After all the horses were secured in the trailers, everyone gathered around Dub and Sue. Nate slipped in beside Jenna.
“Any questions?” Her dad glanced around.
“Is Ramona frying chicken?” asked Buster with a grin.
“She was making a cobbler when we left, but chicken is on the menu.”
“Then I’ll have to work up an appetite.”
Ollie bumped Buster’s shoulder with his, making the older man’s slight paunch jiggle. “Pressing the button on the TV remote works up your appetite.”
Dub laughed with the others and waited a few seconds for additional questions. When there weren’t any, he took off his hat and reached for his wife’s hand. For as long as Jenna could remember, her father had prayed every morning during roundup.
The men removed their hats, and everyone respectfully bowed their heads. Jenna felt Nate’s hand slip around hers. His touch was warm, comforting, and felt right. She added a silent prayer that God would bless her friend that day.
Her dad spoke quietly and reverently. “Heavenly Father, we thank you for a good day. This ranch belongs to you, Lord, as do all of us. We ask you to bless our efforts today and keep everyone and every animal safe and unharmed. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
When Nate gave her hand a little squeeze and met her gaze with sweet tenderness in his eyes, she wondered if the term
friend
even came close to what she felt for him.
On the circular sweep through the ten thousand acre pasture, Nate and Winston drove two cows and their calves out of the thick cedar breaks along a creek bed. The cows were old hands at this roundup business, but some of them still didn’t like it. As a rule, the calves didn’t like it at all. Maybe they still remembered the spring roundup, with the branding, shots, and all the other things the little critters were subjected to. Nate knew it all was necessary, but he figured it had to be traumatic. And he knew for a fact that some cattle had long memories.
Like the one Jenna was chasing full out through the mesquites, dodging the thorny limbs as best she could. That ol’ lop-eared Hereford had been trotty since she was weaned years ago. Guiding his foursome around a clump of brush, he picked up the calf that hadn’t been able to keep up with her mama and herded her into his little group. It was one of the rare times a panicked calf didn’t bolt in the opposite direction.
He tried to keep Jenna in sight in case she ran into trouble. The cow broke into a small clearing with her about fifteen feet behind. She spun the loop in her rope twice—all she had room for in that small space—and let it fly, sailing it over Ol’ Lop-ear’s head pretty as you please. Clementine put on the brakes, but the cow went over the edge of a ravine seconds before she hit the end of the rope. Clem and Jenna skidded over the edge right behind her, dirt and small rocks flying in the air.
Fear sliced through Nate. He abandoned his cows and spurred Winston after Jenna, slowing before they reached the ravine. He couldn’t risk going blindly over the edge. If she was lying at the bottom of the draw, they’d run right over her.
He reined in and spotted her and Clem bringing the cow to a screeching halt about twenty yards away. Breathing a sigh of relief, he relaxed and glanced over his shoulder to see where his cattle were. To his surprise, they’d stopped too. He looked back at Jenna, listened to her scold the cow for being a brat, and laughed.
Clementine backed up and turned around so Jenna could lead the troublemaker out of the draw. She muttered the whole way, occasionally glancing back at the animal, grumbling louder.
Nate tried to put on a serious expression since laughing right then might not be wise. He decided he wasn’t entirely successful when she rode up an easier slope a little farther down, her frown deepening when she looked at him.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.” She glanced down at a long rip in her denim jacket. “No. Well, I am, but my jacket isn’t.” She glared at the cow now following her like a pet on a leash. “Ornery thing. Why couldn’t you mosey over to Chance’s section? Or Nate’s?”
“Good thing she wasn’t in my territory.” Nate ran his gaze over her to check for damage. Other than the tear in her coat, she seemed all in one piece. At least he couldn’t see any scratches or bruises. “I’d have missed her.” He eased Winston closer and plucked a mesquite twig that was jammed into the brim of her straw hat. “That was mighty fine ridin’.”
She sat there for a minute, then slowly grinned. “It was pretty good, wasn’t it?”
“Better than that. You haven’t lost your touch. Or your grit.”
Jenna reached for her canteen. “Speaking of grit . . .” She took a swig of water, swished it around in her mouth, leaned to the side, and spit it out. She wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and a mischievous expression spread across her face. “I’m real ladylike too.”
“When it’s appropriate, but you’re also practical. I like that.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Sure. It doesn’t make any sense to sit there with a mouth full of dirt.” He couldn’t resist teasing her a little bit and ran a fingertip across her dusty cheek. “Even when you’re covered with it.”
She made a face. “Back to work, cowboy.”
“Uh-oh, she’s gettin’ all uppity on me.”
She tipped her head up, her nose pointed high in the air— and lost her balance.
Nate reached out to steady her, resting his hand along her side. All he had to do was lean a little bit to his right, and if she kept her head tipped up, and he angled just so . . . A light flared in her eyes, bringing him to his senses.
He pulled his hand back and straightened, easing Winston away from Clem. Putting distance between him and Jenna. He was not going to kiss her for the first time with both of them filthy and on horseback in the middle of a pasture where anybody in the roundup crew might spot them any second.
And with a calf bawling at the top of her lungs to attract attention. He noticed that Ol’ Lop-ear had edged past Jenna and was now at the end of the rope, stretching in an effort to reunite with her calf. But the calf was too scared of Jenna and Nate to come any closer.
“Reckon I’d better get back to work.”
“We both should.” But instead of moving, she searched his eyes.
“I will kiss you, sweetheart. In the right time and place.” He scanned the pasture, noting that his little bunch of cows were trying to slip away, and smiled sheepishly. “But this ain’t it.”
“I’ll hold you to that, cowboy,” she said softly.
“Yes, ma’am. A wise man always keeps his promise to the boss lady.” He winked and trotted off to catch a cow and calf that had sneaked around a big prickly pear cactus and were making a beeline back to where they came from.
Nate quickly rounded them up along with the other two that had stopped to graze and herded them back to where Jenna was leading the cow with her calf trailing happily along behind. They headed toward the trap that held the cattle they brought in.
Dub liked them to move the cattle at a walk or slow trot whenever possible. It was much less stressful on them, which paid off in better condition and weight.
Nate fell in close enough to Jenna for conversation, though it probably wouldn’t be long before he had to move to the outside of his little herd to keep them going the right way.
She looked over her shoulder to check on her cow and calf. “I thought I might see you at church yesterday.”
“I’m ashamed to say I overslept. I’d intended to go, but I stayed up so late Saturday night working on the house that I slept right through the radio. I dreamed that I was still unpacking stuff and listening to the radio. In my dream I turned it off, but some guy kept talking. I turned the radio on and off a couple of times—”
“In your dream?”
He nodded. “But when it was turned off the guy was still talking. And people were laughing. It was weird and annoying. I dreamed that I threw the radio outside.”
Jenna had an idea where this was going. “But the guy kept talking.”
“Right. I finally woke up enough to realize I was listening to Chuck Swindoll.”
Jenna laughed. “So you got some good teaching anyway.”
“Most of it subconsciously.”
“Maybe that’s the best way to understand things. I had a friend in college who learned French by listening to it while she slept. By the end of the year she could speak it fairly well. She couldn’t read it very well, though, so she flunked the class.”
“So it didn’t do her much good.”
“Actually, it did. She went to Paris that summer, met a French businessman, fell in love, and got married.”
“There’s nothing like living in another culture to learn about it and the people.”
“Like you did in Iraq and Afghanistan.”
“I tried to learn as much as I could. My tours were fifteen months each time, but there are things you can never understand unless you stay in a country for a decade or two.”
He kept an eye on a cow who was thinking about making a break for it. All on his own, Winston moved over a little to keep her in line. Nate was impressed with how much the horse had learned since he’d been gone. He caught a glimpse of a cow and calf hiding in the mesquite trees. “Duty calls.”
Guiding Winston to the right, he circled around behind them and drove them out to join the others. With the new additions, he had to stay off to the side to keep them moving, ending any chance of conversation.
When they reached the fence between the pasture and the trap, Jenna held the cattle in place while Nate leaned down and unlatched the gate, swinging it wide. Some of the gates on the ranch were made of barbed wire and posts that had to be lifted from a loop of wire and dragged open. But the ones leading into the traps consisted of a metal pipe frame and posts with wide mesh wire in between. They were made to open easily from horseback.
He and Jenna herded the cattle into the half-section pasture and away from the gate, holding them there because Buster and Ollie were bringing more in. The others soon followed with more cattle. When the animals were all in the trap and the gate shut, Dub motioned for everyone to join him. They went around the circle, with each person giving him a tally of how many cattle he or she had brought in on the various sweeps through the pasture.
Dub added them up and nodded. “We got them all: 110 cows plus their calves.” He looked down the dirt road at a trail of dust in the distance. “Right in time too. Here comes dinner.”
The group scattered along the fence line to unsaddle and tether their horses. Within minutes their saddles were lined up on the ground and saddle blankets hung over the top strand of barbed wire to dry out. When Ace arrived, they took hobbles from the back of the pickup and secured the horses. They each filled a feed bag and draped it over their mount’s head so the horses could eat.
Then they took turns washing up at the open metal tank, catching fresh water as it swooshed from the pipe with each pump of the windmill.
After Ramona, Ethel, and Zach arrived, Jenna lifted her son from his car seat in the truck and adjusted his cowboy hat so it fit right. Ramona had dressed him in pull-up jeans and a blue T-shirt with a cute brown horse on the front. She set him on the ground and held out her hand.
“My ride horsey?” Zach curled his hand around her fingers and looked longingly at Clem.
“Not today, sweetie. The horses have been working hard, and they need dinner and a break. See all those cows in the pasture?” She pointed toward the cattle milling on the far side of the trap. When he focused on them, she continued, “We’ll be rounding more cows up all week, but I promise I’ll take you for a ride on Saturday, okay?”
“Okay.” He glanced around to see what else was interesting. “Nate!”
At the sound of his name, Nate looked up and grinned. “Hey, Zach.” He sauntered toward them. “How are you, buddy?”
“My good.”
Zach held up his arms, and Nate picked him up. Then he glanced down at his clothes and frowned. “I’m awfully grubby to be holding a clean little boy.”
“Don’t worry about it. A little dirt won’t hurt.”
“Dirt won’t ’urt,” echoed Zach.
Nate grinned at Jenna. “I think there’s a parrot loose around here.”
“Parrot.”
Jenna giggled. “He’s repeating things left and right. I’m amazed that he’s learning so many new words and putting them together in little sentences already. Doctor Cindy says he’s off the top of the chart with his language skills.”
“They actually have a chart for that?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I didn’t see one, so she might have only been using the expression. Either way, she was impressed when we saw her last week at the grocery store. She said she hoped I’d started a college fund.”
Zach looked at her, then Nate, his little face breaking into an impish smile. “My cute.”
Nate laughed and hugged him a little. “Oh yeah? Who says so?”
“Mommy.” Zach sent her the sweetest smile and nodded his head decisively. “My cute.”
“Well, your mom is right. Are you hungry too?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did Ramona bring anything good to eat?”
“Chicken.”
“Yum. What else?”
“Obbler.”
“Cobbler?” Nate glanced at Jenna.
His pride at catching on to Zach’s kid-speak was adorable. Would a rugged, macho guy like him take that as a compliment? She might have to ask about that sometime.
Zach nodded. “Peach.”
“Looks like they have dinner set up,” said Nate. Ace had brought along a handful of folding lawn chairs. “We’d better get over there before Buster eats it all.”
“Buster eat it all.”
Nate grimaced comically. “Oops. Guess we have to be careful what we say.”
“That’s a lesson we’re all learning.” They started toward the pickups, where everyone else was lining up. “Do you want me to take him?”
“I’ll hold him while you get food for the two of you. How do you handle him eating without a table?”
“Good question. I think we’ll share a plate this time. I can keep his food on one side and mine on the other.” Maybe. Zach liked to feed himself these days.
She dished up some fried chicken, potato salad, and a big spoonful of fruit mixed with whipped cream. In the small spot left on the plate, she added some black-eyed peas with a little piece of bacon. Several times earlier in the year, she had helped Ramona and her mother pick the peas in the garden, shell them as they sat around the kitchen table or outside on the patio or porch, then prepare them for the freezer. They were so much better preserved that way than canned or dried. She took a fork for herself and a spoon for Zach.