Always on My Mind Page 0,6

eat her shoe-sparkle that she didn't have any trouble getting her hands around its middle. Only, just as she was about to actually lift the bird off the ground, it looked up at her with alarm, squawked its displeasure, then wriggled out of her hands and started running in the opposite direction.

She didn't think before muttering a curse word as she stood up to go after the hen. "Come here, you," she said in what was supposed to be a soothing voice, but was tinged with more than a little frustration. "Time to go back into your coop."

When she was only a couple of feet from the bird, she made herself wait until it focused on something crawling on the drive before reaching for it again. But it was smarter about her intention this time and before she could even get a hand on its feathers, it let out another loud cry, then half-flew, half-ran away from her.

Lori brushed her hair out of her eyes. She was sweating now and had dirt smudged across the front of her top and along her tights. But she wasn't even close to giving up. No sir. If Grayson thought this was enough to send her packing, he was sorely mistaken.

She was already heading after the chicken again when Grayson cut her off at the pass. "I can't let you upset her any more than you already have. It'll throw off her laying cycle."

"I didn't mean to upset her," Lori protested, immediately feeling guilty about having done irreparable damage to the chicken's egg production.

He reached down to pick up the hen, and rather than reach for its tail or wings, he cupped his hands in a gentle V on either side of its body and lifted it. With one hand firmly under the chicken, he used the other to hold it close to his body as he carried it into the coop.

Well, she thought with more than a little irritation, he could have told her how to do that before she screwed up the hen's life. While his back was turned, she bent down and reached for another chicken. This time around, it was a different - and much happier - story as she scooped up the hen and carried it over to the coop.

Grayson turned around just as she was about to put the chicken inside. "What the hell are you doing?"

She stopped right where she was and gathered the bird a little closer to her chest. The warmth of the plump body against her helped soften the sting of Grayson's fierce glare.

"I figured you wanted all the chickens inside," she said in a voice pitched low so that she wouldn't spook her new feathered friend. "Didn't you?"

"Yes," he bit out, but his frown deepened rather than clearing. "How'd you pick her up?"

Wasn't it obvious? "I watched what you did."

He moved his glare from her to the chicken and she felt a little sorry for bringing the bird into this.

"Fine. Put her in the coop and then collect the rest. I've got to see how badly your car damaged my fence."

This time, Lori was the one scowling at Grayson's too-broad, far-too-muscular back. So much for getting a thank you or maybe even a little bit of praise for how easily she'd managed to rectify things with the chickens. It was, she thought, a very good reminder that it was never a good idea to do something to try to please a man.

Still, she didn't let her frustration with him impact her gentle handling of the chicken. Or the next dozen of them. Unfortunately, even though she knew what she was doing now, it didn't mean the chickens necessarily felt like cooperating. And she had to admit her heels weren't exactly the best footwear for a muddy, gravelly, grassy farm, as the spikes kept getting stuck in the sod. Fortunately, she spotted a plastic dish with what looked like dried corn in it that the chickens seemed to have an inordinate interest in. Picking up the dish, she shook the "treats" and was thrilled when the rest of the chickens came running in at top speed toward the coop. Moments later she had them all safely inside.

All but one, darn it. She responded neither to the treats nor the actions of the rest of her chicken friends.

After the hen dodged her one too many times, Lori kicked off her shoes and, with renewed determination, used her years of quietly gliding across a stage to