Summertime on the Ranch by Carolyn Brown (leveled readers txt) 📗

her way to the bathroom and ran water in the old claw-footed tub.

“Sorry, Loretta and Dolly,” she said as she slipped out of her clothing and sank down into the warm water. “Cats don’t like baths, so you have to just sit there and talk to me. So, how was your day?”

Loretta meowed pitifully.

Dolly gave Becca a dirty look, picked up a pair of socks in her mouth, and carried them out into the hallway.

“Well, my day was crazy. I juiced a whole truckload of melons, checked the progress of all the wine in the place, and loaded the rinds in the back of the work truck to take to the chickens over on the ranch. I saw Dalton from a distance once and got a hot flash just looking at him with no shirt on out there in the hayfield. I’m glad you can’t talk, because I have no doubt you’d go tell Grammie what I just said,” she told the kittens.

* * *

Tuesday morning went just fine except that it poured down rain most of the time. Becca stopped working long enough at noon to prop her feet up and eat a sandwich she’d brought from home. She had tossed the plastic baggie and the napkin in the trash and was headed back across the room to begin scooping out more melons to juice when she heard the first bump against the wooden door.

Her heart skipped a beat and then raced ahead with a full head of steam. Dalton had arrived, and she hadn’t seen him up close since he had kissed her good night on Sunday. Would things be awkward between them?

The second bump was followed by a bellow, and the walls of the metal shed rattled. That wasn’t a cowboy—it was a bull! If he knocked the door down, the old saying about a bull in a china shop wouldn’t begin to describe the damage he could do. Becca grabbed her cell phone and called Dalton.

“Do you have a bull out of the pasture? I’ve got one trying to get into the wine shed,” she said.

The noise of another loud bellow echoed through the roar of the rain beating down on the metal roof, and then a big horn poked right through the wooden door.

“That sounds like Big John,” Dalton said.

“Well, you’d best come get him or he’s going to be Dead John,” Becca said. “I keep a five-shot thirty-eight in my purse, and if another horn comes through the door, I’m going to start shooting until it’s empty. Then I’ll reload and keep it up until he’s ready to go to the dog-meat factory.”

“Don’t shoot,” Dalton said. “I’m on my way. The crazy bull loves watermelon. He was probably headed to the field and caught a whiff of what’s in the shed.”

The call ended and the horn disappeared from the door. Becca picked up a butcher knife and deftly halved a melon, scooped out a little of the middle, and then stuck it up to the hole in the door. “I’m willing to share if you’ll back away from the door and let me open it.”

Her original plan was to toss the melon out into the yard and then slam the door, but when she peeked out, the bull took a step forward. “Oh, no! You will not come inside, and you aren’t eating this on this side of the road.”

The animal lowered his head and rolled his eyes. She stomped her foot, glared at him, and took the first step out of the shed. She held the melon out so he could smell it, and then jerked it back. “You can follow me to your pasture, or I’ll take it back inside and you can do without.”

She had dealt with cattle all her life, and Big John didn’t scare her one bit. If he turned malicious and came at her, she could always throw the melon down and run like hell. Rain soaked her to the skin, and her long, red hair was hanging limp before she had taken half a dozen steps, but the bull followed behind her like a lost puppy.

Dalton drove up in the ranch work truck about the time she made it to the middle of the dirt road. He rolled down the window a few inches and yelled, “Are you crazy? Big John is the meanest bull at the rodeos. He could kill you in a split second.”

“Not as long as I’ve got a watermelon in my hands. Turn the truck around and show me which pasture to put him in.” She took another step, and her foot sank down in mud that came up over the top of her shoes. Not even the rain could mask the sucking noise when she pulled the shoe out and kept walking. There was no way she could go across the cattle guard with the bull, but she saw where he had broken down the fence on his way to the watermelon field.

“Okay, Big John,” she told him. “We’re going in the same way you came out. If you rip up a leg on the barbed wire, I’m not going to feel a bit sorry for you.”

The bull threw back his head and bellowed louder than ever before.

“If you want this watermelon, then you can quit your belly-achin’ and get over one little strand of barbed wire,” she told him.

Dalton drove across the cattle guard and headed toward the gate into the pasture nearest the gap in the fence. He stopped the truck and Becca saw a flash of yellow. She cradled the chunk of melon like a baby and wiped the rain from her eyes. “You’ve got a rain slicker and I’m wet to the hide,” she grumbled. “Thank God, you don’t have a camera.”

Dalton opened a gate and she carried the watermelon through it with Big John right behind her. When she was twenty feet into the pasture, she set the watermelon down on the ground and slowly backed out