Chapter Seven
“What in the world is this?!” I exclaim as I look over what Boone has called a chicken coop.
This is no chicken coop. It’s fancier than that glamping trip I took three years ago with my friend, Heather, in Montana.
There are nesting boxes with curtains, as if Boone cares about the privacy of all his female hen friends.
String lights hang from above, and there’s even a golden-framed mirror with two framed pictures of roosters beside it.
Roosters! As if even the hens need to daydream about their prince charming or maybe more understood by chickens… their prince clucking.
“My chicken coop,” he says flatly.
“This is not a chicken coop. I have friends in New York that live in less luxury than this,” I argue while my eyes dart back and forth, trying to take in all the details.
That’s when I notice there are golden plaques underneath each of the nesting boxes.
Henrietta. Henny Penny. Amelia Egghart. Betty. “Did you name your chickens?”
I’m pretty sure his beard is hiding his blush, because the way his teeth sink into his bottom lip indicates that he’s not proud of this moment, and now I’m wondering if this is exactly why he didn’t want me to come out to his chicken coop. “I mean, are they not supposed to be named?”
Then I see the name Goose. “Did you seriously name a chicken Goose so you could call a chicken something it’s not, just like Dog, your cat?”
“Let’s just collect the eggs.”
His lack of an answer confirms that’s exactly what he did. This man has a weird sense of humor. “You did! Which one is Goose?!”
He’s busy putting eggs in his coat pocket and refuses to answer.
“Oh, Goose! Goosey-Goose-Goose! Where are you, girl?” I call out while patting my knees.
There are at least a dozen chickens in here, maybe more.
My knowledge of chickens basically ends with how an egg is made.
I’ve always refused to pick one up no matter how many times Nathan or Jenny, my oldest nephew and niece, beg me to.
I just can’t get over how much they resemble tiny velociraptors, and the way they run doesn’t aid their cause.
“What exactly are you doing?” He exhales as he stands up straight, proving that this coop is not a normal coop.
A man of his size should not be able to stand upright in a chicken coop.
That’s supposed to be part of the inconvenience of being tall—having to duck.
And now I wonder if there is a chicken named Duck in here, too.
“Just trying to put feathers to names,” I answer. “Goose! Where are you, girl?”
“I’ve got six eggs. Is that enough, or do we need to encourage one of these ladies to lay another?” Boone questions, trying to tiptoe around my antics. I can feel it in the way he’s holding back an eye roll to call attention to how ridiculous I am.
“Depends on if that lady is named Goose,” I clatter back. “Why exactly is this coop so nice, and how many chickens do you have?”
“I have fifteen, and it’s a very secure coop to protect them from predators,” he replies.
“Such as?” I prod.
“Raccoons, foxes, bears. You know, things that live in the forest. Now, can we go back inside and leave the ladies to their laying?”
“Bears? Like the one on your wall? Did that bear try to get in here? Is that why it’s now hanging in your house?
Were you the proud protector of your hens?
The rooster they’d been dreaming about since the only manly chickens they’d ever seen were hanging on their own wall?
” I detail out, watching as Boone’s face conjures up a new fold in his forehead with every question I ask.
“The bear head came with the cabin,” he groans. “Are you done now?”
It’s at this moment that Goose decides to make herself known. Not by clucking or even strutting over to me, but by spreading her wings and attacking. I swear spikes protrude from her grotesque feet as they plummet toward me.
Boone’s oversized boots betray me, which is understandable. Another pair of feet could easily fit in them along with my own, and they might be feeling a little frustrated from the lack of use.
I stumble around until my feet wiggle their way out of the boots, losing any sense of balance that I possess, and flounder around frantically until my head crashes into a beam—that I believe is called a roosting board—where I startle even more chickens, causing them to join their feathery friend in flight.
Boone is quick to join me on the floor, although much more gracefully than I ended up here. “Are you okay?”
I flinch as I lift my head from the ground covered in pine shavings. There’s a piercing pain coming from above my right eye and, now that I focus on it, a sticky warmth. I reach my hand up, touching the spot, and then discover my hypothesis is correct…I’m bleeding.
“Did you train her to do that?” I ask as I try to stand up, but Boone soon puts his arms under my own to lift me easily, as if I’m a pillow and not a person.
“What?”
“Goose. Is she loyal to you or something? Scared of a new hen being in the coop? I’ll gladly tell her that my threat level is zero.
I have no intentions of swooping in and stealing her rooster of a man.
I’m not that kind of woman. I don’t take what’s not mine.
I mean besides the eggs. I’ll take those, but really what does she want with them? ” I ramble.
“Well, you seem to be okay.” He breathes out as he lets go of me, as if he’s been holding his breath, as if he was truly concerned. “But we better get back inside and clean up that gash.”
He retrieves his boots that I stumbled out of and slips them back on my feet. As he stands back up, he steps closer, putting minimal millimeters between us. He examines the injury, and I find myself holding my breath as his covers my exposed skin.
“Is it bad?” I say as I take a step back, creating a larger buffer between us.
“Nothing a few stitches won’t fix,” he assesses.
“Stitches?!” I cry. Stitches mean a permanent scar. They mean a forever reminder that I was a rambling klutz that had been calling for a chicken like a pet to prove a point that I hadn’t devised yet just for the opportunity to be clever.
“I’m kidding,” he laughs. “You’ll be fine.”