Page 2 of Midlife Animal Rescuer Dragon
A murderer, according to the other members of the Circle of Moonshade.
She’d been on the run ever since that night, unsure where to go, unsure when next the hunter might catch up to her. The hunter was fast, and he was unstoppable. She needed to keep moving.
Or did she? Nora stared past the sign down the stretch of the road and felt a pang in her chest.
I can’t keep running forever.
If she hoped to survive her predicament, she needed all the help she could get. She neededsanctuary.
The rain was starting to subside. She stared at the sign again.2 MILES.
“Yeah, I’m not walking that distance,” she scoffed.
Thumbing a lift didn’t seem like an effective idea, either. The chances of anyone driving down this lonely, slippery road this morning seemed to be next to zero. Might as well use a shortcut.
Murmuring a spell, she waved her hands. With a burst of green light, a portal appeared, swirling before her. Through it, she could just make out some grass and a couple of buildings.
“Sanctuary,” she repeated to herself.
It wasn’t until she’d stepped through the ring that she realized she hadn’t opened it at ground level. The portal’s exit was dozens of feet in the air, and this time, her feet found nothing. A scream built up in her throat as she plummeted, the grass rushing up to meet her.
Chapter One
Cloudy With a Chance of Screaming Meteors
The way Henry Hilton saw it, being forced to show up at the town fair was bad enough without a woman falling out of the sky right on top of him.
“Can’t convince me that this isn’t some kind of punishment,” he grumbled, as he hefted another box containing T-shirts and tote bags onto the back of his red pickup truck. “It definitely feels like I’m being punished, and I didn’t even do anything.”
Not for the first time that morning, his friend Cal Stein gave a roll of his eyes. “You’re not being punished, man. It’s just a town fair. What’s the big issue?”
He took a step closer to the truck. Behind him, the big white house towered over them both, two stories of a ranch house that had been converted years ago into the sanctuary’s main building and a home for its workers. A sign stood out in front, a few feet away from the porch steps, green words emblazoned across it.
GREEN SANCTUARY WILDLIFE RESCUE
A Safe Place for a Wild Heart
Around them, the rest of the property looked very much like a ranch. A couple of barns stood to one side, the sounds of horses neighing and goats braying filling the air every minute or two. A grassy plain stretched toward the horizon, bordered in the east only by a fence and the thick, dense, mountainous woods that lay beyond it.
“The big issue—” Henry adjusted his denim jacket and stooped to pick up another box, this one filled with pet treats that had been bagged and labeled for sale, “—is that Theon somehow expects me to represent the sanctuary at the Sylva Annual Fair all by myself. What happened to the rest of theanimal rescuers? Like Bryon? Or even you—you’re not doing anything serious.”
“I’ve got to stay back and make sure this place is in order. And Bryon’s out of town with the boss, remember? It’s not like we’ve got extra help around here. It’s just you, me and Melissa.”
Henry lifted an eyebrow at him, and he got a somewhat sheepish look on his face. He and Cal had been friends for the greater part of the last decade, since Cal began working at Green Sanctuary. As animal rescuers, they worked pretty well together. As friends, they didn’t always see eye to eye, but the way Henry saw it, Cal was practically a brother to him at this point.
He resisted the urge to scoff, shaking his head instead. “So you get to spend time back here with your girlfriend—”
“Fiancée,” Cal corrected.
“—while I work my ass off at this fair.” A groan nearly made it past Henry’s lips. Barely nine in the morning and he was already exhausted. “I’mdefinitelybeing punished.”
He pressed his lips together, sweeping his gaze around for a moment. It was such a beautiful morning. It had been raining up until half an hour ago, reduced now to a quiet, almost insignificant drizzle. The air was cool, the grass wet and glistening. The weather was perfect, and if he didn’t already have so much to do today, he’d probably still be in bed, or at least whipping up pancakes in the kitchen. The last thing he needed was an obligation he didn’t particularly care for.
“Ever heard of self-fulfilling prophecies?” Cal’s blue-gray eyes regarded his friend for a moment. He brushed some of his blond hair out of his face. “You’re only going to keepfeelinglike you’re being punished because you think that’s what this is. We’re doing this for the profit, remember? The sanctuary needs it.”
“Right.” Apart from the fact that he’d said “we” instead of “you,” Cal wasn’t exactly wrong.
Sylva was holding an annual fair that would span the entire day. It was supposed to be fun, entertaining—a day to forget about anything work-related and let loose a little, explore the sights, goods and experiences that vendors had to offer. In Henry’s experience, the fairs tended to be noisy and poorly organized.
