Fearless Love Read Online Free PDF Page B

say, you’re herding chickens.”
    She nodded. “I figure I can look after four or five at a time and then switch them out with four or five others.”
    “You know which ones have had their time in the yard and which ones haven’t?” Joe folded his arms across his chest. He was, against all odds, enjoying himself.
    She shrugged. “Sort of. I mean, some of them have sort of distinctive markings. The white ones are pretty much identical, though.” She moved to the side, gently channeling one wandering chicken back toward the rest of the flock with her foot. Behind the wire fence, the rooster let loose with another indignant squawk.
    “You know they need grain too, right?”
    She nodded. “This is just sort of supplemental. Did you come for the eggs?”
    He raised an eyebrow, momentarily sidetracked. “Which eggs?”
    “The extras. The ones they laid after I brought the first bunch to the kitchen.”
    “Oh.” He shrugged. “Sure. How many do you have?”
    “Just two.”
    “You ever thought about increasing your flock?” He stuck a foot in the path of another wandering hen.
    She frowned. “I’ve got enough to do just keeping the ones I’ve got healthy. I mean I really don’t know all that much about raising chickens. My grandpa told me what he could, and I spend a lot of time on the Web. Plus I’ve got this dummies book about chicken farming.” She gave him a dry smile. “I qualify, believe me.”
    He leaned back against the fencepost again. “If you produced more eggs, we’d buy them. And my guess is, you’d find a lot of restaurants around here that would say the same. Ten more hens would be a good investment.” The wandering chickens took another turn, pecking happily at the grass.
    “Thanks, I’ll look into it,” she said absently.
    “Look,” he began and then stopped. He hadn’t really thought about how he was going to start talking about this without insulting her. On the other hand, sometimes it was best to just confront things head-on.
    She turned toward him, eyebrows raised. “What?”
    “Do you have anything else you can draw on besides these chickens?” He said quickly. “I mean sources of income?”
    Her cheeks flushed slightly. In the lemon-colored sunlight, her red-gold hair, glowing cheeks, and sun-warmed skin made her look like some kind of barnyard goddess. It was faintly perverse that embarrassment actually made her look hotter. “Why do you want to know?”
    “Because I had an idea,” he began and then stopped again. This had seemed a lot easier when it had just been something he’d been thinking about.
    “An idea?”
    “Have you ever worked in a kitchen?” he said a little desperately.
    Her brows drew together in confusion. “You mean like the kitchen in the house?”
    “No, I mean like professionally. A restaurant kitchen? Maybe a part-time job or something?”
    She shook her head. “I know how to cook. I used to be pretty good at it, back before…” Her cheeks reddened slightly, although he wasn’t sure why. “Why do you want to know?”
    “We need some help in the kitchen. Somebody to do basic prep work—you know, peeling, washing, chopping, like that.”
    Her cheeks were still pink. He hoped it was embarrassment rather than being pissed at him for suggesting it. “You mean like peeling potatoes?”
    “That would be part of it. And carrots. And onions. And washing lettuce. We go through a ton of produce every week, almost literally. And we don’t buy those bags of lettuce like you see in the supermarket. Our stuff comes straight from the farms, and it needs to be washed off pretty thoroughly.”
    She narrowed her eyes, chewing on her lower lip. “How many hours a day would it be?”
    “Around five or six.” He shrugged. “Could be more when we have special events. I’m trying to hire a prep cook, a professional, so I don’t know how long the job would last. But we need somebody right now.”
    She shook her head. “I’ve never worked in a