A Baby...Maybe? & How to Hunt a Husband by Bonnie Tucker Page A

shoulder.
    â€œIt’s been a long time,” Clyde whined.
    â€œTime for my nap.” Ted Clark placed his already-empty coffee mug on the table next to him, slumped in his chair with his bony shoulders against the wall and covered his face with his Stetson. “Wake me if anything exciting happens.”
    He said that every week, and the boys had yet to wake him.
    Barbara came up behind Rex, slapping him on the back. “Get up outta there, that’s my chair.”
    â€œThis is your chair? Are you sure? I think it forgot who you were. Chair, this is Barbara, she works here, full-time on a temporary basis.”
    â€œRex, dear, I was sick yesterday.” The pink-haired lady smiled sweetly, then slid her gaze over to Tigger, who watched her the same way that LuLu eyed the semen machine.
    â€œI heard some interesting news last night,” she said to Rex.
    â€œWe all know about Rex climbing the tree to that young lady’s room,” Pete said.
    â€œThat’s old news,” Barbara scoffed.
    â€œOld already?” Rex didn’t know whether to be happy or disappointed. “How did you now about that?”
    She shook her head in disgust. “Everyone knows about what a fool you made of yourself over that girl. She’s not even from Texas. What are you thinking?”
    He was thinking that while he couldn’t find “that girl’s” name, everyone knew about him climbing the tree. Go figure.
    â€œI need to tell you about a call I got yesterday from my dear friend Irma, who talked to her friend Jamie, who just happens to be first cousin to none other than Chad Ottaway from the Ottaway Ranch in Tucson. Isn’t this a coincidence?” She was all excited. “Did you hear?”
    â€œHear what?” Tigger asked.
    â€œWhere’s your hearing aid?”
    â€œI hear fine.”
    â€œThen listen. Did you hear what happened at the Ottaway Ranch yesterday?” She poked Rex in the chest.
    â€œI was busy yesterday, fielding phone calls because my receptionist, that being you, wasn’t here. So no, I didn’t hear anything.”
    â€œWell.” Barbara made sure she had everyone’s attention, ignoring the jab about her not-so-great work habits, and focusing on Tigger, she said in a know-it-all voice, “The semen—courtesy of none other than Tony Donetti’s big bull, Rufus—was hijacked.”
    â€œYesterday?” Clyde asked.
    â€œTony?” Rex couldn’t believe it.
    The others got loud and vocal, calling for the FBI,CIA, army, navy and every other military branch, including the Texas Rangers, to be brought in on the case and capture the person who was hijacking the semen. “But for the grace of God and semen go I,” Tigger said. “This is war. Arm yourselves.”
    The old men shouted out a hearty amen.
    â€œCalm down, everyone.” Rex shuffled through the stack of mail until he found Proliferation, the cattle breeding industry magazine. There was an article in there about this very subject.
    What happened to Tony could affect them, too. No longer were cattle rustlers stealing the old-fashioned way by rounding up calves and branding them with a competitor’s mark before herding them onto a waiting truck. Now they’d gone high-tech. They intercepted frozen semen through the mail, or hired a mole to infiltrate an operation and walk away with hundreds, if not thousands, of vials. Stealing the frozen semen of championship bulls like LuLu and starting their own breeding production would be cheap to start and could earn them millions down the road, considering each straw of semen could fetch upward of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
    So far he had been lucky and had avoided these modern-day rustlers. But he didn’t know how much longer his luck would hold out. Not if Tony was getting robbed. This brought everything too close to home.
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    W HEN C ARA APPROACHED the Noble Sperm Bank