Page 35 of A Rancher's Heart
“Stop that,” he ordered.
“Huh?” Dustin said in a shock before grinning. “Oh, come on. You were doing it, too.”
Caleb wasn’t about to admit any such thing.
They all gathered at the gate outside the pen, waiting as Karen backed the trailer into position.
Tamara turned to him. “Ashton said you used to raise fryers. Maybe when spring comes around, if you want to start that up again, we can decide if this is still the best place for Eeny, Meany and Miney.”
Caleb was curious as all get out by now. “What? No Moe?” he asked.
“She’s pregnant, so I left her back at our ranch. Figured you didn’t need that kind of trouble right off the bat,” Karen told him, joining them at the doors to the trailer.
Dustin pushed ahead of Caleb, as eager as the little girls to see what would happen next. “What did you bring?”
He leaned around Tamara just as Karen opened the doors and they were all greeted with a chorus ofmahhhs.
Goats.
Three of them, judging by the names, and they must’ve been tired of sitting in the trailer because they rushed forward at high speed, barreling into Dustin and knocking him to the ground.
The following aftermath was hard to describe. The entire area was full of little girls screaming, young ladies shouting, and his brother starting a half-dozen times to swear then remembering his nieces were present.
The goats ran in circles, jumping over each other and anything in their way. If they’d run away in a straight line, it would’ve been a lot less chaotic, but for some reason the creatures remained close to the familiarity of their trailer. Although they didn’t want back in it, and they didn’t want into the yard that was now open to them after Caleb had fought his way through the squirming horde and pulled the gate aside.
Considering it was chaos, Caleb couldn’t help but be pleased because while Sasha was making most of the noise, screaming at the top of her lungs, a wide grin on her face, she wasn’t the only one.
Emma wasn’t screaming, but she let out the occasional sharp bray as one of the goats brushed by her hard, sending her off balance. She toppled over into Dustin who had just about made it up to his feet.
Lisa went one way and Karen went the other, and finally the three grey and white creatures were somewhat contained in a square between the trailer, the girls, and the yard.
Over the screaming and bleating rang the soft sound of laughter, and he glanced to his right to discover Tamara clutching her stomach, her entire body shaking. Gaze pinned on Dustin as he rolled to his feet, arms flung wide as he stampeded after the smallest and darkest of the animals.
“Dusty, for God’s sake, stop chasing them,” Caleb ordered.
His youngest brother straightened up so hard and fast that he tripped again, and just when it seemed he would regain his balance, the biggest of the goats lowered his head and took aim at his butt. It was a firm enough tap to send Dustin sprawling to his face on the ground.
Tamara covered her mouth with her hand, but it was too late. She couldn’t stop, and now he was chuckling along with her.
It was almost anticlimactic when Tamara grabbed a bucket from beside the fence and gave it a shake.
The sound of grain against metal was all it took for the three goats to turn in her direction. She made a few clicking sounds with her tongue, and the goats stepped forward as if she were serving gourmet food.
She backed up, clicking again before glancing at Caleb with a soft-spoken message. “For the love of God, don’t do anything like flap your arms. I thought Dustin was trying to fly there for a minute.”
Caleb didn’t move except to offer a wink.
Her eyes widened for a second before she focused back on the goats, backing up steadily as they followed her into the pen.
The instant they could, Karen and Lisa closed the gates, trapping them all in as Tamara emptied the pail into the feed trough then stepped aside to let the goats enjoy their first dinner in their new home.
She glanced at Sasha and Emma. “As long as you don’t ask Uncle Dustin to help, you won’t have nearly that much excitement when you’re taking care of them.”
Dustin was back up like a yo-yo, brushing himself off and smiling good-naturedly at his own downfall. “If I’d known what you were doing, I wouldn’t have gone off half-cocked.”
Lisa looked him over before pinning her lips together, as if refusing to grin at his expense.
It appeared all the Coleman girls were a bit of trouble. Caleb glanced at Karen. “I’m surprised you didn’t pull out a harmonica and Pied Piper them into the pen.”
