Chapter Fourteen #3
She needed to make that call to Aisha.
Huck entered the kitchen, and her moment to clear the air between her and Jayce was lost.
“Something flattened a section of my durum field last night, right in front of those damned weasel burrows,” Huck grumbled as he sat down to his breakfast. “They’re being watched. Mark my words, something’s going to get them. I heard coyotes.”
The tips of Jayce’s ears turned an intriguing shade of bright red. He pushed his plate of half-eaten pancakes aside.
“I’m going to give Mom a hand in the garden. Malika? Want to come with me?”
Huck poured a cup of coffee from the carafe. “Let her finish her breakfast.”
“But—”
“No buts. Where are your manners, boy? She’s barely touched her plate.”
Jayce—finally—looked at Malika. He raised his eyebrows, his question clear. Was she coming with him or not?
The food on her plate looked delicious. She did want to eat it.
More importantly, she wanted a few moments alone with his father. If she desired a favor from Vanessa, she could at least get to the bottom of why he was so opposed to her project and help end their ridiculous feud.
“I’ll join you as soon as I finish. I won’t be long,” she said.
Indecision spread the color from Jayce’s ears to his cheeks. He couldn’t make up his mind as to whether it was safe to leave her alone with his father. What did he think she might do? Explain to Huck how his wheat field got flattened?
She smiled sweetly, because even though sex with him was a wonderful experience, he was so very easy to torment. “It will give your father and me a chance to get to know each other.”
“Why do she and I need to get to know each other?” Huck demanded of Jayce.
Suspicion gleamed in his eyes.
Jayce almost knocked his chair over in his speed to rise from the table. “When you find out, be sure to explain it to me.” He fled the kitchen.
Huck switched his suspicion to Malika. “What the h-heck has gotten into him?”
It was easy to see where Jayce’s prickly nature came from. Huck was straightforward, which meant it was best to get straight to the point. It threw him off because he didn’t expect to have it turned back on him.
“I have no idea. He can be very moody sometimes, don’t you think? Perhaps it’s got to do with the ferrets, and why you dislike them. Why do you dislike them? They’re such joyful, playful little creatures. I think they’re adorable.”
“Women,” Huck muttered. “It’s the d-danged pheasants all over again.”
“Pheasants?” Pheasants were birds, much like chickens. “What do pheasants have to do with the ferrets?”
He stabbed his fork into the dwindling stack of pancakes on the food warmer and transferred three to his plate.
“About fifteen years ago, Vanessa got it into her head that we needed pheasants roaming free range. She said we could eat the eggs and hunt a few of the birds and put them on the table for fancy dinners. Cost us a fortune, because she couldn’t have common pheasants.
Oh, no. We had to go for the ones that are worth over a hundred dollars apiece because they laid the best eggs.
We had to pay for shipping on top of that, which was highway robbery, by the way.
Once the pheasants got here and we released them, it turned out they didn’t know how to range free, so we had to feed them.
They never did produce any eggs, and not one of them made it to our table.
The coyotes and foxes got to them first.”
Finally.
Malika saw the real problem.
It explained why he had checked on the ferrets so early this morning. “Which made Vanessa sad. And you think the coyotes and foxes will get the ferrets, too, and then, she’ll be sad all over again.” And Huck didn’t like his wife to be sad.
They were an adorable couple. Jayce was so lucky to have parents like these.
“That’s part of it,” Huck said. He poured syrup on his pancakes. “But the Ride No More is a working ranch. We can’t be wasting time and money on animals that don’t earn their keep. Especially not if we end up feeding them to the coyotes.”
How to persuade him? He didn’t believe they’d help to resolve a prairie dog problem, especially if they didn’t survive, so that was the wrong logic to use. Malika began thinking out loud.
“Vanessa is interested in conservation. She likes to use the land to preserve endangered species. Except small creatures can’t survive in their natural habitat if they’re no longer wild, especially if their numbers aren’t high enough to sustain losses to predators.”
“Sounds about right,” Huck said. “But she has no business going behind my back, either. This is a partnership, as she and Jayce like to remind me. Except when she wants something. Then she gets Jayce on her side, and they team up against me.”
And there was the final piece of the problem. An imbalance of power.
“You need to even the scales,” Malika said. “What project will make you both happy, requires conservation, will pay for itself, thrives in this environment, and is large enough to fight off predators?”
Huck’s face lit up. “Bison,” he said.