Читать книгу Committed to the Baby онлайн | страница 49

But if wishes were horses, as the old saying went…

Maggie was shaken and not too proud to admit it, at least to herself. Pushing her turbulent thoughts to a back corner of her mind to be examined later, she took a deep breath, forced some lightheartedness into her voice and quickly changed the subject.

“So,” she asked, glancing back at the two dogs trotting behind them, “why are Angel and Spike here instead of out with the herd?”

There was a pause before he answered, as if he were grateful for the reprieve.

“We’re training two new dogs to help out,” he said. “Phil thought it best to give these two a couple days off while the new pups are put through their paces.”

She’d been a rancher’s wife long enough to know the value of herd dogs. When the dogs worked the cattle, they could get into tight places a cowboy and his horse couldn’t. The right dog could get a herd moving and keep it moving while never scaring the cattle into a stampede, which could cause injury both to cowboys and to herd. These dogs were well trained and were spoiled rotten by the cowboys, as she remembered. She’d teased Justice once that apparently sheepherders had been right about using dogs in their work and that finally ranchers had caught on.

She smiled, remembering how Justice had reacted—chasing her through the house and up the stairs, laughing, until he’d caught up to her in their bedroom. Then he’d spent the next several hours convincing her to take it back. No cattleman alive had ever taken advice from a sheepherder, he’d told her, least of all him.

Spike and Angel darted past Justice and Maggie, heading through the open doors of a barn that was two stories tall and built to match the main house’s log construction. The shadows were deep, and the only sound coming from the barn was that deep, insistent lowing Maggie had heard earlier.

“Hey, you two, come away from there!” A sudden shout came from inside the barn, and almost instantly both dogs scuttled back outside and took off in a fast lope across the dirt. If they’d been children, Maggie was sure they would have been laughing.