Page 6 of Trickster King

I interpreted that to mean my wife wanted to resume her interrupted vacation. “Randy, this weekend, we should have a picnic at the rescue ranch, and I’ll pretend I’m taking Chocolate Cupcake on a trail ride and do a fence check.”

“Excellent. I’ll make the arrangements. And what won’t you do while we’re at the ranch?”

“I absolutely will cuddle with my bulls.”

“Pat,” Jessica warned.

One day, my wife would figure out that while I loved my herd of cattle, I loved toying with her even more. “My bulls require a lot of love, and Eddie likes when I join him in loving the bulls.”

If I corrupted Eddie much more, he might join me on my quest for even more bulls and cows to adopt from around the world.

“If you love those damned bulls any more, they’ll become house pets. I draw the line there, Pat. You will not bring any damned bulls into the house!”

As I’d already brought Bullmanchu into the ranch house several times already, I diverted my gaze and tried to figure out how to lie to my wife without actually lying to her.

“Pat, you did not bring one of those damned bulls into the house.”

“I may have done such a thing,” I admitted.

“Why would you bring a bull into the house?”

“He got a cut, it was storming, and the field needs some work. I didn’t want him to get sick, so I put him in the mud room. He behaved.” I decided against telling my wife several of the bulls and cows had gotten similar treatment when ill. Worse, I’d recruited a young, impressionable child to help me with my efforts.

“Much like your husband, the bulls have a history of varying fungal infections,” Randy announced.

“Burn it to the fucking ground,” my wife snapped.

The head of my detail raised a brow and engaged my wife in a staring contest. “We are not burning the rescue ranch to the ground, Your Majesty.”

“The field. Just the field. Tear the whole thing out and fix it. If he’s getting sick and the damned cows are also getting sick, it’s obviously a problem.”

“My bull fund doesn’t have enough to redo the pasture,” I confessed. Well, technically, the bull fund did, but if I spent the money, I wouldn’t be able to ship in my latest pair of cows, one from Africa and the other from India, who would help diversify the genetic pool. And if I couldn’t get my two new cows, I couldn’t get my three new bulls imported, either.

I couldn’t move my bulls to another field and have room for my new acquisitions. I leveled my worst glare at the head of my detail and waited.

Randy heaved a sigh. “You’ve gotten seven fungal infections from that field, you’ve spent a fortune on curing Bullmanchu’s hooves after an infection, and you’ve had to dish out for the vet bills for some of your other cattle. Frankly, the field should be burned to the ground, salted, and then dealt with by earthweavers.”

Jessica giggled. “You’ve gone and riled Pat up, Randy.” She grabbed a chair from in front of my desk, dragged it over, and sat. “Please continue. I need to see this in its full glory.”

Damn it. I saw no way out of the conversation without confessing my latest sin. “I found two cows who are genetically diverse, and if I fix the field, my budget will be blown on getting new livestock for my project.”

In the years since I’d started, I’d made headway on acquiring good cattle. I maintained a list of ranchers and which bulls serviced their cows, and I took care to keep from contaminating the purebred lines.

Healthy hybrids bred from my animals were becoming more common, but I wanted to also preserve the purebred lines.

I needed to stop giving myself extra work.

My wife rolled her eyes. “Again, Pat?”

“It’s been a while.”

“If three weeks has been a while, I suppose it has been.”

Well, crap. “You weren’t supposed to find out about her yet,” I complained.

“I’ve learned to watch when you become excited as it means you’ve found some rare cow or bull. You become ridiculous when you’ve found a new horse. As such, I determined you added at least one head to your cattle herd.”

“Just one because of the budget.” Sticking to my budget, paid for from working with horses and helping at auctions, made Jessica happy. A happy wife meant I dodged electrocution. I wondered how I’d survive through a pregnancy with twins.

---