
But I didn’t.
