Page 3 of The Baby
The good news was, we needed the help. We had just gotten to the point where we were big enough that another full time hand was needed. Cody never really explained why he’d chosen to visit his father when he did. Or what his mother thought about it. Jake and I didn’t feel comfortableasking.
Cody wasn’t much of a talkereither.
What we did know about Cody was that he was a former rodeo rider, or as he liked to call himself, a recovering rodeo addict. He didn’t talk too much about what he did in the circuit, but Jake and I had looked him up at one point and saw that he’d been pretty highly ranked before a bad fall took him out ofcommission.
Rodeo was a big deal in Montana, and as highly ranked as he was, he probably made a pretty good living at it, but it was hell on a cowboy’s body. I didn’t ask him about the accident, because it wasn’t my business, but it must have been enough to stop him fromgoingback.
What I did know was that he worked hard. He did his job. He seemed okay living with his father in the bunkhouse.
Not to mention he was pretty easy ontheeyes.
Small under-exaggeration. The truth was, he was smoking hot. I could only imagine the attention he got from the rodeo fangirls.
Hey, just because a woman is married doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy some decent eye candy. And while yes, as a feminist, I realize the objectification of any person based solely on their appearance is wrong, I feel in the thousands of years men have been doing it to women, we need some time to balance thescales.
Not that I explained any of that to Jake. I didn’t think he would be jealous if he knew I thought Cody was hot. He would be too confident in how much I loved him. Still, we fought enough about the goats, I figured there was no reason to add any fuel tothatfire.
Cody said, “Uh… Dad is out riding north. Checkingfence.”
“Oh. I thought he was going on a hay run. We need some to hold us over until our nextdelivery.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m onthatnow.”
“Seriously, Cody. You’re like three years older than I am. You know you freak me out when you call mema’am.”
Cody smiled. “My momma raised me to be respectful. You’re my employer, I call you ma’am orBosslady.”
“What century were youbornin?”
He laughed then and I thought it was good to hear. Cody was always so serious whenever I saw him. As if nothing was ever fun or funny to him. Which didn’t seem right for someonehisage.
“I’ll leave you to it,” I told him as I made my way over to the barn, but then because I couldn’t resist, I changed course and headed out back to thegoatpen.
“GodDAMNIT!”
I cringed. Apparently Jake and Gary the Goat were at it again. I turned the corner and watched as Jake climbed up and over the fence just as Gary rammed the post. Safe on the other side from the ram, Jake glaredathim.
“You are the devil. Don’t think I don’t know it,” hetoldit.
“Jake, stop calling Gary thedevil.”
Jake whirled on me and I knew what was coming next. “You! This is all yourfault.”
“Look at those does over there,” I said, pointing to where the female goats were prancing about. “They aresocute!”
They were. When we’d gotten the kids they danced and pranced around, providing endless entertainment. Until they started jumping out of the pen Jake had built and we were constantly chasingthemdown.
No easy thing to catchagoat.
So Jake had to keep building the fence in a way they couldn’t escape. Then we needed Gary to impregnate them so we could get milk.Because…
“Not one ounce of goat cheese,” Jake shouted. “This was all about how you were going to become an expert in making goat cheese. And we were going to have goat cheese pizza and shit. Nothing. Instead you come out here and play with them likethey’repets.”
Right. Because they were so cute. Well, maybe not Gary. He was a little ornery. He also seemed to have a special loathingforJake.
“I’m working on it,” I said defensively. “Goat cheese doesn’t justhappen,Jake.”
I had no clue really. I looked it up online, and you needed cultures and cheesecloths, and it seemed like more of a bother than I thought. But at some point I was going to have to feed this man some goat cheese, otherwise I might have a goat mutiny on myhands.
