Page 33 of Herds and Hooves

“What the?”

“Annie, sorry, baby, I was getting a little good loving, no need to be jealous,” Bart said before scooping her up. “Come on, dinner is ready.”

“This is the craziest thing I’ve seen this week,” I said as I followed them down the hall and back to the kitchen where Noah and Asa were both sitting at the table grinning.

Twenty-Seven

Bart

“Okay, everyone, eat up,” I said after making sure everything was on the table and Annie was safely back in the barn. There was something wrong with eating hamburgers with her in the room.

“This is great, Bart, thank you,” Asa said before everyone started eating. “Good to have you here, Keith. And you too, Noah.”

“When Bart said he was barbecuing there was no way I was missing that. I was slightly hoping for something dramatic to happen but I’m glad it didn’t,” Noah said around a big bite of burger.

“What made you decide to cook?” Keith asked.

“Well, Asa needed a day off from cooking duty, but I knew he’d never willingly give up control, so I just took over and told him what I was doing. Then since you hadn’t called me, I thought it was a good reason for you to stop by. I mean everyone likes a burger.”

Keith got that same look again, like he was fighting the urge to choke and I grinned at him before he took a much needed drink of his beer. “Thanks, I haven’t shopped yet this week, so this really helped.”

“Happy to help,” I said and all of us were quiet for a moment while we ate. “So, Noah, what do you do for fun around here?”

His eyes widened and he slowly set his burger down on his plate. “I don’t know. Not much to do around Foggy Basin. I guess I just do the same shit everyone else does.”

“Have you ever gone riding up in the foothills?”

“What kind of riding do you mean? Like horses?”

“No, mountain bikes. I used to ride a lot around Auburn. With the canyon right there, I could leave my house and ride down to the river and back for a good workout. It was a great way to winddown after work.”

“What do you mean by mountain bikes?” Asa asked.

“Bicycles that are built for rough roads. They have shocks, specialized gears, everything that makes it easier to go fast or climb.”

“Sounds like a lot of work,” he said.

“Yeah, but it’s fun.”

“There’s a few trails off the lake and around the butte,” Keith said.

“Have you ever checked them out?”

“Not on a bike. On a motorcycle a few times but mostly four-wheeling. It’s a well-known pastime around here.” We’d talked about this when we went out so I knew he didn’t want to go for a bike ride.

“Well, if it’s a ‘well-known pastime’ then we should go. I haven’t seen much of the mountains around here, practically nothing. So how about we go check it out sometime?”

Keith looked from Asa to Noah and finally at me before he answered. “That sounds great.”

“When was the last time you rode a bike?” Noah asked.

Keith looked up at the ceiling like he was expecting the answer to fall through the roof and hit him in the face. Asa glanced up before shaking his head and grinning at me.

“It’s been a while, but I’m sure I can keep up,” he said, but he didn’t look quite as confident as he sounded. “We can go this Saturday if you want.”

“I don’t have my bike here, but we could go four-wheeling if you want.”

“That sounds good,” Keith said and tried to act very cool about it, but now I knew him well enough to know he was excited.