Page 14 of Claimed By the Cowboys
“Chickens!” Maisie called out excitedly as she entered the coop, stroking one of them with a big smile on her face.
I refused to show my unease, since children picked up on that stuff so easily.
“So, what do we need to do, Miss Maisie?” I asked.
“Collect eggs.” She pointed to the far wall where there were several little cubbies. Even from the other side of the coop, I could see clear as day that several of them had eggs in them.
A few of them even had chickens sitting in them.
Gingerly, I walked across the coop—my strappy sandals were far from the optimal footwear for being in a chicken coop, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
“You get tall ones?” Maisie asked sweetly.
Several of the cubbies were at shoulder height for me, so for the little girl, they would be impossible to reach.
“I can get those, sweetheart,” I assured her.
With a confidence that could only have come from doing this time and time again, Maisie started grabbing one egg at a time, gently placing them in the basket I was holding between us.
Following her lead, I picked up eggs from the taller cubbies. There were probably twenty eggs overall. They didn’t consume that many eggs every day, did they?
When Maisie reached a box where one of the chickens was roosting, she didn’t move on to the next one. No, this apparently fearless child reached right under the grumpy chicken and pulled out an egg.
“The chickens are so friendly!” I said, beaming down at her.
She nodded. “Sometimes they peck.”
Fuck.
I didn’t want to be pecked by a darn chicken.
But there was one resting in the cubby at the top that Maisie would never be able to reach.
Fearless. I needed to be fearless.
Approaching the bird cautiously, I gently slipped my hand underneath it, watching intently for any sign that the pissy poultry may try to peck me.
Thankfully, the chicken gods were looking on me favorably, because the bird seemed downright uninterested as I slipped two eggs out from underneath her.
“We gotsta wash the eggs because they’re poopy!” Maisie declared with a grin.
Poop eggs.
I wasn’t a total moron—I knew eggs came from the rear end of a chicken. But knowing it and physically touching it were twoverydifferent things.
“Yep, shall we wash them now?” I asked, my voice a little tighter than I intended.
Dakota was chuckling from the coop entrance. I couldn’t let it get back to the guys that I was freaked out by the notion of poop eggs—Clayton would never let me live that down.
This city girl was going to make the best of the situation and make sure these darn poop eggs sparkled.
When Dakota found us out back at the laundry line, I had just finished pinning up the last of the bedsheets to dry. Maisie sat beside the empty laundry basket, fiddling with a handful of clover and a few of the leftover clothespins, quietly singing to herself as she played.
“Okay, pretty girl, now that you and our little lady have collected the eggs and done a bunch of chores around the house, I think it’s time to show you some more of the ranch,” Dakota beamed.
“Can we show her horses?” Maisie asked in a sweet voice, abandoning the flowers and clothespins.
“They’re getting their new shoes on today, so maybe later?” He glanced at me before explaining, “This little one loves thehorses. We only have a few, but they’re her favorite after the chickens. Miss Emmy is going to stop by for lunch, though, so we should probably get moving. You ladies had a busy morning. Time really flies when you’re busy!”
