Lettie rolled her eyes as if Reed wasn’t her brother and she could handle him. “He’s always got a stick up his ass, Bailey. This is nothing new with him.”
“That’s for damn sure,” Brandy mumbled.
“What was that, Brandy Rose?” Reed asked calmly. It was almost more scary when he spoke in that tone. I’d seen a lot of sides to Reed when he occasionally stopped by Bell Buckle Brews, but never this.
“I don’t know. Maybe if you pulled that stick out, you could hear me,” she said sweetly.
Okay, the two of them speaking that way was much more scary.
Charlotte looked like she was about to pipe in again about the language when Avery blurted, “Does anyone know anything about cats?”
My lips parted slightly. I wasn’t sure where she was going with this—though I was thankful for the attention shift—but I definitely didn’t want her crying at this table over Pudding.
“I know Callan hates them,” Lennon supplied with a smirk.
“You do?” I asked Callan.
His eyes narrowed on Lennon slightly before answering me. “I don’t hate them.”
Lennon let out a small chuckle. “The last barn cat we had, you wouldn’t go anywhere near whatever barn it decided to stay in.”
“That thing was mean, and you know it,” Callan defended.
“It hissed at you one time,” Lettie pointed out.
“Never thought a man could be scared of a ten-pound animal when he works with beasts a hundred times their size,” Travis muttered, his gray mustache wiggling as he spoke.
Callan grimaced. “Listen, when you have giant fangs eye-level with you because you woke up a sleeping cat behind a bale of hay, you’d be scared, too.”
“Oh, please.” Lennon scoffed. “It was one time.”
“Anyway,” Avery interrupted, the sass clear in her tone, “my cat is missing.”
Oh, fuck. Please help me.
“Avery—” I started.
“Missing?” Callan asked at the same time.
She nodded. “I need a team to help find her.”
A team? This child was crazy.
“Avery—” I started again.
“I can help,” Callan offered.
My jaw dropped and I turned to face him. “What?”
He seemed confused by my reaction. “I can help find her cat.”
“This’ll be good,” Lennon remarked under his breath from across the table.
“So fucking good,” Bailey agreed.
Charlotte let out a small gasp. “Bailey! Language.”
Bailey bit back a smile, pressing his lips together.
“Do you know how?” I asked him. I didn’t need him getting her hopes up just for Pudding to never come home.
I was so worried she’d never show up, but I had hope. I’d been out looking for her every evening after work, assuming that’d be when she was out and about. She was a night owl. Despite my search, luck was not on my side.
Pudding loved Avery. She had to come back home at some point for her little girl.
“I can do some research,” Callan said.
Lennon barked out a laugh. “This’ll really be good.”
“Callan the Cat Wrangler,” Bailey said through a laugh.
Lettie smacked him on the arm, but she had a smile on her face as well.
“Are you sure?” I asked him, doing my best to ignore the table so Avery didn’t think that I thought this was a joke.
Callan shrugged. “How hard could it be?”
I wanted to slap a palm to my face. Finding a lost cat was not easy, yet Callan sat there like it would be as simple as spotting a horse in a freshly mowed one-acre pasture.
