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

“Smart woman.” Dalton removed his boots, set them to the side, and stretched his long legs out. “What do you like, Becca? Do you prefer fancy fixin’s or do you follow after Greta?”

“A little of both,” she answered and focused on the movie that showed a bagel shop right close to the beginning. She missed grabbing a bagel on the way to work each morning the way she had done in Nashville. She hadn’t even minded driving a little bit out of the way over to Abbot Martin Road to get a fresh one.

“So, this girl is going to be waiting for her seventh boyfriend to really fall in love, right?” Dalton asked after the very first flashback scene to where a young girl was visiting with her dying mother. “Tell me that your mother is alive and well, and that you aren’t waiting for number seven.”

“My mama is Trudy McKay, and she is very much alive,” Becca answered. “I’m not waiting for any particular number.”

Dalton wiped his forehead in a fake dramatic gesture. “Whew! I was afraid I’d have a long wait if I had to go on home and wait until you went through six boyfriends.”

She started to smart off with a quick comeback, but a scratching noise distracted her. She stood up, crossed the room, and found Tuff with what looked like a big gray rat in his mouth. The ugly critter was wagging his tail like he expected praise for bringing the dead varmint to her. She quickly closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore, slammed the door, and yelled, “Dalton!”

In what seemed like the blink of an eye, he was right beside her. “Are you all right? What happened? You’re as pale as a ghost.”

“I hate rats,” she said.

“Where is it?” Dalton looked around the foyer. “Which way did it run? I’ll catch it and get rid of it for you.”

She pointed. “Tuff has it on the porch.”

Dalton opened the door just enough to peek outside. “Tuff has brought you a present, but it’s not a rat. Come on over here and take a look. He was raised with cats, and he loves kittens.”

Becca eased across the room, and sure enough, there was a little gray kitten fighting with Tuff’s tail as it swished back and forth on the porch. “Ohhh, isn’t it the cutest thing. Where do you think he stole it from?”

“I’m sure he filled out all the adoption papers and everything is legal.” Dalton slung open the door and picked the gray ball of fur up by the scruff of the neck. Tuff ran into the house, stopped, and looked back over his shoulder. He whined and the kitten let out a pitiful meow.

“Is it going to try to scratch my eyes out?” Becca reached her hands out.

“Don’t know, but evidently, he didn’t want this one to be raised as an only child.” Dalton pointed to a yellow-colored kitten just about the same size as the gray one sitting on the porch. “Or else he thought you and Greta each needed your own pet.” He opened the door again.

Becca picked the kitten up as it entered the house like it owned the place. It flopped over in her arms like a baby and started purring. “These have to belong to someone. We can’t keep them. We’ll get attached and then have to give them back.”

“Tell you what.” Dalton put the gray kitten in her arms with the yellow one. “Tuff and I are going to take a little walk around the block. I bet we find the owner, and I’ll ask if they want them back. How’s that?”

“Thank you,” Becca answered, but it was too late. She’d already lost her heart to the two little critters.

* * *

Dalton whistled and Tuff came out of the living room with his head hanging and tail wagging. “You did good, ole boy, but we’ve got to be sure that the owners of those two babies don’t want them back. We need to go for a little walk and find out where they came from.”

Tuff barked once and followed Dalton back to the sofa. Dalton jerked his boots on and nodded toward Becca. “Don’t name ’em until I get back.”

Tuff ran on ahead of Dalton when they stepped off the porch. Two houses down the street, he stopped, sniffed the air, hiked his leg on a bush, and then sat down.

“This isn’t going to work,” Dalton told him. “You know very well where you stole those kittens. What if there’s a third one, and we want to take it home with us?”

The dog stood up and slowly made his way to the end of the block. He sat down at the end of the porch steps of the last house on the block and yipped twice.

“Is this the place?” Dalton walked up to the door and knocked.

“Hey, Dalton, what’s up?” Frankie, one of his hired hands, asked as he rounded the side of the house.

“You got some kittens around this place?” Dalton asked. “Tuff has dragged a couple down to Greta McKay’s house.”

“Had five out in the storage shed. Gave three away last week and been tryin’ to get rid of the other two ever since. Their mama got killed on the road. If Miz Greta don’t want them, I was goin’ to ask you if you’d like to have them for barn cats. Their mama was a real good mouser,” Frankie said. “Come on inside. Want a beer?”

“Thanks. A cold one sounds good, but I’d better get on back to Miz Greta’s. Becca and I’ve got a movie on pause. I just didn’t want her to get attached to a couple of kittens if you weren’t giving them away,” Dalton said. “See you at the ranch in the morning.”

“I’ll be there bright and early,” Frankie said. “Hey, have you heard from Austin and Rye? Are they havin’ a good time?”

“Haven’t talked to them, but Rye said he’d call in