A river of silence flowed between them as they inched along. Finally, she said, “What are you going to show me?”
“I’m gonna let you see how much fun Buster has working with the cattle.”
Waffle sat on the deck behind them, his head and front paws almost between them. Once, he craned his head forward and licked her cheek. She turned around and rubbed his head.
“So did you study some kind of animal science?” Nick asked.
“I majored in business with emphasis on marketing. Why do you ask?”
“Just wondering how you got to be an expert on what animals oughtta eat.”
“Research. I’m very good at research. I don’t call myself an expert, but I’m friends with a couple of vets who advise me.”
“How many animals do you take care of?”
“At the moment, fifteen. Four dogs, six cats, four chickens and a gerbil.”
“Chickens?”
“A little old lady’s relatives took her to a nursing home and they called the SPCA to pick up her chickens. They all ended up at We Love Animals and almost as soon as they got there, they started dying. Juanita, my friend who runs the place, talked me into taking the four that were left. Three hens and a rooster.”
Nick chuckled. “Chickens, eh. She must be persuasive.”
“She is, but truthfully, she didn’t have to try very hard. I felt sorry for them. At first, I just took two of them. Sophie, one of the white Leghorn hens, had a broken wing and she was losing her feathers because the other three pecked at her all the time. Juanita said they would finally kill her or she would just die, but I wanted to try to save her. I scoured books and the Internet for information about chicken ailments. My favorite vet and I gave her extra special care and she gradually got better. Then Juanita talked me into taking the other two.”
They had started following a barbed-wire fence. “Okay,” he said, “I’m going to drive you along this fence line so you can look across the pasture and see the place.”
What’s to see? Flat land, mostly beige grass and sage brush.
“That’s quite a story about those chickens. I doubt if many people can say they saved a chicken’s life. Or who would even want to. It must have taken a lot of patience.”
“Taking care of wounded animals has made me find patience I didn’t know I had. They’re so grateful.”
“What’s going on with Sophie now?
“She’s snow-white and pretty, as chickens go, but her wing healed funny and it droops. She’s odd-looking to her peers. They still mistreat her if I don’t pay attention.” She sighed. “That’s the way chickens are, you know. The stronger ones pick on the weaker ones.”
“That’s the way it is in most of the animal kingdom. Some will actually kill off their own that are too weak to survive. I saw it happen in the wild horses when I worked over in New Mexico. In some ways, people behave the same.”
“You sound like a cynic. You don’t like people?”
“Haven’t met too many that deserve liking. I get along better with animals.”
Had she heard him right? He was an animal lover? She couldn’t pass up the opening he had given her. “You wouldn’t like to have some chickens, would you? They need a permanent home. My backyard is small and you’ve got lots of room.”
“They wouldn’t make it out here. Too many predators. I’ve got coyotes and foxes both. Even weasels and coons and hogs. All of the above would love a chicken dinner. I couldn’t build a pen stout enough that a weasel or a coon couldn’t figure out how to get in.”
“Too bad. I’ve always thought chickens should live in the country. My neighbors think so, too. One even complains regularly to the City Council. So far, I’ve been able to convince them that my home is only a temporary stopover. That’s a little white lie, of course. My animals are castoffs that have something wrong with them. No one wants them, so they’ll be with me forever.”
“You’ve got a business to run. Why would you take on the care of damaged animals?”
Unexpectedly, tears rushed to her eyes. Thinking about the condition her animals had been in when she acquired them often made her cry. She wiped the corner of her eye with a pinky fingertip. “Without me, they’d have no one. They’d be killed or left to die. I could never abandon them. I remind you, if I hadn’t taken in Waffle, you probably wouldn’t have him today.”
“I get that. And I’m grateful you were the one who found him. So these chickens, do they lay eggs?”
Hah. He doesn’t want to discuss my claim to Waffle.
“They sure do and the eggs are really good. I let them forage and I feed them healthy food. I get at least one egg a day. I’d get more if I didn’t have a rooster.”
He laughed. “You’re really down on us males, aren’t you?”
She shrugged. “What can I say? I have to throw away quite a few eggs. I guess males are males whether human or chicken.”
“Speaking of men, have you heard from that toolbox that was supposed to be your boyfriend?”
She had never heard anyone say such a negative thing about Richard. “I assume you’re talking about Richard. No, and I don’t expect to.”
“Good. If we’re gonna be sharing custody of Buster, we’ll be seeing more of each other. I don’t want to run into him anymore.”
And what does that mean? “Richard is a good guy, really. Just not for me. I shouldn’t have gotten involved with him. I gave up on men after my second divorce. I should’ve stuck with that plan.”
He looked across his shoulder, his brow arched. “You’ve been divorced twice?”
She didn’t miss the emphasis on two times. Her defenses rose. “So?”
“I didn’t mean anything. It’s just that you seem kinda young to have gotten married and divorced two times.”
“I’m thirty-two. What difference does my age
