The Pride of Jared MacKade (The MacKade Brothers 2)

"How come you were wearing a suit?" he asked. "Shane never wears a suit."

"Not unless you knock him unconscious first." When the boy grinned, Jared noticed a gap in his teeth that hadn't been there the day before. "Lose something?"

Proudly Bryan pressed his tongue in the gap. "It came out this morning. It's good for spitting."

"I used to hold the record around here. Nine feet, three inches. Without the wind."

Impressed, and challenged, Bryan worked up saliva in his mouth, concentrated and let it fly. Jared pursed his lips, nodded. "Not bad."

"I can do better than that."

"You're one of the tops in your division, Bry," Savannah said dryly. "But Mr. MacKade has work to do, and we're supposed to be looking at kittens."

"Yeah, they're right in here." He took off into the barn at a run. Savannah followed more slowly.

"Nine feet?" she murmured, with a glance over her shoulder.

"And three inches."

"You surprise me, Mr. MacKade."

She had a way of sauntering on those long legs, he thought, that gave a man's eyes a mind of their own. After a quick internal debate, he gave up and went in after her.

"Aren't they great?" Bryan plopped right down in the hay beside the litter of sleeping kittens and their very bored-looking mama. "They have to stay with her for weeks and weeks." Very gently, he stroked a fingertip over the downy head of a smoke-gray kitten. "But then we can take one."

She couldn't help it. Savannah went soft all over. "Oh, they're so tiny." Crouching down, she gave in to the need and lifted one carefully into her hand. "Look, Bry, it fits right in my palm. Oh, aren't you sweet?" Murmuring, she nuzzled her face against the fur. "Aren't you pretty?"

"I like this one best." Bryan continued to stroke the tiny gray bundle. "I'm going to call him Cal. Like for Cal Ripkin."

"Oh." The soft orange ball in her hand stirred and mewed thinly. Her heart was lost. "All right. The gray one."

"You could take two." Jared stepped into the stall. Her face, he thought, was an open book. "It's nice for them to have company."

"Two?" The idea burst like a thousand watts in Bryan's brain. "Yeah, Mom, we'll take two. One would be lonely!"

"Bry-"

"And it wouldn't be any more trouble. We've got lots of room now. Cal's going to want somebody to play with, to hang around with."

"Thanks, MacKade."

"My pleasure."

"And anyway," Bryan went on, because he'd come out of his own excitement long enough to see the way his mother was cuddling the orange kitten, "this way we could each pick one. That's the fair way, right?"

Smiling, Bryan reached out to brush his finger over the orange kitten. "He likes you. See, he's trying to lick your hand."

"He's hungry," Savannah told him, but she knew there was no possible way she was going to be able to resist the little bundle rooting in her hand. "I suppose they would be company for each other."

"All right, Mom!" Bryan sprang up, kissed her without any of the embarrassment many nine-year-old boys might feel. "I'm going to tell Shane which ones are ours."

With a clatter of feet, Bryan dashed out of the barn.

"You know you wanted it," Jared said.

"I'm old enough to know I can't have everything I want." But she sighed and set the kitten down so that it could join its siblings in a morning snack. "But two cats can't be that much more trouble than one."

She started to rise, flicking a glance upward when Jared put a hand under her arm and helped her up. "Thanks." She stepped around him and headed for the light. "So, are you a farm boy moonlighting as a lawyer, or a lawyer moonlighting as a farm boy?"