Chapter 10
Knox researched information on both kittens and small roosters while Lottie drove the fifteen minutes to the Walmart store. “I’m sorry I was such bad company on the way up here, but I really wanted to find out what to feed a kitten and a rooster,” he said as he slipped his phone into his pocket.
“And here I thought you thought I was such a bad driver that you didn’t want to look at the road.”
“Nope, not at all,” he assured her with a bright smile.
She swung open the door and got out of her truck. “I bet that hurt you to say.”
His feet were on the ground before she rounded the back side of the vehicle. “You’ll never know how much. Now I know how Tripp felt when Pansy the pig landed on his farm, and he had no idea what to feed her or how to take care of her. How old was Prissy when you got her?”
“I didn’t get her. She got me. Like the way your two new critters got you.
I was on my way to my first framing job after college and pulled my new trailer into a Walmart parking lot.
A car drove up beside my truck, and a hand came out the back window and dropped Prissy right out on the hot concrete.
She ran up to me and climbed up the leg of my jeans.
The pitiful little fur ball was so skinny I could feel every bone in her little body.
I put her in the trailer and then went to the store.
I asked a clerk to help me buy the essentials and point me to the nearest vet. We’ve been together ever since.”
The automatic doors to the store opened, and they went inside together. “Welcome to Walmart. Need a cart?” The greeter—an older gentleman with gray hair, wrinkles, and twinkling blue eyes—asked the moment they passed through the second set of doors.
“Yes, please,” Lottie answered.
Eldon—according to the name tag pinned to his orange vest—pulled one from the long line, swiped a disinfectant wipe across the handle, and gave it to her. Then he turned to Knox and asked the same question.
“Yes, sir, Eldon, and thank you. Have you been working here long?”
“Ever since I retired from being a lawyer four years ago. This is the best job I ever had,” Eldon answered. “My advice to anyone is to only work until you can hang up your hat, then do something that requires nothing but smiling at folks.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Knox said and hurried to catch up with Lottie.
“What took you so long?” she asked.
“I was getting some life hints from the greeter,” he answered.
“Did you learn something good?”
“Yep, I did, but I have to wait more than thirty years to use it.”
She headed toward the deli part of the store. “By then, whatever he told you will probably be obsolete. Are you stalking me or just going to the same place I am?”
“A boyfriend does not stalk his girlfriend,” Knox smarted off. “And a smile is never obsolete, darlin’.”
She fell in line behind two other people at the deli, and he parked his cart right behind her. “I still can’t believe that you didn’t think twice about keeping that kitten and rooster,” she said.
“They chose me, kind of like Prissy did you. They could have gone to any one of the six trailers on-site, but they came to mine. Must be a sign in that somewhere. And besides all that, I’ll be moving into my house with plenty of land after we finish this job for Jack, and the critters will be someone for me to talk to. ”
“With all your family living around you, I don’t imagine you’ll be lonely,” Lottie said.
Knox thought he saw a glimmer of something in her expression, but it could have just been a figment of his imagination, fueled by what Bernie had said about Lottie being slightly interested in him.
If she was right, then damn it! I might have messed up what could have been a good thing.
“When we get through here, would you help me find the cat food?” he asked.
She moved her cart up a space. “Sure. You’ll need kitten food, but don’t buy a lot, because he or she will grow fast, and you don’t want to waste it. But then again, you could feed it to the rooster if there’s any left.”
“Chickens eat cat food?”
“Birds will eat anything, including eggshells, which are surprisingly good for them. But mostly they need balanced feed if you expect to keep them healthy,” she answered.
Knox eyed her carefully. “I didn’t read a thing about that when I was researching banty roosters. Are you serious or messing with me?”
“My grandparents lived on a small farm,” she answered. “I spent a few weeks every summer with them. They had chickens and pigs and even a milk cow. I fed the livestock and tended the garden with Grandpa and snapped green beans and canned the produce with Granny.”
“But she didn’t teach you to cook?” Knox asked.
She moved up in line, whipped out a list from her purse, and told the lady behind the counter what she wanted. While the woman worked on her order, she turned back to Knox. “She taught me how to make soup and sandwiches. You can tell by looking at me that I’ve never gone hungry.”
His eyes started at her toes and slowly moved upward until he reached her eyes.
“Want me to turn around so you can check out my backside, too?” she snapped.
“Nope, I was just thinking that you should come up with a food plan for all the women in the world.” He slid a sly wink her way. “Your tagline could be: Eat soup, sandwiches, and dessert, work hard all day long, and you will look great.”
She put her order into the cart. “Is that a compliment?”
Knox moved to place his order. “Depends on how you take it.”
“Then thank you,” she said. “I’ll see you when you finish.”
While the lady filled his order, he watched Lottie walk away, and something stirred down deep in his heart. Not that a little flutter in his chest would do him a bit of good. The idea of something between them at this point had been ruined by a fake relationship.
* * *
“Are you really going to keep those animals? If so, what are you going to name them?” Lottie asked on the way home from the store. She needed to make conversation about anything or everything to ease the lingering jitters still in her body from when he scanned her from toes to eyebrows.
“If no one claims them, I am,” he answered. “I hadn’t even thought of giving them names, but I guess I should.”
“I used to name all the chickens, the calves, and the piglets. I was almost grown before Grandpa told me that I was eating Porky for breakfast. Broke my heart,” she told him.
“That rooster is way too pretty to make chicken and dumplings out of him, but then again, his feathers might look real sharp stuck in the band of my cowboy hat.”
“No!” Lottie raised her voice. “He’s a pet, not dinner.”
“Okay, then,” Knox said. “Does that mean you don’t want me to skin the cat when it gets grown and make a pair of gloves out of its hide?”
“You are evil—downright wicked for even teasing me about hurting a cat.” Her voice got higher with each word.
Knox chuckled and laid a hand on her shoulder.
“ I have a confession to make, but it’s classified, so you can’t ever tell anyone.
I cried when a opossum had been run over in front of our house, and I was fifteen years old.
I could never hurt an animal. I even swerve to keep from hitting anything on the road.
Truth is, I have always wanted a dog or a cat, but until now, I didn’t have a permanent home. ”
“That can be our secret,” she whispered. “But you do need to start thinking about names.”
He covered a yawn with his hand. “I’ll just call them Kitten and Rooster, or Kitty and Roo for short. I don’t imagine anyone who threw them away like trash wouldn’t have bothered to name them.”
“Maybe ‘Damn It’ for the kitten for getting under their feet too many times, and ‘Hush’ for the rooster,” she said with a yawn and wished that it wasn’t too late in the day to grab a half-hour power nap.
“Yep, but I figure they’ll like Kitty and Roo better.”
“What makes you think that?” Lottie asked.
“They told me so,” he said as nonchalantly as if he was discussing the weather.
“So, you talk chicken and cat now?”
“Of course,” he answered with a glint in his blue eyes. “I said, ‘Where did you come from, kitty cat?’ and it came right to me. I asked the rooster what he was doing on my porch, and he flew over and lit on my knee.”
Lottie tried to bite back a chuckle, but it didn’t work. “‘Kitty’ is going to be a terrible name for a boy kitten.”
“You are right,” Knox agreed. “The kitten’s name will be ‘Ballou,’ or maybe ‘Bally’ for short.”
“Why? And do you mean ‘ballet’?”
“No, but it does kind of sound like that. I’m naming her after that old movie, Cat Ballou.
My grandparents went to the movies on their first date and saw it.
Granny found it on DVD and bought it for Grandpa’s birthday.
It’s slapstick funny, but I loved the way they laughed every time we all watched it together.
They passed away within three days of each other, and I inherited the movie.
We’ll have to watch it sometime,” he said.
“But isn’t Cat Ballou a girl? What if it’s a tomcat? Can’t you just see him out there flirting with a female and having to tell her his name is Bally?”
“She’s too pretty to be a boy cat.”
“All kittens, male or female, are cute,” Lottie argued. “You may have to change its name if it’s a boy. What about the bird?”
Knox said. “When I was a kid, my grandparents took us boys to an amusement park. There was a shop there called Cheeto’s. I loved the ice cream they served, and they had this huge rooster on their sign with a triple dip of ice cream in his hand. So, his name is Cheeto,” he declared.
Lottie turned into the gravel road leading to the site and parked beside his trailer. “Those seem like proper names. Need some help carrying in all your stuff?”
He handed Lottie his keys. “I can get it, but I might need you to corral Bally for me. Be careful. With all that long hair, I can’t tell if she’s got fleas or not, and I wouldn’t want you to take home any to give to Prissy. As a precaution, I bought special shampoo to give her a bath tonight.”
“You should also take her to the vet for her shots. Anyone who would dump her out like this probably did not take proper care of her,” Lottie suggested as she picked up the chicken feed and headed toward the trailer.
He looped several of the plastic bag handles over his arm and followed her. “I’ll do some research and see if there is one close by that stays open late. Would you go with me? I have no idea what kind of questions to ask.”
Lottie opened the door and scooped up the kitten when it tried to run outside. “Sure, and you can even borrow my cat carrier. Just tell me when and where. I might even let you drive while I console poor little Cat, who is going to hate being cooped up.”
“Let me drive!” Knox growled.
“Don’t get all macho on me,” Lottie warned him.
The rooster flew into the house while the door was open and lit on the edge of the sink. He leaned over and drank from a coffee cup full of water that Knox had left there on Friday.
Knox dropped all the bags on the floor, grabbed the cup and dumped it, then refilled it with clean water. “Try that, buddy. It will taste a lot better.”
“A chicken will drink out of a mud puddle,” Lottie told him.
Knox picked up the bags and set them on the table. “Maybe he did in the old life he had before he got thrown in my direction. In this new life, he gets clean water.”
Lottie turned the kitten over and checked it out, then handed her off to Knox.
“Congratulations. You have a baby girl. Just don’t bring her or Cheeto to my trailer.
Prissy will eat the bird, feathers, and all, and try to murder the kitten.
She’s very jealous. Once, when a Dalmatian came around the site, she jumped on his back and sent him howling. We never saw him again.”
She wondered if that meant if their pets didn’t get along, then there could be no hope for anything other than a fake relationship.