Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63469 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 212(@300wpm)
“No. You said yourself, you’ll be home on Monday.”
“Afternoon on Monday is losing a whole day,” Mac informed her. “This isn’t gonna work at all.”
I knew Mac and Rand were both thinking of everything that needed to be done on the Red. People who didn’t live on ranches didn’t understand that the work never, ever stopped. Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, you worked. And in the winter, it was worse. The cattle had to be fed hay because foraging wasn’t going to happen in the cold. Cattle didn’t graze in December, they were fed, and that meant using tractors to move tons of hay on a daily basis, hauling it and creating many haystacks miles apart from each other. It was why there were camps all over the property that men were rotated in and out of. The ranch was so big, there were several windbreaks and structures everywhere to offer the cattle protection and warmth. Normally, wranglers would have had to go out and make holes in the ice for the cattle to drink, but Rand had put in solar-powered water troughs all across his property to ensure that the cattle, as well as other indigenous wildlife and those he’d saved, had clean, flowing water year-round. And all the feeding and caring for the cattle didn’t take into consideration maintenance on the barns that had to be done to get ready for late winter calving season.
“Well,” Ms. Kerr said, “perhaps you can make up the day tomorrow as, like I said, the children will be gone then. The adults are hoping for an authentic experience, and if that means being up at four—”
“Leaving at four,” Mac corrected her. “Awake at three.”
She shuddered. “That seems horrible to me, Mr. Gentry, but I won’t be participating, so it’s up to you. I will remain at the Lone Pine with the children and their parents while Robin accompanies you the remainder of the drive to the Red.”
It was hard enough for Rand to be away from his family for any amount of time, and now that was being added to. I understood. I’d felt a twinge not to be back home as well, and there was no one special waiting for me. I did the only think I could think of to help.
“Rand, how about I make breakfast?”
He looked over at me.
“And let’s get some coffee in, Chase.”
Everyone had been holding their breath, waiting for Rand to explode, so there was relieved laughter when Rand nodded and Chase grinned at me.
Like every bunkhouse I’d ever been in, the one from last night had a kitchen with a stocked refrigerator and pantry. With Tom, Pierce, and Dusty helping me, we made breakfast. I whipped up my specialty—biscuits and gravy—got scrambled eggs going as well, and Dusty went to frying-bacon hell while Tom and Pierce cubed fruit and got coffee made and juice poured.
Rand came in when I was sending out gravy.
“You all right?” I asked softly.
He nodded.
“You call Stef?”
Shake of his head.
“Well, you have your satellite phone, so you can call him anytime.”
Another nod.
I was going to say, Mac is here. You can go home. But I knew how he’d take that, I could imagine it all unfolding in my mind, so I kept my mouth shut. Sometimes when you thought you were giving solace, all you did was make the other person mad. Rand was there because they were his cattle. McNamara had done him a solid, so he was repaying him. It was the same with the debt I owed Stef. I could have hired someone to fill in for me. There were a lot of men, especially now, better at being a wrangler than me. And yes, I’d done it a long time, but still, I was out of practice after two years. The thing was, though, I owed Stef. I’d promised, and my word was my bond. It was the same for Rand. I would be trying to give him an out, and he would take that as me questioning his honor.
“You know,” I told him, “if we cross all the water between us and the Lone Pine instead of going around, that would cut down on the time, don’t you think?”
“I was thinking about that, but there are mothers and calves in this herd, and yeah, the water’s not deep, but it’s deep enough to lose a skittish calf in.”
I nodded. “You know best.”
He stared at me for a second, and I knew, because I knew him and because we had so much history, so much baggage, that he was checking to see if I was being snide. I had purposely not antagonized him, and instead agreed. It was weird for both of us.
“I mean it, Rand. You know I do.”
He was still studying me.
“In this instance,” I clarified, grinning at him, “I defer to your judgment, as I don’t drive stock anymore and have no idea if anything’s changed on the route or on the range.”