Page 15 of A Bride for Brodie

“I would imagine the calf is valuable. How much do you think he’s worth?”

He stared at the calf for a few moments.

It was like he was contemplating something.

“He’s probably worth a couple of hundred dollars just because he’s so rare.”

“He would probably be hard to sell though unless you already knew someone.”

He nodded. “Yeah, probably.” Then he stared at the calf before shaking his head.

“Come on, I want to show you something.”

They walked out the small door in the back of the barn. The door opened to the side of the corral. The big doors opened directly into the corral, which was occupied at the moment by ten horses. A single rope was drawn across the opening of the big doors to keep the horses from entering the barn.

“What are you doing with all the horses?”

He walked between her and the corral. “We have a contract with the Army to provide them with green broke mounts. This is the last bunch. It would take us a lot longer to break them if we didn’t have Frank. Hetalksto them and after that it only takes about a minute or so to get them to let us ride them.”

She looked up at him, eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, hetalksto them?”

He shrugged. “I can’t explain it. He just talks to them, and then they let us saddle them and ride them with hardly one buck.”

“That’s incredible.”

“Yeah, it is. Let’s check out the rest of the property.” Brodie took her around the corral to see the rest of the ranch buildings.

All the structures were pretty familiar. The ranch had a chicken coop, ice house, smokehouse, bunk house and two outhouses, but the best and the most unfamiliar to Lottie was the laundry house.

She walked around the inside of the laundry, admiring the set up. “This is amazing. The laundry will be so much easier to do. Less carrying water, a stove specifically for heating. I love it and I bet the other ladies will be just as impressed as I am. And you can hang some clothes in here when the weather is bad.”

Brodie stood with his hands in the back pockets of his denims and rocked on his heels. “My mother made my father build it. With seven kids, four adults and sometimes even the cowboys’ clothes, she said it was too much for her and Agatha to do in the kitchen. And she was tired of hauling water so far.”

“You said seven children, but there are only five of you.”

“I have two sisters who live in Phoenix.”

“Ah, I hope I get to meet them someday. I would have liked to know your mother. She sounds like a great lady.”

“I think she would have liked you, too, despite your prison history. You’re a nice woman and a loyal one. Loyalty was one quality Mother admired immensely.”

Lottie placed her arms around her waist. Despite the heat of the sun outside in the laundry house, it was cool. Doors on the front and back were open, and a breeze whistled through. “I should go help with the rest of the chores that we are to learn today. Agatha shouldn’t have to explain things more than once.”

“Agatha will understand since she’s married—”

Her eyes flew wide, and she put her hands on her hips. “Married? Why didn’t we meet her husband?”

Brodie laughed. “Johnny’s on a buying trip and probably won’t be back for a couple of months. He buys cattle to be fattened up and then sold to meat processors. He’ll go all the way to Montana, if he has to.”

Lottie dropped her hands to her sides and fisted them in her skirt. “Oh, then it’s a good thing Agatha has all of you to keep her busy.”

“And now she has you ladies too.”

“We’ll help make her life easier. All our lives will be easier. With so many of us to do what she was doing by herself; we should finish sooner. We’ll have more time to do things like read and knit and sew. Trust me, it will be a good thing.”

“You being here has already been a good thing.”

She felt heat gather to a point on her cheeks and glanced down. “Brodie. You shouldn’t talk about that.”