[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Mary laughed. "What a pity King's going to miss this," she murmured as she sat down and unfolded
her napkin. "All his favorites. Buttering him up, Jenna?" she mused.
"Actually, it was Teddi's idea to do the casserole," came the dry reply. "I can't make one, you know.
And look at these biscuits!"
"Never mind, my friend," Teddi murmured as she spooned the casserole onto her plate. "I love it, too,
as it happens."
It was late, and the women were watching an old movie on TV in the den when King came in. He
looked every year of his age. His thick blond hair was rumpled, and his shirt was open at the throat.
His face was hard, but there was a faint satisfaction in it as he went directly to the bar and poured
himself a whiskey before he dropped into his armchair with a sheaf of papers in one hand.
"I see you got the repairman, dear," Mary remarked.
"An obliging gentleman," King agreed, fingering the glass as he scanned an open folder in his lap.
"I'm going to cull a few cows, and I needed these records before I made a decision on which ones to
sell."
"Tomorrow is Sunday," Mary reminded him.
"Ummm," he agreed. "But Jake Harmone is driving over here tomorrow morning before church to
make me an offer. Hence the urgency."
"Sell Mahitabel and I'll never speak to you again," Jenna promised him.
He looked up with the old, mischievous light in his silvery eyes as he locked glances with his sister.
"Mahitabel hasn't calved in six years," he reminded her.
"She's eating my grass, drinking my spring water, and yielding absolutely nothing."
"She's tough," Jenna replied.
"So she is," King murmured thoughtfully. "But if we parboiled her first ..."
"King!" Jenna positively shrieked. "You can't, you wouldn't!"
He burst out laughing at her horrified expression. "All right, calm down. I'll put it off another year, as
I've done for the past six."
His sister breathed easier. "What a scare you gave me!"
"I'll remind you again that sentimentality and cattle raising don't mix," he remarked.
"As I found out at the tender age of twelve," Jenna said, pouting, "when my pet bull disappeared."
"He was an Angus," King reminded her. "So? What's wrong with black Angus?" she challenged.
"Nothing, except that we run Herefords," he replied. "Your pet got in with my registered cows and
they dropped half Angus calves the next spring."
"I thought they were cute," Jenna said defensively. "Little black calves with white faces."
"If you had your way, you'd make pets of every calf on the place," King murmured indulgently. His
eyes shifted suddenly and met Teddi's. Something flashed briefly in the gray depths and burned so
brightly that she dropped her own gaze and tried unsuccessfully to calm her wildly beating heart.
Involuntarily, her mind caught and held the image of King's hard mouth taking hers, and a shimmer
of pure pleasure washed over her.
"Well, the hero got the girl. As usual." Mary got up with a sigh and turned off the television. "I hate to
leave good company, but that shopping spree 57
darling enemy
left me dragging. Good night, my dears," she said with a motherly smile, bending to kiss Jenna's
cheek as she went out the door.
"Do you still type?" King asked Teddi unexpectedly.
"Uh . . . yes," she stammered.
He got up from the chair with the folder in one big hand. "Come help me make a list, then."
"Aren't you going to have something to eat?" Jenna asked him, glancing curiously from King's set
face to Teddi's flushed one.
"Later, honey," he said, ruffling her hair as he went out the door.
Jenna winked at Teddi, her whole face beaming with mischief as her friend followed him.
Teddi perched herself at one side of the big oak desk in King's pine-paneled study and tapped out the
cattle names and lineage and herd numbers and pasture locations while he leaned back in his big chair
and dictated them, ending each notation with the cow's production record. She began to realize that the
names he was giving her
or rather, the numbers that seemed to pass for names for most of them were those of cows that
didn't produce calves that were up to his exacting standards.
"Animal slavery," she mumbled as he finished, and she paused to make a correction.
He raised both heavy blond eyebrows and glanced at her. "I beg your pardon?"
"Selling off cows," she explained, a tiny mischievous light in her wide brown eyes.
"Poor things,what if that Mr. Harmone beats them or doesn't feed them properly?"
"Mr. Harmone," he informed her, "is going to use them as hosts for embryo transplants. They're
Herefords, but they'll throw purebred black Angus calves." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

razem.keep.pl