than her boosted-up daughter. She might barely meet his shoulder if she stood on tiptoe. Her hair was a creamy honey-blond—much lighter than the dark brown of her daughter’s braids, but they looked a lot alike. Except for the eyes—the eyes were totally different. Audie had big brown eyes, whereas Brooke’s were a compelling hazel-green. If DelTex had handpicked her to appeal to him, they’d done their homework. She wasn’t one of those fussy, bottle-blonde women many men liked; he preferred her down-home, sensible kind of cute. Had he met her under other circumstances, if she worked anywhere but where she worked, he would definitely have taken an interest. As it was, cute enemies were still enemies. And kids? Not really his thing.
“Do you ever have to cut her hair to get it out of her way?” Audie’s wide eyes brought his attention back to the lesson at hand.
“No. Even when she isn’t molting, she rubs up against trees and even some special brushes we set out. So it’s more like she combs it out herself. She needs her coat—we wouldn’t want to take it away from her. But the parts she’s done with can be used in plenty of different ways. The long beard hairs under her chin? Fishermen tell me they make the best flies for fishing. And some people make yarn from the hair she sheds.” He was glad Audie kept asking about the fur. It was a safer topic than...
“Mackenzie’s Diner by our house sells bison burgers.” Audie wrinkled up her nose in thought as she ventured onto the one topic Gunner had hoped to avoid.
He felt his stomach drop a few inches and caught Brooke’s panicked eyes over her daughter’s head. He shot a look to Gran, who didn’t seem at all inclined to take this one for him. This was why he didn’t do field trips. There was no safe way to explain slaughter—even carefully humane slaughter—to someone in pigtails with a pink gingham backpack. He ran a hand over his chin, scrambling for an answer. “Yes, people eat bison meat.” He dearly hoped the simple truth would settle the matter, but he highly doubted Brooke Calder’s superinquisitive daughter would let it go at that.
She didn’t. “Do you?”
It was dumb to think the subject wouldn’t come up—most people in this small town of Martins Gap knew Blue Thorn for the quality of its meat. If he did his job right, all of Austin would know soon, as well. There seemed no point in lying. “I do. It’s very tasty.”
“And it’s all kind of good for you, too.” Now Gran piped up. Thanks for all the help here, Gran. “Have you ever tasted it?”
“No. But I’ve seen chickens and I eat them. Seen cows and eaten them, too. I had beef tacos last night. Every Friday’s Tacos for Two night.”
Brooke went pink, and Gunner tried unsuccessfully to swallow his laugh. “No foolin’?” Then, because it felt safe to do so, he added, “We’re not fixing to eat Daisy, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“We’re careful to take care of the mamas and their babies here,” Gran added.
That seemed to settle the subject to Audie’s satisfaction. “That’s good,” the little girl said, and Gunner felt the same relief he could see in Brooke’s eyes.
“Bison have families, just like people,” Gran went on. “We keep family groups together because it makes the bison happy.”
“Where’s your list of questions for Daisy?” Brooke asked, clearly eager to change the subject.
“Right here.” Audie popped down off the fence and zipped open her backpack to pull out a purple glitter notebook. Really, it was hard to get more “little girl” than a purple glitter notebook—except for the pink polka-dot pencil that emerged from the backpack immediately behind the notebook. Gunner suppressed a cringe worthy of a third-grade boy’s distaste for “cooties.”
“Can I talk to her? Up close?”
More parental land mines. Brooke seemed to be remembering that Daisy was as large as her car, her hand going reflexively to Audie’s shoulder. There wasn’t much to worry about, provided Audie listened to directions, but even Gunner’s limited experience with youngsters told him “listening to directions” didn’t top the list of their skill sets. He sent Brooke a “let me handle this” glance over Audie’s head just before squatting down in front of the girl. “Well, now, that depends on you.” He made his voice friendly but serious. “Daisy’s a very big animal. And she’s easily upset, being so close to her time and all. She’s not like a dog or a cat or even a horse who’s really used to folks being around. Can you understand that?”
Audie nodded just as seriously. “Oh, I can. Yessir.” Brooke looked slightly less alarmed, and Gran smiled.
“She may not be in much of a mood to chat, so I’ve asked my friend Billy to come along. Daisy does most of her talking to Billy.” He felt ridiculous saying that, all the more because it was true as far as he knew. “He can help with the answers you can’t get from Daisy or me or Gran.”
This didn’t seem to faze Audie at all. “Three people and a bison. This’ll be the best report ever.”
Gunner wasn’t sure how true that was, but at least this “interview” wasn’t feeling like the intolerable chore he’d imagined it to be this morning. “We’ll do our best.” He straightened back up as he saw Billy bringing Daisy closer. No matter what, Gunner would keep a sturdy fence between the thousand-pound beast and the bitty Calder women. As a bottle-raised orphan whose parents had been humans rather than bison, Daisy was by far one of the friendliest bison the Blue Thorn had ever seen—but animals were still animals.
Coming up to the fence, Daisy gave an enormous snort, swiveling her huge head around to consider her small pink visitor. “Billy Flatrock, Daisy,” Gunner began the introduction even though it felt silly, “this here’s Audie.” He caught Brooke’s eye for a fraction of a second. “Daisy already met Mrs. Calder yesterday.”
“Hi, Daisy!” Audie said brightly, much less intimidated by the wall of brown fur in front of her than her mother had been the day before. As a matter of fact, Brooke still looked a bit wary. “Mom,” Audie whispered loudly, elbowing her mother, “say hi.”
Brooke straightened up. “Hello, Mr. Flatrock. Hello, Daisy. Congratulations to Daisy on being a mama soon.”
“Yep. That’s really exciting.” Audie poised her thick pink pencil over her notebook like a candy-coated junior reporter. “Tell me, Daisy, do you want a boy or a girl baby bison?”
To Gunner’s amazement, Daisy actually looked as if she was considering the question before she gave a series of low, rolling grunts. Gunner felt as though he was losing control of the situation with every passing minute.
Audie looked right at Billy and in all seriousness asked, “What’d she say?”
Billy took the whole thing right in stride. “Daisy had a girl bison last year, so she wants a boy this time.” When Gunner raised an “aren’t you taking this a bit far?” eyebrow, Billy added, “I think.”
All the adults waited while Audie carefully wrote “baby boy” on her notepad. The girl then proceeded to work her way through a set of ten questions—some crazy, others downright thoughtful for someone so young. From Gran’s expression, she appeared to be growing fonder of Brooke and Audie every second. When Audie complimented Daisy on the soft new coat coming out from under the old one and her “be-yu-ti-ful” eyes, Gunner felt the cuteness factor tip over his toleration level. Suddenly, I’m a bison’s publicist. He could almost hear his father’s amused laughter echoing out
