“That’s one of the nicest things,” Heather said. “He already loves the ranch, and he follows John everywhere he goes. John isn’t used to being so admired by young people.”
“Well, he does keep a poisonous snake for a pet,” Josie said under her breath.
Heather burst out laughing. “Oh, shame on you,” she said.
“And what’s this about a poisonous pet?” John asked icily from the doorway.
Josie actually jumped and caught her breath. John gave her a cold smile.
She gathered herself together. “Well, actually,” she said, “I was mentioning that you kept a rattlesnake for a pet.” She gave him a vacuous smile.
His pale eyes gave her a cold going-over. “If you ever had a pet,” he said, “I’ll bet you ate it.”
Before Heather could fuss, Josie turned to John and just smiled. “Actually,” she said, “I had a pet goat.”
“A pet what?” he inquired.
“A pet goat,” she replied. “One of the government inspectors came by our ranch one day for what he thought was a woman screaming so he called the local sheriff’s office and had them send a deputy out to see about it. They couldn’t find a screaming woman but when they got to the corral, they found a screaming goat that sounded just like a woman in the throes of terror!” Everybody laughed.
“That beats our fainting goat story,” Heather laughed.
Josie turned to her, curious. “What about a fainting goat?”
John looked uncomfortable. “Do we really need to talk about that?” he asked his mother.
Josie was very interested. She smiled at Heather. “Do tell,” she said coaxingly.
“Well,” Heather began, “I found a little fainting goat on the side of the road. I didn’t know exactly what it was. So I got it in the truck—we were in the truck that day—and Cole and I took it to the vet, just to have it checked out. The vet told us that it was a fainting goat, and we didn’t know what that was. He said we’d find out, and he smiled.
“We didn’t think anything about it. We got home and put the little goat in the corral, where a donkey we had at the time came close to see about it. The donkey was very sweet and gentle, and it liked other animals. The little goat seemed to like it, too. Well, we didn’t tell John we’d done it. So John came home from overseeing roundup and walked up to the fence. He jumped up on the rail, and the noise upset the little goat, who hadn’t expected to see somebody that close or that noisy. And it fainted. John was scared to death that he killed it. He went rushing into the corral and picked it up. Then he realized what it was and started laughing. When I came out and found him, we realized that he hadn’t understood what kind of a goat it was until then. We kept it for years and years. It died of old age about ten years ago.”
“It was a sweet goat,” John agreed, smiling. “Every time I opened the truck door and left the door open, the goat would jump up into the driver’s seat. It loved to ride.”
“Well, it proves that you at least like some normal pets,” Josie said and smiled sweetly.
Heather pursed her lips and contemplated her son, who began to wear an expression of horror.
“Don’t you dare,” he told his mother, scowling.
“Oh, please,” Josie said, sensing something embarrassing to John.
“We went to a restaurant when John was in his early twenties, and there was this lobster in a tank with its claws taped,” Heather began.
“Well, the ticket didn’t cost that much,” John argued at once.
“A ticket?” Josie asked. “What kind of ticket?” she added, her eyes meeting John’s.
He glowered at her.
Inspiration hit at once. She gasped. “Don’t tell me!” Josie replied. “You bought the lobster a plane ticket to Maine?”
“Not exactly,” John said. He hesitated. “I bought one of our cowboys a round-trip ticket to Maine. The lobster was a carry-on.”
Heather dissolved in laughter. Josie couldn’t help herself; she did, too. John glared at both of them. “You’d probably watch the thing boil and eat it in front of the other ones,” he growled at Josie.
“Well, I never saved a lobster,” she admitted. “However, I did once save a snake.” Her face turned red. She hadn’t meant to say that.
John’s eyebrows went up and he watched her closely. “Okay,” he said, “you have to explain that.”
