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“Who are you?” Addy asked Doc as he approached.
“Never mind who he is, Adelynn. Why can’t you take the chicken back?”
“Because I rescued it.” Addy looked at Doc again. “How long have you known my mom?”
“A few days,” Doc answered.
“Rescued it from where, Addy?” I had a bad feeling about this. Like last year when she’d sneaked that white mouse home in her lunchbox after her school field trip to the Reptile Gardens.
“From the chicken farm,” Addy said, as if there were chicken farms on every corner in Deadwood. Her gaze returned to Doc. “Mom’s single, you know. My dad ran off while she was pregnant, so you don’t have to worry about him interfering.”
My neck roasted, and it had nothing to do with the heat rolling off the asphalt. I grabbed Addy’s chin and turned her face toward me. “Addy, dear, focus on me here.”And quit trying to pimp me out!
She sighed and made glaring eye contact.
Had she not been of my own flesh and blood, I might have taken her to the post office right then and shipped her to the moon. “What chicken farm?”
“They were going to chop off her head, Mom. I just know it. I couldn’t let them do it. She’s too pretty. Please, can I keep her? She can share a bed with Checkers.”
“Who’s Checkers?” I asked.
“The kitten you said I could keep.”
“I never said you could keep one of the kittens.”
“Did too! You said, ‘Yes, siree’ last night when you were on the back porch drinking beer with Natalie.”
“I said, ‘We’ll see.’”
A muffled chuckle from Doc won him my testicle-withering stare. He squeezed his lips tight and brushed some pine pollen off the hood of the Bronco.
“Please, Mom? Please, please, please.” Addy used the sweet, innocent child voice she thought still worked on me.
Unfortunately, with Doc as an audience and the clock ticking on our afternoon of house viewing, I didn’t have the time to deal with today’s Addy-emergency. “Take the chicken home and put it in the garage. But—” I interrupted her whoop of victory, “that doesn’t mean we are keeping her. We’ll discuss this in more detail when I get home.”
Addy frowned, but kept quiet. A wise child, considering that my head was about to explode. She climbed on the bike seat and adjusted the chicken tighter in her arms, receiving a squawk of protest in return. “Okay, Mom, but do me a favor.”
I just stared at her, my hands clenched at my side.
“Try to keep an open mind about this.”
This time, Doc’s laugh was outright.
Addy smiled at him. “Mom loves daisies, peanut-butter fudge ice cream, Captain Kirk, and anything having to do with Elvis. Good luck!”
“Addy!” I yelled at her as she rode off.
A chicken feather floated to the ground between Doc and me.
“Sorry about that.” I had trouble meeting his dark eyes, so I focused on the cleft in his chin.
“She’s cute. Reminds me of someone.”
“Me?”
He chuckled. “Are you fishing for a compliment?”
This time, I blushed so hard my knees roasted.
