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Chapter Sixteen~ Trust Me
Struggling to fill her brother's role, Josephine walked into the cattle auction, dressed in her causal ranch wear. Her perfectly dirtied up boots, with jeans tucked nicely into them. Her plaid button up tucked into the jeans and her hat resting on her head.
"You ready?" Lloyd asked as they took a seat. "This about to get serious. All business."
"I'm ready." Josephine muttered. She pulled out the pad of paper and her pen from her back pocket.
The three of them sat in the small auction hall, waiting for the right group of cows to be shown.
"Alright here's our next lot coming in. These are angus heifers. Let's start these six heifers off at five hundred." the auctioneer called out.
"This is that straight back bunch we like." Lloyd whispered. Josephine just nodded, watching out the corner of her eye as a few hands raised.
"Do I have nine? Do I have thousand?" he called out. Rip went to raise his hand but Josephine beat him to it. She gave just a gently flick of the wrist, all while eyeing these men down.
They looked over to see it was a Dutton and immediately steered clear of bidding.
"Alright I have a thousand on the six angus heifers." the auctioneer called out, banging the gavel.
"Alright. John will like that." Lloyd smiled.
"Let's go." Rip whispered, patting Josie's leg. He place his hand on the small of her back, people looked at her. At least she felt like their eyes were burning holes in the back of her head. Judging her.
"It's work time. Save that for later." she whispered back. She didn't need anything getting back to her father that served her as incompetent of the job.
"Alright. Didn't mean to upset you." he stated, walking past her. The three wranglers they had brought were standing outside, kicking the dirt around.
"Load them up!" Rip yelled, waving them on.
"Rip, don't be like that!" Josephine snapped. The group whispered amongst each other, sensing something was going on.
"Oh, so it's convenient for you to come throwing yourself at me during my job but when it comes to you, I can't do anything in that nature." Rip fought back.
"I have to prove something. You've earned all their respect." Josephine said, hurt in her eyes. She couldn't believe Rip wasn't being understanding.
"I'm still earning their respect. It's why I am the way I am." he muttered back, "hey, that's not our's." he shouted at Colby. Teeter quickly jumped in, getting the cow to turn around.
"Whatever, load up the cattle. I'm riding back with Ryan." Josephine shrugged. She stomped off the pickup truck, waiting as the others walked towards her.
