He took over seamlessly. “Twenty minutes or so. We’ll be there. Make sure there’s coffee ready.”
“Uh—” Tony was cut off by Jenn who in a playfully scolding tone said, “When has therenotbeen coffee ready for you, boy?”
I felt like this was an ongoing thing, a family joke. The line went quiet for a few seconds, then Tony piped up again. “Mrs. Jenn says just get your butts over when you can. Over.” Another cut off giggle was the last thing we heard.
Crew shook his head and clipped the thing back on his belt.
“Those things must come in handy,” I commented as I walked back to Niko, happy that I didn’t need to talk about my sudden obsessive rant about Finn horses.
“Oh yeah. Back when we were kids, there wasn’t much cell reception in the area and there was gradual building going on. Lots of room for us to play. We ran wild around the property because well, times were different and that’s how Mom and Dad wanted to raise us. To be country kids, you know.”
I nodded, understanding what he meant. “It was the same with me, but I was solo so I was always tagging along after one adult or another.”
“Yeah. So we had two-way radios for each kid. You forgot your walkie, there were consequences even if nothing went wrong. You learn quick if you get barred from doing your favorite thing for a day or two, depending on how much you worried the parentals.” He grinned as he walked past me with Shooter’s saddle and bridle.
I grabbed Niko’s and went after him to the tack room. “I can’t imagine growing up with siblings. It’s weird to even consider. I’m kind of sad that Tony doesn’t have a sibling, either, but he’s also so different from most other kids that I think he just flourishes being the only one.”
“Not all of us are as keen on having nine siblings as others. There’s personality differences and add hormones to that when there’s half a dozen teenagers in the same house….” He whistled quietly.
Chuckling, I headed back to Niko. “I can’t even imagine. Teenagers are not the best people as a whole.”
We put the horses in the closest pasture, since I would be learning the ropes in the stock barn and Crew would be doing his thing elsewhere.
There was a bathroom in the stock barn, so we freshened up a little before starting the walk across the yard to the house.
“How’s the cabin?” Crew glanced at me.
I smiled. “It’s great. Tony loves it. It’s just enough room for both of us, and we’re pretty much moved in already, because wedon’t have much stuff. Not that there’s a need for more or space, so….”
“That’s good to hear. If there’s anything at all you need, just let someone know and we’ll figure it out.”
They really seemed to be this caring and nice, although I figured some of it came from me having a kid. “Yeah, will do. Thanks.”
A black cat appeared from seemingly thin air. Just as it was about to cross our path, it flopped on the ground and rolled so that it was belly up.
“That seems like a trap,” I commented, grinning.
Crew snorted. “There’s a rule we have. If it’s black, you can pet it. If it’s tabby, don’t touch unless they come to you looking for pets, and the calicos are nutty but sweet.”
I laughed as I crouched down to pet the pretty cat. “Okay, that’s good to know. Do you have a lot of cats?”
“I don’t know the current number. Probably like twenty around the property. They’re all snipped, so there are no kittens.” He leaned down enough to pet the kitty. “This one is called Coal. Inventive, but one of the hands’ kids named her.”
“Aww, you’re such a nice girl, aren’t you?” I loved on the cat for a few more seconds. “So what about other colors?”
“Hmm?”
I straightened and looked at Crew. “Black, tabby, and calico. Don’t you have others?”
He smiled. “Oh, that. No, we actually don’t. Most of the cats we have come from a very long line of cats that were already on the property when Mom and Dad bought it. We just started to take better care of them and I think we’ve only gotten like a handful of cats from elsewhere. Of course the cat distribution system works on occasion, too. We’re remote, but there’s still the occasional stray that comes in.”
“Cat distribution system, huh?”
We left Coal in the literal dust and continued to the house.
“Yeah. Some people are chosen by the system and then a cat appears. One of my siblings is chosen more other than others, like—”
“Daddy!” Tony burst out of the house and I took a few quick steps to be able to catch him before he launched himself.
