Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“Yes?” she signed.
She’d been speaking on and off today.
Several times she’d asked me about Beau, and I hadn’t been paying attention to her hands so she’d been forced to speak.
Maybe I should do that more often…
It might encourage her to speak more.
“Do you want to go to Beau’s friend’s ranch and see Beau?”
Iris was off the couch and standing by the front door in the next second.
I eyed her bright pink Crocs and off-white sweatsuit set.
“We’ll probably have to change into something a little…darker,” I suggested. “We don’t want to get those filthy.”
She walked to her room and started to yank out every piece of clothing in her dresser. “Whoa, whoa, whoa.”
She paused and looked over her shoulder at me, waiting.
“Jeans,” I said. “With maybe some leggings underneath since it’s pretty cold out today.”
She pulled out a white pair of leggings, and I chose to let it happen.
Her black glitter jeans were next, and again I didn’t argue, even though they were the nicest that she owned.
I walked to her closet and pulled out the little Carhartt jacket that had shown up in her cubby one day a couple of months ago. No one had claimed the jacket, nor admitted that it was a gift, but I knew. Beau had bought it for her. It was pink and represented everything that Iris loved.
She may not outright tell you that pink was her favorite color, but there were definitely signs.
She slipped everything on, leaving the jacket for when we got to Denver’s place, and headed to the front door where her cowgirl boots—the ones she wore to every one of my games—waited.
She slipped her feet into them and then pushed open the door.
“Wait, wait.”
She looked at me impatiently.
“I have to get dressed, too!”
She crossed her arms and all but glared at me.
My lips twitching, I hurried from the room and got dressed in leggings, overalls, and my least favorite sweatshirt. When I got back, Iris was tapping her foot and checking the time on her watch.
A watch that, subsequently, Beau had also purchased for her.
He’d told me a couple of weeks ago that Lysander, his brother, had loved knowing what time it was at any moment. That a watch had really helped him.
Iris not only loved it, but she liked to tell me what time it was whenever she thought I might want to know.
“Can we go?”
I loved that she only spoke with me to give me sass.
That’s my girl.
So much like her mother that it hurt.
The drive to Denver and Holly’s place took us nearly twenty minutes, mostly because I had a little girl in the back seat who demanded that I stop every time that we saw a cow she thought was cool.
Luckily, most of them were boring black or reddish brown, and that didn’t interest her as much.
But man, oh man, when we saw a black and white one…
We arrived at the ranch in time to see Holly walking across the driveway with what looked like a pair of pliers and green rubber bands in her hand.
“Hey!” I called. “Where should I park?”
She gestured behind her where there was a line of trucks covered in dirt. “Over there is perfect!”
I parked, and Iris got out, immediately splashing in the mud with her boots.
I sighed as mud splashed up the length of her pants.
I expected her to flip out, because normally she didn’t do mud whatsoever, but ranch mud seemed to be okay. Apparently, it was only playground mud that did her in.
“Where is everyone?”
“The girls are separating babies from mamas.” She pointed to the far pasture where I could just see a couple of blonde heads bopping around with a couple of men on horseback. “Beau and Denver are leading the stray cows they didn’t bring in yesterday from public land.”
“Ahh,” I said.
“Goats!” Iris whispered.
I looked over to the goats and said, “They’re adorable.”
“And about to get castrated.” She held up the pliers. “Want to come watch?”
Wholly curious, I gestured at Iris and said, “Do you want to go watch the goats?”
Her answer was to start walking toward them.
“We don’t usually do goats,” she said. “But the girls are doing FFA—Future Farmers of America—next year, and they want to breed their own goats to show. We talked about doing cows, but that’s just not something we’re altogether ready to deal with. Raising cows to eat, and then raising cows to show, are two completely different ball games.”
“If you’re wanting to breed them then…”
“Why am I castrating them?” she asked as she led me into the gate with the goats. “Because there are a few we’re not interested in passing their genetics down. These two are also the ones that we’re going to show next year, and they’re castrated so they’re easier to show…plus they won’t smell like death.”
“They smell?”