Fancy Pants (Only In Gooding Book #1) by Cathy Marie Hake Read Free Book Online Page B

at the size of the stable! How many horses do we have?”
    Tim couldn’t be sure whether the kid was claiming ownership or speaking in general terms. He decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. “The ranch owns two dozen. A couple of the hands own their own mounts, so the total tally is thirty-one.”
    Syd’s eyes widened. “Thirty-one! I didn’t realize there were that many men here.”
    “There aren’t. We keep three mounts for each man.” He shot Bert a look.
    A slow grin creased Bert’s weathered face. “Back before the railroad was close, we kept five mounts per cowpoke.”
    Craning his neck, Hathwell peered down the stable. “There aren’t that many stalls.”
    Tim smacked him on the back. “Nope. Not that many at all. Shouldn’t take you long.”
    “What shouldn’t take me long?”
    Tim accepted the shovel from Bert and thrust it at the kid. “Muck.”

    An eternity later, as she began to muck out yet another stall, Sydney shoved back a snarled tress. She shouldn’t have bothered to brush her hair that morning. The stable stank worse than an untended chamber pot. Just about the time she had a stall cleaned, the unmistakable noise of one of the horses relieving himself resounded in a nearby stall. For the first time in her life, she wondered if people who used crass language might not be cursing, but merely speaking a raw truth.
    “Well, well, if it ain’t good ol’ Syd Hathwell.”
    Sydney glanced over her shoulder. “Boaz.” She recognized the rangy black man from the brief introduction in the barnyard yesterday.
    “Easy for you to recognize me, but I hardly knew it was you.”
    Bert came over and elbowed him. “Don’t distract the kid. He’s got to concentrate hard to get the job done right.”
    “Bet the kid wouldn’t recognize himself—not with a shovel in his hands.”
    After Tim Creighton’s supper comments last night, Sydney anticipated the teasing and pranks that were bound to come her way. A woman would whine and chafe. A man would take it or even joke back. She flashed a cocky smile at him. “It beats scooping this muck up with my hands.”
    Bert chuckled and leaned into a railing. “You’re gonna have blisters.”
    “Future tense is unnecessary.”
    “And you’re still shovelin’?” He grabbed a handful of her shirt and yanked. “Dumb greenhorn, wash ’em and put on gloves before you get something festering!”
    “I didn’t bring gloves.”
    “What man worth his salt don’t have gloves? Aww, forget it. We shoulda known you wouldn’t have something that sensible.” He turned loose of her shirt and strode to the far side of the stable. Yanking a pair of gloves from a dusty shelf, he looked at them and scowled. “These are gonna be too big. Blast, I ain’t never seen a man have such small hands.”
    “It’s a Hathwell trait.”
    “Ain’t nothin’ to boast about. It’s gonna make life harder for you.”
    “I’ll simply purchase boys’ gloves when next I go to town.”
    Tim Creighton stepped into view. Sydney didn’t know where he’d been, but a smudge of dirt on his rugged jaw testified to the fact that he’d been busy. Suddenly, earning his approval mattered. Her shovel scraped the floor. “I’ll be done in a few more minutes.”
    “Fine. Bert, Velma said we’ve got a fox digging at the bottom of the henhouse again. Go fill it in and bury a few spikes for good measure.”
    “Add a healthy dash of cayenne pepper to the last spadeful of dirt,” Sydney suggested.
    “Huh?” Boaz looked puzzled.
    “Cayenne pepper. Certainly Velma has some. It irritates the nose and eyes of a predator. The fox won’t likely come back very soon after getting a sample of it.”
    Bert planted his hands on his hips. “’Zat so?”
    “Indeed.”
    “Boss?”
    A crooked grin quirked the corner of Creighton’s mouth. “Try spikes in one half and pepper in the other. We’ll see if playing cook in the mud pie makes a whit’s worth of difference.”
    Sydney