{Chapter 16}

“No! Nope. Not gonna happen Wade” Aubrey shook her head.

“Look, Bree. If you’re gonna start, you’re gonna like the rest of us” Wade said with a smile, handing her a shovel.

Mucking stables? What a terrible idea! Aubrey huffed and took the shovel.

“Have fun” Wade grinned and began to walk past her.

He kissed her cheek quickly and walked out to his horse. She sent a scowl after him and held the shovel up, looking at the long line of stalls before her.

She had spent hours cleaning out the filthy stables, and her dress was covered in what she preferred to call mud. She wiped her hands on the only clean area left on her dress and walked out into the sunshine. Wade had just rode in and was dismounting his horse. He looked at her and laughed.

“You did this to me!” Aubrey exclaimed, annoyed at his laughing.

“I know, I know” Wade grinned and handed her a pail of crushed corn. “Chickens need feeding.”

Aubrey rolled her eyes and took the pail. Wade walked past her with another kiss on the cheek. “Good job, sweetheart.”

Aubrey nearly softened for a moment, then looked down at her “muddy” dress and grew angry with him again. She neared the chicken coop and started to enter.

“Be careful, Mrs. Dylan. That rooster’ll get ya,” Tiny warned from where he was saddling a horse nearby.
“It’s just a chicken, Tiny” Aubrey smiled.

“Look, that ain’t just a chicken. That rooster has the wiles of the devil about him! He’s a peckin’, clawin’, scratchin’, schemin’, feathery ball of fury!” Tiny cautioned.

Aubrey laughed and sprinkled the corn around the pen. The chickens pecked at the corn but didn’t bother to come after her. She shook her head at Tiny’s anxious behavior around the chickens.

After the chickens and livestock were fed, the horses hayed and watered, and the pig slopped, Wade smiled at her and told her she was finished for the day.

“Thank goodness” Aubrey breathed. She thought a moment. “It sorta feels good to put in a few hours of work, though.”

“That it does. I’ve still got some work to do, but you can take Jay and Sadie on home if you’d like” Wade was coiling a rope while talking to her.

“Okay. When are you coming?”

“I’ll be in later. I’ve got some business to attend to first” Wade smiled.

Aubrey smiled at him and turned to leave. “See you later then.”

“Okay, sweetheart.”

**********

Erik grunted as he hit the dirt for the third time. There was no worse feeling than being thrown by the same horse more than once, let alone three times.

“Daddy!” A little voice called to him.

“Hey Sandy” Erik smiled at his little girl, dusting himself off.

“Can I ride the horsy?” Sandy asked him sweetly.

“’Fraid not, sweetening. You’ll fall off” Erik bent to lift his daughter into his arms.

“You’ll hold me” Sandy offered.

“Then we’ll both fall off, darlin’. See, that horse is wild, and he doesn’t know when a little girl’s on him or a big man yet” Erik explained.

“Oh” Sandy watched the horse carefully.

Erik smiled as Toni neared the corral where they stood.

“Teachin’ her the bronc bustin’ business already, are ya?” Toni smiled.

“She’s gonna be an expert a’fore long” Erik smiled and touched Sandy’s nose.

“I don’t know about that, McBride. Our daughter’s gotta be a rancher like her Ma” Toni winked at him.

Erik leveled her with a playful stare. “We better be careful or she’ll end up a self-proclaimed matchmaker like Katie.”

Toni’s eyes widened in mock horror. “For shame, Erik. Don’t be talking like that!”

Erik laughed at her. “Any news on you deputy sheriff?”

“Well, the people seem to like him well enough” Toni sighed. “His job situation isn’t working out too well, though. If he loses, Duncan’ll fire him for sure. That wouldn’t sit with me too well, even if he did make me get married for no good reason” Toni smiled at Erik as she teased him.

In a way, they owed their relationship to Adam Sterling, who had come up with a not-so-brilliant idea of getting married to get rid of rustlers.

“Yes, the man did wrong by us, didn’t he? How are we ever going to forgive him?” Erik gave Sandy to Toni and kissed his wife’s forehead. “I’ve gotta get back on this horse.”

“Okay. Don’t break your neck or anything. I’ll settle of an arm, but you gotta protect vital bones” Toni grinned.

“Yes ma’am.”

**********

Three days passed, and Aubrey got up everyday, fixed a pot of coffee, made sure Wade had some of the brew in him, woke and dressed Jay, brushed out her hair, and went to the ranch to help with the chores. Though Toni reassured her that she didn’t need to do the chores, Aubrey still made sure she did. It gave her a sense of worth knowing that the cowboys didn’t have to do some of the chores that she took care of. Toni was glad to be rid of the job of encountering Mr. Cluck on a daily basis. One day while she was finishing up with the chores, she saw Wade coming toward her with a lariat in his hands.

“Come on, darlin’. We’re gonna teach you how to lasso” He grinned at her.

“Really?” Aubrey bounced up and down on her toes in excitement.

“Reckon you need to learn how to do some of the things we do around here if you’re gonna be one of us” Wade said, giving her the rope. “Let me see you try to lasso that post over there.”

Aubrey took the rope, placed the loop in her hand with the rope trailing behind. She threw it and missed her target.

“Here, let me show you how to hold it” Wade positioned the loop correctly in her hand and the rope in the correct position in her other hand. “Now, don’t hold your wrist stiff. Be loose and let it move with the rope. Now we have to make the loop bigger.”

Wade pulled more rope through the “honda” as he called it, and handed the rope back to her. She positioned it where he had showed her and swung the rope over her head. She missed again, but Wade smiled.

“That’s more like it. Just keep practicing and you’ll have rope tricks like Rawhide,” he said.

Aubrey smiled and brought the rope back.

“Remember to make a big loop” Wade called over his shoulder as he walked back to his horse.

Aubrey nodded and watched him leave. Looking down at the rope, she decided that she was going to be the best roper that ever lived.

**********

Wade came riding back to the line shack that evening, looking at his nearly completely barn. He had worked hard on it for the past few days, and was nearly finished.

He smiled in pride at it and looked back toward the shack. Aubrey stood in the front yard, throwing her lariat around a shovel stabbed into the ground. He watched for a moment as she whirled the loop over her head and over the shovel. She looked over at Jay, who sat on the porch with Sadie in his lap, and giggled.

“Did you see that?” she squealed.

He noticed something different about her. Something about her appearance that seemed different.

Oh, yes. She was wearing jeans. Why was she wearing jeans?

Wade rode up to the front of the shack and dismounted.

“Did you see that, Wade? I made that look easy, didn’t I?” Aubrey giggled and bounced up and down.

Wade smiled at her. “I saw it, Bree. You’re becoming a right regular cowhand in and out” he looked down at her jeans.

“Toni said that I shouldn’t be doing chores in my dresses anymore. She lent me this old pair to work in. I haven’t taken them off yet. I’ll keep wearing my dresses if you want me to” Aubrey told him.

“No, they’re fine” Wade assured her.

She looked good in Toni’s jeans, if the truth were known.

Mighty good.

“Hey Pa” Jay called to him.

Wade was still getting used to that name.

“Jay?”

“Can go frog huntin’ with Sadie? She ain’t never been frog huntin’” Jay asked.

Wade looked at Aubrey. “Why don’t we all go?”

“Do what?” Aubrey looked at him, her eyes wide.

“Yeah, I think you need a lesson in frog huntin’. Don’t you Jay?” Wade looked at the boy, holding Sadie in his arms.

“I wanna take ’er” Jay nodded.

“You’re outvoted” Wade smiled at Aubrey.

Aubrey scowled at him for a moment and thought. Then she looked at him as if she knew that she didn’t have to comply with him.

“Just let me get my coat” she broke out in a smile.

Frog hunting... who thinks Aubrey will flip out?

Anything that you would like to see with Toni and Erik outside of Toni's endeavors to get teh Deputy made Sheriff?

Again, you are all awesome!!