Secrets in the Sand by Carolyn Brown

            He couldn’t quit now. He couldn’t quit ever. He had to make this thing work.

            While the coffee perked, he ate a slice of cold, leftover pizza and slipped a granola bar into his back pocket for later. With a decent playlist drowning out the zoo sounds, he carried a strong cup of black coffee and a legal pad outside. He sat in a folding stadium chair by the murky green pool and made his to-do list.

            Get the truck and empty out the crappy apartment.

            Drop off the apartment key.

            Unload the truck.

            Buy pool chemicals, weed killer, telescoping loppers.

            Buy mortar and sand to fill cracks in the brick facing.

            With a plan in place and caffeine in his system, Quinn felt slightly less like killing himself. He battled through a tangle of trees and vines and weeds to the property’s edge. The distant view of the bay reassured him that he hadn’t made a horrible mistake. Despite the noisy neighbor, this place sparkled with possibility and had the potential to triple or even quadruple his investment.

            As long as he could find a buyer who suffered from significant hearing loss.

            ***

            Abby woke to the donkeys’ loud, discontented braying. Disoriented, she sat up and glanced at the clock. “Shit.” She rocketed out of bed like a pebble from a slingshot, dumping Georgia and Max the tabby onto the floor.

            Nine a.m. already. The donkeys complained for good reason. Saturday morning coffee by the pool would have to wait. Her phone, plugged in by the bedside, displayed a slew of text messages, not that she had time to view or respond to them right now.

            And wasn’t there something else she was supposed to do today? She looked around the bedroom and chewed on a fingernail, waiting for her brain to kick in—and it did, sending a flood of adrenaline to her belly. Shit! She’d forgotten to call the vet’s office yesterday. “Calm down,” she said out loud. “It’s not the end of the world.”

            The vet closed at noon on Saturdays, and that was their busiest day of the week. It would be too late to get an appointment now. Maybe that was just as well; it would take till noon to get the morning chores done. She promised herself that she’d make the call first thing Monday morning.

            In the Daffy Duck boxer shorts and faded tank top she’d slept in, she put on barn boots and headed outside with Georgia and Max. When she walked into the barn, the hollering donkeys and ponies hollered even louder. A swarm of cats leaped onto the wide shelf above the food bins, yowling in anticipation.

            Moving quickly, Abby scooped food from painted metal bins into matching color-coded buckets. (Aunt Reva had left nothing to chance.) Abby filled a green five-gallon bucket for the goats and sheep, a red one for the geese, chickens, ducks, and peacocks. Then, the single buckets: blue for each of the ponies. A pink one for the bunnies’ communal bowl. Purple for the mini zebu, and orange for the potbellied pig.

            She fed the whining donkeys first. Outside in the chicken yard, she scattered chicken scratch and left the gate open so the chickens and ducks and peacocks could spend the day foraging. She fed the aviary birds and hosed down their concrete floors, then tossed flakes of hay into the pastures and let the barn animals out to graze.

            Sweaty and tired, Abby decided shoveling poop could wait until after coffee. She set up the coffeepot and hit the button to perk. She had just removed her boots when a deep bellow of human rage galvanized Georgia, who sprinted across the yard and squeezed under the fence. A second later, her sharp barking joined the new neighbor’s angry expletives. Abby ran barefoot along the hedgerow fence toward Georgia’s hysterical barking.

            A donkey’s cry made her heart race. How had Elijah gotten into the neighbor’s yard? Then she saw how. “Oh shit.” She climbed over a section of crumpled wire fencing and burst through a thick tangle of vegetation into a scene of mayhem and hysteria.

            The new neighbor charged toward Elijah and flung his hands in the donkey’s face. “Shoo. Get out.”

            Elijah reared, eyes rolling, ears pinned back. Abby grabbed a stout stick and rushed to defend her aunt’s traumatized donkey. “Stop! You’re scaring him.”

            Bawling in terror, Elijah veered around the man’s waving arms and leaped over the crumpled wire fence. Georgia—all thirty pounds of short, snarling protection—stood between Abby and the crazy neighbor.