“The new guy you hired? Fired him; useless.” Colter replies, reaching for a bread roll from the middle of the table.
“Really?” Mama perks up from her seat. “I thought he was lovely.”
“Yeah, Mama, turns out he just wasn’t cut out for it. Always late for the early mornings,” Colter grumbles into his fork filled with steak.
One thing I respect about my brother is his punctuality. If he’s never late, he doesn’t expect his workers to be either.
“You should have said something. I would have started on a new ad today, I had the time,” I say, giving Colter a look.
“Sorry, sis’, slipped my mind,” Colter smiles at me, dimple on his left cheek showing.
“I’ll get an add out before the weekend,” I smile back at him. I, unfortunately didn’t inherit the one dimple, although my daughter did.
That’s the third cowboy we’ve gone through in the last two months. They never seem to be the right fit for Colter, but one rule I make for myself is, listen to my brother.
He’s out there every day; he knows what he needs. What the herd needs and most importantly; what the ranch needs. Ideally, we could do with afew more with the herd becoming larger as each season passes.
“I can help you, Uncle Colter,” My daughter says, looking up from her plate of food and my Daddy smiles from the end of the table.
“Ellie-Belly, I’d love your help. However, I’ve heard someone can’t get out of bed in the mornings,” Colter says, smirking at her enthusiasm.
“I mean, I can try get up in time,” Ellie says giving her best grin, dimple intact, nothing but innocence in her eyes.
“Stay in bed Ellie, I’ve got it,” Colter laughs, then my daughter slumps into her chair and pouts. Now I’m the one to laugh. I love that little pout; although, it’ll be the death of me one day.
“Maybe y’all should let her?” My daddy questions, finally getting involved in the conversation. “I’m sure Mabel will step in to help for now, take the girl with you.”
Ellie’s eyes become wild with excitement. “Mama, can I?” She edges closer to me, giving me the best puppy dog eyes she can muster up.
Shit. There goes my Monday plans and meeting with the farrier.
“Sure thing, honey,” I relent. “We’ll go out Monday,”I smile down at her.
“Yes!” Ellie shouts and Mama laughs. Daddy smirking under his fork full of mash potatoes.
“What are we gonna do with you, girl?” Mama chuckles to herself.
“We’ll make her a cowgirl yet,” My brother smirks and I glare at him.
This is your fault, fucker.
“She’s on your head, honeybee.” I raise my glass at Colter, before taking a sip.
“Mabe’s, I’ve been dying to teach my niece how to herd the cattle,” he mumbles as he fills his mouth with more food.
“Well, now you got your shot,” I smirk, leaning back into my seat.
“And would you stop calling me, honeybee?” He whines,slamming his hand on the table, making my daughter jump and then snort with laughter.
Never, fucker. You’ve gotten me into this mess.
I poke my tongue out at him which causes him to scoff at me as he shovels more food into his mouth. It makes me laugh sometimes; we’re still very much kids at heart. Typical brother and sister, always trying to one up the other. Colter’s exactly eleven months older than me; people call us the Irish twins around town. I’ve always found it amusing that my parents had us so close together but didn’thave any more children after me.
We’re either perfect enough, or we put them completely off having more.
I’m going with the latter.
I remember our childhood sometimes like it was yesterday; we were extremely rough and tumble. Addhiminto the mix, we were the three musketeers; always getting into some form of trouble together.
