“That’s my girl,” Kurt murmured. “You remember how sweet the grass is in the north section, don’t you?”
On the opposite side of the moving herd, Toby held his position so the cows wouldn’t wander off track and mosey down into the gully that cut through this section of the Rocking R Ranch. As young as he was, Toby had been riding since before he could walk and held his seat well on Longtail, a dun-colored gelding Kurt had broken to saddle a decade ago. He remembered how Zoe had watched him work the horse during those late summer evenings, the setting sun streaking her blonde hair red and gold.
The image of her shimmered in his memory like a distant mirage. His breath caught in his throat, his heart lunging an extra, painful beat.
He touched his heels to Pepper’s flanks and forced thoughts of Zoe away. She’d been gone for over a year. A stupid accident, a wrong-way driver hit them while they were on their way to a second honeymoon in Seattle and had nearly killed him, too.
In those early days, with Zoe in a coma and barely alive, Kurt had almost wished he had died first. He wouldn’t have had to make the most difficult choice in a man’s life—to let the woman he loved go. He’d prayed. He’d railed at God. Pleaded. Bargained. Cursed. Blamed Him.
Brain dead. Vegetative state.
Those words thundered in his skull like a depraved farrier banging a horseshoe into shape around a villainous anvil.
How could Kurt blame God when he’d been the one who had agreed to remove Zoe’s respirator?
In the course of a year, he’d gone from that catastrophic moment to having another woman living in his house. A tidy package of spunk whose silly antics with a dummy had made him laugh again. Even now, the memory of the prior evening brought a smile to his lips.
When they reached the north pasture, Kurt eased away from the herd to let them graze on their own. With the cows stopped, the calves didn’t need a formal invitation to start suckling their moms.
Past the boundary of the Rocking R, Kurt noticed a surveying crew at work. Curious, he wondered what Ezra Stone, his closest neighbor and owner of Double S Ranch, was up to.
“Can I go back home now, Dad? I told Joey I’d ride over to his place today. He’s got a new Nintendo game.”
“Sure, son. Just be sure you’re back for supper.”
“’Kay.” Reining his horse around, Toby touched his heels to the gelding and took off at a gallop.
Kurt could only hope the horse had enough sense not to step in a prairie dog hole and break his leg.
Deciding to check on the surveying project before he went back to the barn, he trotted over to the fence. A pickup owned by T&K Engineering of Billings, MT, was parked nearby.
“Morning,” he called to the closest man, who was wearing an orange safety vest and a Seahawks ball cap.
“Morning.” A young guy, he tipped the bill of his cap. His sideburns reached all the way to his jawline.
“What’s the survey for?”
“Don’t know. We’re just mapping the elevations and putting corner stakes in.”
Kurt lifted his Stetson then resettled it on his head. “Ezra didn’t tell you what he’s planning to do?”
“Nobody named Ezra hired us.” He checked his clipboard. “Looks like an outfit called Western Region Cattle Feeding hired us. They’re headquartered in, uh, Cheyenne.”
Dread landed in his chest with the weight of a boulder. Adrenaline surged, readying him for a fight. He tightened his hands on the reins, which made his horse back up a few steps.
He knew that outfit. There’d been talk of them on the ranchers association website and articles in the Billings newspaper. They ran concentrated animal feed lots and had a reputation of not caring what sort of environmental damage they did as long as they showed a profit.
“Are they going to put in a feed lot here?”
The surveyor lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “No idea. I just measure and note, that’s all.”
“Have they gotten a permit already?” Kurt pressed. He hadn’t been notified by the authorities or read anything in the newspaper. Maybe it was still pending.
“Beats me.” The guy switched his ball cap so the visor was in the back and sighted his equipment toward his partner, who stood a couple hundred feet away.
If a feed lot so close to the Rocking R wasn’t properly drained, it could turn the nearby spring creek into a polluted garbage dump. Kurt’s herd wouldn’t be able to drink the water. He’d have to fence it off. Maybe even need to dig a new well if he wanted to keep cattle grazing this northern section.
Why on earth would Ezra sell or lease his land to an outfit like Western Region Cattle Feeding? And how could Kurt make sure the feeding operation was either stopped or forced to comply with environmental water quality rules? And monitored.
He wheeled Pepper toward home in a slow walk. Given the tension in his household—Beth on a razor edge of rebellion and his new housekeeper—and now the threat of a concentrated feeding operation butting up against his land, Kurt knew the summer was going to be filled with nothing but trouble.
To Sarah’s dismay, she’d learned that ranchers get up before dawn to start their day. She’d barely had a chance to dress before Kurt and Toby finished their breakfast and were out the door.
She cleaned up the dishes, then took a moment to sit at the kitchen table, drink a cup of tea and watch the eastern sky change from the pink of sunrise to the baby-blue of a summer day.
Beth came into the kitchen wearing a nice pair of designer jeans and a stretchy top that bared an inch or two of skin around her midsection. A little mature for a twelve-year-old, Sarah thought, but she didn’t say anything.
Without acknowledging Sarah’s presence, Beth dropped a couple of pieces of white bread into the toaster and found a jar of peanut butter in the cupboard.
“Good morning, Beth. Looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.”
“Huh.”
“After I put on a load of wash—” which she had discovered in an overflowing laundry hamper “—and do a little dusting, I thought I might pull some weeds in the flower beds out front.”
“My mother took care of the flowers.” The toast popped up, and Beth spread peanut butter on each slice.
“It’s a shame to let the garden go. I’m sure the flowers were beautiful when your mother was alive.”
“I guess.” Beth took a bite of toast, then got out a pitcher of orange juice from the refrigerator and poured herself a glass.
“I’d love to have you help me pull some weeds.”
“Can’t. I’m going to ride my bike into town. I’ll be home in time for supper.”
Beth’s casual announcement stopped Sarah in her mental tracks. “I thought I heard your father say you were grounded.”
She washed down the first piece of toast with a big gulp of juice. “Dad won’t care. He just said that ’cause Nana was so upset, having one of her stupid spells.”
Sarah had the niggling feeling that she was being conned by a budding expert. “Let’s check with your dad, okay?”
“He’s way out in the north pasture. There’s no way to reach him. And I’m tellin’ you, he won’t care.” She tossed her long hair behind her shoulder and started on the second piece of toast.
“Doesn’t he have a cell phone? We could call him.”
Beth stopped eating. Her gaze darted around the room,