Page 32 of Wounded Cowboy
Just like yesterday, they were already awake and happy to see her.
“Good morning, you two,” Kelsey greeted them.“Did you sleep well?”
“Yep!” Abby said.“Can we make pancakes again today, Ms. Kelsey? Pretty please?”
April chimed in, nodding vigorously.“We’ll do all the work this time, and you can watch us!”
Kelsey hesitated, torn between their excitement and her promise to stick to Spring’s plan for the day.“I’m sorry, girls, but we’re having cereal today.“
The sisters exchanged a crestfallen glance. But to her relief, they accepted the decision without protest.“I’ll ask your dad if we make pancakes again tomorrow.”
“Yay! There’s still lots of blueberry syrup in the fridge,” April reported.
“Why don’t you two get dressed and meet me in the kitchen after you’ve brushed your teeth?” Kelsey said.
As the girls dug into their cereal a few minutes later, Kelsey looked over Spring’s plan for the day, trying to suppress the feeling that she was depriving the children of the carefree summer they deserved.
“Hey, Ms. Kelsey,” April said between bites of her cereal.“What are we going to do today?”
“Well, your dad wants us to go out to the garden right after breakfast and make a list of all the pollinators we spot.”
“Daddy killed the wasps,” Abby reported, sounding triumphant.
“I told him not to,” April countered.“Because you said they eat the bugs that eat our plants.”
“Luckily, there are a lot of wasps in this area. Losing one nest won’t upset the predator/prey balance in your garden,” Kelsey said.“I agreed with your dad that it was dangerous to have a nest so close to your house.”
April pouted a little.“What are we doing after the pollinators?”
“We’re going to play Math Bingo!” Kelsey infused her tone with enthusiasm.
Spring had double-underlined“practice math skills,” so she knew there wasn’t any wiggle room there.
“Math Bingo?” April’s frown looked a lot like her dad’s.“What’sthat?”
“It’s a fun game,” Kelsey assured her.“And I brought some prizes for the winners.”
Digging around the supplies left over from her days as Kegan’s nanny, she’d found a selection of inexpensive colorful pencils, erasers, and stickers to bring with her today.
“I love math!” Abby announced.“Daddy said I’ll need to know a lot of math to become an astronaut.”
“I’m so glad to hear you like math. NASA will be lucky to have you when you’re old enough to become an astronaut.” Kelsey grinned at her, impressed by the little girl’s big dreams.
Then she turned to April.“What about you? What do you want to be when you grow up?”
“A paleontologist, like Ashley Hall at the Museum of the Rockies,” April said.“Ms. Hall came to talk at our school last year about the evolution of birds. Did you know birds are the only surviving dinosaur lineage?”
“I actually did,” Kelsey said. “Kegan used to say ‘this tastes like T-Rex’ whenever we ate chicken.”
April laughed.“That’s a good one! Because chickens are theropods, just like velociraptors and tyrannosaurs. Just with beaks rather than teeth.”
“Growing up, my family had a cockatiel named Sammy who behaved like one of the velociraptors inJurassic Park,” Kelsey told her.“Okay, if you guys are finished with your cereal and juice, let’s go find those pollinators.”
∞∞∞
As Spring approached the ranch’s goat pen, the unexpected sight of his brother-in-law, Nick Evans, leaning against the pen’s wooden fence brought a smile to his face.
“Nick,” Spring greeted him with genuine pleasure.“What brings you out here this early?”
