Maddie Inherits a Cowboy. Jeannie Watt

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СКАЧАТЬ He wouldn’t have hit the pothole under the snow, shifting his load of hay so that he caught a bale on the gatepost as he drove through.

      After he’d restacked the hay, Alvin held the cows off while Ty opened the second gate, the one leading to the cattle pasture, and drove the tractor through. The dog leaped back onto his trailer and Ty started feeding without incident, Alvin happily snapping and barking at the cows to keep them from pulling bales off one side of the trailer while Ty dropped hay off the other. But while Ty usually found a temporary sense of peace in the simple act of feeding, today a dark cloud hung over him.

      Were these his only choices in life? To be depressed or to be angry?

      Hell of a way to live.

      Man up. Madeline was Skip’s sister. His inherited business partner. He had to do his duty and be civil. She was here for answers he owed her, to clear up suspicions that, while insulting and rather tactlessly voiced, were justified. For all she knew, he was a guy who’d taken advantage of her brother.

      Would he be able to convince her otherwise?

      Was he even going to try? And if he did, would she listen, or was she one of those people who, once her mind was made up, refused to change it? Skip had told him more than once about her stubbornness.

      Ty had become grimly comfortable about how he dealt with his guilt. He didn’t need Madeline here, stir ring the pot. Mainly because he didn’t know if he had it in him to come up with yet another coping mechanism.

      He dumped one more bale, then got on the tractor to move to the next spot, stringing the cattle out so they had room to eat.

      He drove on a few yards, then stopped when he saw a yellowish-brown mound next to the frozen creek. His rotten morning continued.

      It’d been easy to blame Madeline for his bad mood and lack of concentration, but it was kind of hard to blame her for the cow lying in the willows. Ty stopped the tractor and left Alvin to keep the cows from destroying the stack of hay on the trailer.

      This was one of his feistier cows, but she simply turned her head and blinked when he approached. And then he saw the dead calf. A preemie, but a big one.

      “Come on, girl,” he muttered, reaching out to give her a couple pats on her shoulder. She didn’t react. He nudged her with his knee, carefully, since he’d had recurring problems with the joint since the accident, but again, no response.

      Shit.

      Ty dug under the layers of clothing he wore, pulled his cell out of his pocket and hit lucky number three with his gloved thumb. You know you’re a rancher when you have the vet on speed dial.

      “Hey,” he said when Sam Hyatt answered. The crackling connection told Ty the vet was in his truck, probably on the edge of the service area. “Ty Hopewell.” His breath crystallized as he spoke. “Any chance you can make it up to my place this morning? I have a cow down. She’s just aborted a big preemie. Calving paralysis, I’m guessing.”

      The best Sam could do was noon, since he was more than a hundred miles away, en route to another emergency call.

      “Thanks. See you at noon.” Ty ended the call, then stood for a moment studying the cow. She studied him back. Finally he shook his head and started for the tractor, where Alvin was doing his best to save the load. Ty climbed onto the seat and put the tractor in gear.

      He didn’t even want to think about what else might happen today.

      TY WASN’T AT HOME. Madeline knocked twice. The collie hadn’t barked, so it followed that Ty was out and about, doing ranch chores or some such thing.

      She’d carried her cell on the walk across the wide drive, hoping to step into a service area, but no luck. If she was going to communicate with the outside world, she was going to have to travel or ask Ty if she could use his phone. He’d probably say no and then she’d end up traveling anyway.

      She stood for a moment, hands on hips, debating whether to check the barn or the shop first, then caught sight of movement in the field. A tractor, slowly heading away from her. It stopped a few seconds later and Ty got off and walked back to the load of hay, climbing on the trailer to avoid the crush of cows. The collie was snapping at the animals, fending them off.

      Ty was feeding, and it looked as if he’d just begun. How long would it take to feed all those cattle? Should she wait?

      The sky was darkening, the clouds hugging the top of the mountain range. The last weather report she’d accessed before leaving Reno had promised days of on-again, off-again snowstorms. If she wanted to store up on provisions, such as toilet paper—how on earth had she forgotten toilet paper?—and set up a way to get mail, she needed to take advantage of this window of opportunity. She would catch up with Ty as soon as she got back.

      It was wasteful to run the generator while she was gone—Ty had said the fuel was low. So she went to the barn, covering her ears until she reached out with one hand and cautiously flipped the toggle switch he had used to start the machine. After a low drone of protest, it stilled.

      The silence that followed was intense and Madeline felt an instant flood of relief.

      They were definitely going to look into solar power.

      THE COW LOOKED NO BETTER when Ty stopped on his way back from feeding. Four hours until Sam got there… Once again Ty tried to get her to her feet, and once again she refused to budge. It was gearing up to snow again, but at least the cold wasn’t as bitter as it’d been the week before. Ty got on the tractor, feeling helpless. Losing a cow wasn’t in the budget. He’d already lost a calf. He wasn’t up for a double loss.

      He parked the tractor in the barn, cocking his head and wondering why things didn’t seem quite right.

      It took him a second to realize the generator wasn’t running.

      Shit.

      He climbed off the tractor, wincing as he twisted the knee he’d been so careful of when he’d nudged the cow.

      Ty paused for a painful moment, resting his hands on his thighs, knowing from experience that if he waited a few seconds, let his knee recover, there would be no lasting damage. He took a cautious step once the pain subsided, and the knee held. Good. One point for him—his first today. But if the generator engine had seized… It hadn’t.

      The engine was cool to the touch. The oil level was fine.

      The collar of wires appeared to be all right. No short.

      And Madeline wasn’t there in the barn, demanding to know what had happened to her power.

      Ty scratched his head, then reached out to flip the switch. The machine started. Ty turned it back off.

      Madeline had turned off the power? That seemed odd.

      Granted, she seemed a bit odd herself, but still…

      Ty didn’t want to initiate contact. Even though he’d come to the conclusion that the smartest thing he could do was to cooperate, the logic part of his brain hadn’t quite conquered the pissed-off part. It turned out, though, that he didn’t need to worry about initiating contact. Her car was gone.

      For good?

      He СКАЧАТЬ