‘Who?’
‘Tommy and Tallulah. They must have escaped from the petting zoo.’ She reached for the passenger door, opening it slowly so as not to spook the animals.
‘Where’s the petting zoo?’ Rafe didn’t recollect a petting zoo in the area and he supposed it must be a new addition.
‘Not far. Jack and I took Ellie there and she had a whale of a time.’ Mimi started to walk slowly towards the animals and Rafe got out of the car.
‘Ellie...?’ Clearly a lot had been happening in the last five years and he needed to catch up.
‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t tell you, did I. Ellie is Jack’s little girl. She’ll be five at Christmas. She loves the petting zoo.’
Rafe tried to get his head around an arithmetical problem that seemed simple but obviously wasn’t. ‘Did I miss something? Jack wasn’t even married...’
‘No, he wasn’t... Isn’t... It’s complicated. He didn’t know about Ellie...’ Mimi’s attention was on the tiny creatures ahead of them. ‘Come on, sweetie... Tallulah...’ She advanced towards the closer of the pair, which regarded her steadily.
‘What exactly are they?’ They looked like tiny bundles of wet fur with little hooves and big eyes. Given the rather more pressing possibility that Mimi might be about to get bitten, Rafe decided to leave the question of Jack’s love life until later.
‘Miniature goats. Get with it, Rafe...’
‘Okay. You take the white one and I’ll get the one with the brown splodges.’ Rafe eyed up his goat warily, wondering how fast a miniature goat could run.
Clearly Mimi was a better goat whisperer than he was. She walked right up to hers and bent down, picking it up carefully in her arms. ‘There you go, Tallulah. What are you doing here, sweetie...?’
Tommy took one look at Rafe and turned, trotting along the road away from them. Rafe followed, and Tommy picked up the pace a little.
‘Get him, Rafe.’ Mimi chose that moment to shout an encouragement and Tommy took fright, trotting into the long grass at the side of the road.
How fast could a miniature goat run, anyway? Rafe walked up to the animal and made a lunge for it and it darted to one side, cantering towards a clump of trees. It was certainly agile enough.
He heard Mimi let out a cry of dismay behind him and ignored her. If he was going to be outwitted by a goat, he’d actually prefer that it didn’t have to happen with an audience. ‘All right, then, mate. It’s just you and me...’
Apparently this was some kind of game. Tommy stood stock-still, waiting for Rafe to approach and then dashed for cover. Rafe might be a lot
bigger, but Tommy had four legs and was quick on them. A final desperate lunge and Rafe tripped on a tree root, crashing down on to the wet leaves.
‘All right. You win.’ Rafe rolled over on to his back and Tommy approached. They regarded each other steadily and Rafe reached out towards him. Tommy nuzzled at his hand and then tried to climb up on to his chest.
Carefully, Rafe wrapped his arms around him. Tommy trained his innocent eyes on to him, and Rafe unzipped his jacket, allowing the small, shivering animal to nestle against his chest.
Gingerly he got to his feet. Tommy seemed quite happy where he was now and was trying to eat his sweater. Rafe climbed the bank, back up to the road, and saw Mimi, sitting in the front seat of the car, her head bent over Tallulah, who was lying in her lap, wrapped in Mimi’s ambulance service jacket.
‘Poor little thing; look...’ Mimi was wearing a pair of surgical gloves and had his surgical scissors in her hand. She looked up at him and frowned. ‘You’ve got wet leaves all over you.’
‘Yes, I know. Spare me the details. What are you doing?’
‘She’s got a piece of plastic wrapped around her leg. Look, it’s bleeding.’ Two pairs of wide brown eyes were trained on him and Rafe frowned. This was an unfair advantage.
‘You’re not a vet, Mimi.’
‘I know that. We’re Good Samaritans.’ She snipped the tight plastic away from Tallulah’s leg, exposing a red raw wound. ‘There. That’s better, isn’t it, sweetie.’ She bent down, allowing Tallulah to lick her cheek.
There was no point in telling her that it wasn’t a good idea to allow random animals to lick your face, or to mention that the scissors would have to be sterilised now. He had another pair somewhere. ‘All right, so where is this petting zoo, then?’
‘Half a mile along that track.’ Mimi pointed to a new road that branched off ahead of them, leading into the trees.
‘Right. We’ll get them back there as quickly as we can.’ Rafe wasn’t about to admit that the large eyes and little shivering bodies of the goats had made him wonder whether taking them back to his house was an option. He got into the car, depositing Tommy at Mimi’s feet, where he nuzzled against her legs.
‘Drive slowly. We don’t want them flying around...’