“Yes, she really did.”Emmy Lou patted him on the arm.“I think you’re cute, too.”
“Well, I don’t think he’s so damned cute,” Fred said as he walked into the circle of light by the stall door carrying his bottle.“How’re momma and baby doing?”
“Sleeping,” Jo said.
Quinn glanced guiltily at the mare and foal.They could have been dancing the tango for all he knew.Once everyone had left he’d forgotten the horses and become completely immersed in Jo.
“Whatcha gonna name him?”Fred asked.
Jo gazed at the little foal curled up against his mother.“Well, if people hear that Brian Hastings was present for the birth, they’ll expect this colt to be named Brian, probably.”
“Aw,” Fred said.“Don’t do that.That don’t sound like a horse name.And don’t be calling him Hastings, either.That sounds like a butler.”
“Then I guess I’ll call him Stud-muffin,” Jo said.
Fred groaned.
“I think it’s clever,” Emmy Lou said.
“What’s it mean?”Benny asked.
“Never mind, Benny,” Fred said.“So is that it, Jo?”
“That’s it.”
“Then if it’s official, I can drink to it.”He uncorked his bottle.“Here’s to—” He grimaced.“Stud-muffin.Long may he live.”He took a swig and wiped the top on his sleeve.Then with a rascal’s glint in his eye, he handed the bottle to Quinn.
Quinn took it.“I’ll bet you think I’ve never swigged whiskey from a bottle before, don’t you?”
Fred nodded.“That would be my guess, city boy.”
“You’d be wrong.”It had been a few years, but he’d done it.Once.“Here’s to Stud-muffin.”Quinn took a big swallow from the bottle and choked, spilling coffee on himself in the process.The whiskey burned its way to his stomach.The coffee on his shirt seared his chest.He whimpered.
“Give me that!”Emmy Lou grabbed the bottle out of his hand and sniffed it.Then she glared at Fred.“What do you think you’re doing, giving that boy some of your hundred-and-fifty-proof home brew?You want to kill him before he has a chance to do this Brian Hastings thing?”
“Jo said I was supposed to turn him into a cowboy!”
“She didn’t tell you to turn him into a lush, now, did she?”
Fred stuck out his chin.“A real cowboy can hold his liquor!”
Quinn had recovered enough to set his coffee mug on the wooden tray.“Give me that bottle, Emmy Lou.”
“Nope.”
Quinn knew his smile could accomplish most anything with Emmy Lou, and he used it.“Come on, Em.Let a guy salvage his pride.”
Jo leaned over the stall door.“Forget your pride, Quinn.That stuff would burn a hole right through the floor of this barn.”
“You’re all a bunch of pansies,” Fred muttered.
Quinn motioned for the bottle.“Give it here.”
“Don’t drink it,” Benny said.“It rots your innards.”
Quinn glanced at Fred.“He’s still standing.”
“You can’t go by him,” Emmy Lou said.‘His insides are galvanized steel.”
