Free Surviving Passion by Maia Underwood Page B

count,” Blaire wagged a finger at her with a smirk.
             “Actually I already met Gina and Ben today,” Selena smiled abashedly. She paused before adding, “Met Clint too … last night.”
             “Ooh, sorry about him. He’s got the maturity of a six year old and a bad case of Little Man’s Syndrome. Was he inappropriate?”
             “Well, I’m glad you’re honest,” Selena answered slowly. “That’s what it was, ‘little man’s syndrome’. I couldn’t remember what it was called but that’s exactly what I was thinking. No he wasn’t. He just complained about Dan and invited me over.”
             “Well, maybe just avoid him. There’s nothing worse than an obnoxious guy who has something to prove. Unfortunately he gets his work done so everyone deals with it. Here ya go. Hope you like it,” she said sliding a plate in front of Selena. “I’ll kick his butt for ya if he does anything you don’t like. Just let me know.”
             There were string beans and blackberries, and some cold leftover steak from the night before, but best of all, a hard-boiled chicken egg lay on the plate.
             “It’s a good thing fire still works,” Blaire quipped as Selena appreciated the egg.
             Selena grinned, “You have chickens?”
             “Yep! Chickens, pigs, and even some cows, which you might have guessed from your dinner,” Blaire affirmed proudly. “I’m surprised you didn’t hear the roosters this morning. We keep them at a good distance, but even still, you must have been really knocked out.”
             Selena was beginning to appreciate the lure of a stationary community. Then she remembered something that now struck her as odd.
             “I noticed when we rode in that there were some horses just grazing out there without any fences around.”
             “The horses are trained extra carefully. That’s Bear’s area of expertise. I’m guessing you remember him from last night.” When Selena nodded, she went on, “The chickens are confined and so are the pigs. The cows kinda roam around, but the only way out is from that path you rode in on, and they don’t like it very much since the coyotes tend to hang out beyond there. It seems to work for us, but sometimes the little beasties get awful bold and we’ve had to work real hard to keep the chickens safe. We run ‘em off if they come too close. The horses help with that. Buck in particular has great fun chasing them. Dan tell you they’re attack horses?”
             “He did say that. I didn’t know how you could get them to do that.”
             “Well that’s Bear again. He has his ways. Pretty much all of them are on the lookout for anything dangerous. So if you’re on Star again and something or someone ever tries to get you, she’ll take a bite out of their faces. We just want as much defense as we can get, and no one expects the horses to fight. Gives us a good edge. Well, we haven’t needed them for any problems with other people, but they sure love stompin’ snakes and chasing black bears.”
    Selena’s eyes were wide with genuine interest. Chasing black bears? She wondered if Blaire was exaggerating.
    On the whole, these were all concerns she’d never had herself and it was fascinating how variable different lifestyles could be, considering the state of the world.
    When Selena finished her food, Blaire gave her the tour. Aside from the kitchen and the residential cabins, there was a woodshed with a work area, something that had been converted into a barn, a store room full of pelts, skins and other usable animal parts, and some kind of converted storm cellar underground for produce.
    “It’s always cool down here. Stuff keeps better,” Blaire explained of the cellar.
    Then they headed past the fields toward the pond as Blaire listed the crops they had growing.
    “There’s string beans,