She nodded and bent down to pat Ruffin while Brandon exclaimed over the lost tooth and what the Tooth Fairy might bring for Dallas that night.
“Can I take Ruffin out to throw the Frisbee?” April asked.
“Of course.” Dawson got up with her, took his cookies, and followed her back to the front porch. She collected the Frisbee from the mat beside the front door, and Dawson moved over to the small table where he kept his pocketknife and whittling wood.
Since it was a holiday, they’d done their skeleton chores and nothing more, and his hands itched to get a really beautiful piece of wood and shape it into something special. But he had texts to send, and Dawson was nothing if not dutiful.
So while April laughed and praised Ruffin every time he caught the Frisbee and brought it back, Dawson tapped out the news that they’d found the threatened burrowing owls on the ranch.
Lincoln Glover lived just north of the Rhinehart Ranch, and he’d become the junior foreman on his family’s much larger piece of land earlier this year. Finley Ackerman had a one-man operation north of Three Rivers, and Alex Baxter’s place sat the furthest from where Dawson and the blasted owls lived.
You’ve got to be kidding, Link sent back almost instantly.I’m coming down there in the morning. Whereabouts are they?
West side, Dawson told him as a couple of messages came in from Finn and then Alex.
Unbelievable, Finn said.I guess I’ll have to really keep my eyes out now.
What do you have to do?Alex asked.
The owls had been sighted at a couple of other ranches, but further south, not anywhere near Three Rivers. Until now. So it wasn’t surprising that no one in his friend group really knew much about them.
Perhaps Duke would have more experience and wisdom, and the men he worked with and collaborated with might know a lot more too. They’d been farming and ranching in the Texas Panhandle for a lot longer than Dawson, but as the rising generation, he had to learn what they already knew.
He spent the next several minutes telling them what he had to do, including the paperwork from Caroline, and the fact that she was bringing “supplies” to the ranch tomorrow to basically keep them away from the owls so they could have their habitat.
I’ll send pictures, he said.Maybe it won’t be so bad.
My daddy isn’t going to like it no matter what, Link said.
Dawson smiled, because no, Bear Glover would not like the owls encroaching on his land.And the west side?he sent, chuckling now.Can you imagine if Cactus finds those owls first?
Link sent a long string of laughter, though annoying Cactus Glover was not an activity any of them would do willingly.
April’s boots thunked against the porch as she came toward him, and she looked as sweaty as Ruffin. If dogs could sweat. “I let him in to get a drink.” She sighed as she sat down at the only other seat at the table.
Dawson flipped his phone over and set it on the table next to his pocketknife. He watched April for a moment, and she reached up and finger-combed her hair back into a ponytail. She used a tie from around her wrist to secure it and looked over to him.
He cocked his eyebrows, and she rolled her eyes.
“Oh, so it’s something,” he said.
April heaved the biggest sigh ever heaved by a human being on the planet earth. Dawson worked hard not to chuckle, because he could only imagine Duke’s reaction to his daughter. He ducked his head and focused on keeping his expression as neutral as possible. If she sensed any danger at all, she’d shut down. Rather, she’d stomp away in a fit, and Dawson wanted to be a safe place for her.
He knew what it was like to have nowhere to go, no one to turn to, and parents who meant well but simply didn’t understand. In his eyes, at least.
“Momma says if I don’t get my stupid grade up in algebra, I can’t go to the Valentine’s dance.”
“Mm.”
“It’s really stupid. No one uses algebra.”
Dawson was sure some people did, but he didn’t say so. Someone like April? No, she probably wasn’t evergoing to use algebra. She wanted to herd cattle and wrestle goats out of the mud when the rain turned torrential and they needed help.
She’d gotten her love of the saddle, of horses, of dogs, of ranching, from both of her parents too. Her older sister, Shiloh, definitely had more feminine qualities, though she could saddle a horse and get a job done around the ranch too.
“What’re you at now?” he asked.
“A C-minus,” she muttered.