Daddy Can You Teach Me Some Naughty Night Things? novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Yes at the Breakfast Table
Ward finally nods in front of the crew and hands Lulu the red breeding ledger; in the barn his hand covers hers on the mare, and when she asks for the rest of the lessons he says, not yet.
Ward said yes at the breakfast table, in front of the whole crew.
I had asked him almost every morning since the funeral.
Every time he had said no, and every time he had said it into his coffee.
This morning I didn't ask.
I only set the grey mare's chart next to his plate, the one I'd filled in myself, and sat down across from him.
Three ranch hands stopped chewing.
The cook stopped with the skillet halfway to the table.
Ward read the chart all the way down.
He took a pencil from behind his ear and fixed one date.
Then he nodded once.
"You can help with the breeding," he said. "Starting today."
The hands whooped and pounded the table.
The cook set the eggs down and squeezed my shoulder hard.
I couldn't swallow anything.
My heart was going so hard I thought they could all hear it.
Ward still hadn't looked at me.
He got up, rinsed his plate, and took something off the shelf by the back door.
It was the red breeding ledger, the one that had sat in the barn office since before my mother, Carrie Standifer, married him.
The cover was soft from years of hands.
He put it down in front of me.
"Keep that with your things," he said. "Not on the office shelf."
I opened it.
The first page was already ruled in his square handwriting.
At the top it said: Lulu, first year.
"You wrote this before I asked," I said.
"I write a lot of things down."
He put his hat on and went out.
I sat there holding the ledger against my chest, grinning, while the hands razzed me.
I was eighteen, five weeks and two days.
I had counted.
Darrell Waggoner's truck was in the yard when I came out with the ledger under my arm.
He was leaning on the fender with a paper bag, and he took his hat off when he saw me.
"Heard the news from your hands at the feed store before it was even noon," he said. "Word travels."
"It's seven in the morning."
"Then it traveled fast."
He grinned and held out the bag.
Inside was a new halter, soft brown leather, with a brass plate on the cheek piece.
LULU B., it said.
"A late birthday present," Darrell said. "A breeder ought to have her own tack."
"Darrell, that's too much."
"It's a halter, honey. Take it."
I took it.
He told me which vet in Big Timber came out at night without charging double, and which two mares of his had thrown fine foals last year off a stallion like ours.
He was kind the whole time, and I thanked him twice.
When he drove off, he lifted two fingers off the wheel.
The barn was cool and smelled like hay and horse.
Ward was waiting at the end of the aisle with the grey mare on a lead.
She was in season.
You could see it in the way she held her tail and shifted her back feet.
"First lesson," Ward said. "You don't ask her. You watch her."
He handed me the lead rope and stood close behind me.
Not touching.
Close enough that I felt the heat of him down my back.
"Run your hand along her flank," he said. "Slow."
I did.
The mare leaned into it and her skin shivered.
Ward's hand came down over mine.
His palm was rough and warm and it covered my whole hand.
He pressed my fingers flat against her hip.
"Like that," he said, lower. "She'll tell you when she's ready. A good breeder waits to be told."
I stopped breathing.
His hand was still on mine, longer than it needed to be.
I turned my head and looked up at him.
His jaw was tight and his eyes were on the mare.
"Ward."
"Watch her."
"I'm watching you."
His hand came off mine.
He stepped back so fast that his boot scraped the concrete.
I put the rope down on the rail.
My hands were not steady, and I wasn't going to pretend they were.
"I'm eighteen," I said. "I checked the date twice. I don't want to learn only the barn."
"Louisa."
"I want you to teach me the rest of it too."
He looked at me finally.
He looked a long time, and I saw what it cost him not to look away.
He took his hat off and ran his hand through his hair and put it back on.
"Not yet," he said.
He walked out of the barn without turning around.
Not yet.
I stood in the aisle with the mare nudging my shoulder, and I said it out loud to nobody.
"Not no."
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