Chapter 11
cade
My daughter has met Sarah a couple of times, that’s it, and yet, she’s obsessed with her.
Like father, like daughter.
I noticed Sarah for real when she came with her father to Blue Rock. She was helping him because his assistant was away. We had a cow in distress, and Sam had been called in the middle of the night.
She’d been sixteen to my seventeen.
I knew who she was, but she was a year behind, so I hadn’t paid much attention. That changed quickly.
Her small hands grip the flashlight as she firmly holds the beam right where her daddy tells her to.
“Alright, Sarah, tell me what’s wrong with our girl here?” her father asks as he examines the cow standing restless in the chute.
I frown until I realize that he’s teaching her, testing her.
“She’s not eating, her belly’s bloated, and you said her stomach’s shifted. So…it’s a displaced abomasum, right?”
Sam smiles as he presses along the cow’s left side. “And when does a cow usually get DA?”
I glance at Sarah. She’s thinking so hard, I swear I can hear the gears in her head.
“After calving, or sometimes when feed changes, the abomasum fills with gas and flips out of place, usually sliding up on the left under the ribs.”
She recites it like she’d been studying out of a textbook. I’m so damn captivated, I’m ready to marry the girl.
“What do we do when a cow has DA?” Sam holds out his hand.
Sarah takes the loaded syringe from the tray.
It’s fitted with a long, thick-gauge needle, clear solution inside.
She hands it over as careful as anything, plunger angled back, needle forward.
Sam takes it without looking, already focused on parting the cow’s hair and scrubbing the flank clean where he’ll be cutting.
“You’ll block her flank with lidocaine, a line block, so you can make an incision without her feeling it.”
The cow shifts in the chute, chains rattling, and I stay close, ready in case she gets too frisky.
“What happens next?” Sam asks as he works the cow.
Sarah nibbles on her lower lip. “The vet…ah, you will shave and disinfect the flank, make the incision through the muscle, then deflate the abomasum with a trocar and reposition it. After that, you’ll suture it in place, so it won’t flip again.”
“And what happens if we do nothing?”
“She’d go off feed, lose weight, and eventually die.”
“Excellent, kiddo.”
Sarah beams like he just pinned a medal on her chest.
She doesn’t flinch at the smell or the steam lifting off the incision. When Sam asks for a clamp, she has it ready before the words are out of his mouth.
I am enchanted by this girl.
Usually, girls who play cowboys are tomboys. Small tits. Not so pretty. But this girl is…attractive and not just because there’s something intense about her face; it’s how she carries herself, with grace and strength.
She has a lush auburn braid down her back.
Her eyes are too big for her face.
She’s not as pretty as the girls I usually date.
They’re all blonde, stacked, and easy.
But there’s nothing easy about Sarah Kirk.
When most girls her age would’ve turned green and bolted at the first whiff of blood and guts, she appears unperturbed.
She just stands by her father, her braid slipping over her shoulder, watching every move as if it were the most crucial thing in the world.
“She’s gonna be okay, Daddy?” she whispers after Sam sutures the last stitch.
“She is, kiddo.”
“She’s tougher than she looks,” I add, unable to help myself.
Sarah glances at me, a shy smile tugging at her lips. It damn near drops me to my knees. As incongruous as it seems, I’ve fallen hard for a girl who has cow’s blood and fluids all over her.
That’s the problem. My girl looks at Sarah now with that same awe. But I know what Sarah’s capable of. And hell, if I can only convince my own daughter not to see her like I once did.
“Cade,” Noelle cries out.
She and two of her friends, girls I went to high school with, join us.
She’s about to kiss me when I move away.
My kid is with me, and Noelle knows better than to go all PDA when Evie’s around. I’m not about to introduce someone I’ve been casually seeing for a few months to my daughter as my girlfriend.
That’s a line I won’t cross.
The only time a woman will meet Evie as my partner is when I’m damn sure I’ll marry her.
So far, that’s not even remotely on the horizon with Noelle.
She’s convenient, that’s all. And it’s not like I’ve got the time—or the patience—to chase one-night stands at The Rusty Spur just to take the edge off.
Evie shifts away from the women and cuddles into me.
I slip an arm around her. She doesn’t like Noelle; I’ve sensed that. She hasn’t said anything, but I can feel it in her demeanor.
Damn my kid! She adores Sarah and chatters away when she sees her, but with Noelle, she says hello and then either runs away or goes quiet, like now.
Noelle makes a face. “Don’t you think it’s time she knew?” she whispers, pissing me off.
“No,” I reply bluntly.
Her eyes narrow, and she’s about to say something when Evie pulls away from me. I’m about to tell her not to go too far when she points at the woman standing not too far away. “I’m gonna go to Elena.”
Another favorite of hers. Elena rides horses, and my kid loves horses, so here we are. I let her go and smile when I see Elena crouch done and hug Evie. My kid’s adorable, and folks around Wildflower Canyon dote on her.
Elena looks at me and jerks her chin, silently asking if it’s okay for Evie to hang with her.
Since Noelle is here, I nod and mouth, “thank you.”
She waves it away.
It isn’t until she’s walking away with my daughter that I see the other woman with Elena, it’s…Sarah.
“Do you know that Duke Wilder all but bullied me today?” Noelle grumbles as she takes the opportunity to slip her arms around my waist.
I take them off of me. Did she not get the memo about not touching me around my daughter?
“Evie is here, Noelle.”
“She’s not,” she pouts. “She’s gone with Elena and…her. How can you let Evie talk to that whore?”
I roll my shoulders back, working out the weariness. “What happened with Duke?” I ask instead of answering her question about Evie talking with Sarah ‘cause I got zero answers.
“He was so mean,” one of her friends, Leah, says.
The other, Kiki, snorts. “Hunt Blackwood was there and Kaz Chase, and they were downright awful, Cade. You need to talk to them and tell them they can’t treat your girlfriend like that.”
“What did you do?” I ignore them and concentrate on Noelle. I know these men, and if they said something, they had a damn good reason. Knowing Noelle, I can take a guess as to what happened.
“I was talking to Sarah…that’s all.” She looks away, her arms crossed defensively.
“Stay away from Sarah, Noelle. She ain’t any of your business.” I take my hat off and run a hand through my hair. I realize then that this thing with Noelle has run its course.
I gotta cut her loose.
We have decent sex. I haven’t had much sex since Jeanine got pregnant, and I miss it. Noelle was supposed to be straightforward—some easy fucking, companionship, and that’s it.
“I just hate that she’s here,” Noelle whispers.
“You need to tell Duke and the others what she did so they can stay away from her,” Leah mutters as she flips her hair.
“Duke said that I’m going to hell because I don’t support Sarah,” Noelle continued, her eyes wide with insult.
I’m about ready to take a hammer and hit myself hard ‘cause that would be better than listening to these three.
I should’ve gone with Evie. I could’ve hung out with Elena…with Sarah?
I let out an elaborate sigh. “I’ve got a bull sale to get to.”
“Cade, I thought we’d get a drink and hang out,” Noelle whines.
Jesus!
Yep. Time to end this.
Will I miss the sex? Yes.
Will I miss it more than I’ll enjoy not listening to her yappin’ about? No.
“Sorry, Noelle. You know, genetics don’t buy themselves. And they’re going to be showing the bulls I’m interested in around four.” I look at my watch again. It was three forty, time to get the fuck outta here.
It’s not a lie. I do need to look at a couple of Angus bulls being sold—stud stock with pedigrees that read like royalty.
I thumb out a quick text to Elena, asking how Evie’s holding up.
A second later, my phone buzzes with a picture.
Evie’s grinning wide, helmet crooked on her head, perched atop a shaggy paint pony with a handler leading her around in a circle.
Elena: She’s having fun.
I can’t help the tug in my heart. Evie’s smile is all teeth and joy, her little boots sticking out sideways like she’s born for the saddle.
Me: Don’t let her talk you into buying that pony.
Elena: Too late.
I chuckle.
Me: You okay with having her? I gotta go down to the sale barn.
Elena: She’s fine with us.
I take a deep breath and don’t ask her who this ‘us’ is.
I know.
I send a thumbs-up emoji and pocket the phone. My girl’s happy. That’s all that matters.
The sale barn is busy. Voices echo under the rafters, low as a church before the sermon, everyone flipping through catalogs, thick with pedigrees and EPD charts.
I’ve already circled the lots I came to check—two Angus bulls bred out of a line that throws calves easy, with carcass numbers that make the buyers at Certified Beef sit up straighter.
It takes fifteen minutes before the bull I’m interested in comes in. He’s big-shouldered with a slick black hide shining under the lights. He doesn’t spook at the crowd, just tosses his head like he knows he’s worth every penny.
“Lot Thirty-One,” the auctioneer fires off, voice fast as a hailstorm on tin. “Thunder Ridge Blackcap 214K, sired by Connealy Thunder, dam line goes back to Traveler. Startin’ at twenty-five hundred, who’ll give me twenty-five?”
My pulse kicks up.
Connealy Thunder throws calves easily, the kind that hit the ground quickly and get to sucking without trouble. Traveler blood means long backs, good gain, solid feet—no gimpy calves limping through the pasture. That’s beef buyers’ gold right there.
I raise my hand. The auctioneer nods my way, doesn’t even pause. The bids roll back to ten, twelve, fifteen, twenty thousand. I stay put, not chasing, not showing my hand too quickly. I can go up to twenty-five…maybe thirty, but that’s it, which is damn expensive. And that too without semen rights.
Finally, the man across the ring I’ve been trading bids with drops his hand. I give the auctioneer a slight lift of my chin.
“Sold, Lot Thirty-One to Blue Rock Ranch!” the auctioneer shouts, slamming his gavel.
The catalog closes in my hand, but my mind’s already running numbers. That bull will pay for himself in three years, maybe less, if he throws calves like his sire.
In ranching, you don’t just buy a bull, you buy the future of your herd. Better genetics mean faster weight gain, stronger calves, and higher market prices. Folks think ranching is dirt and sweat—and it is—but it’s also betting on bloodlines. Buying the future one bid at a time.
After signing the papers and arranging for the new bull I had just bought to be delivered to Blue Rock, I go looking for Evie.
I find her curled up in Sarah’s lap by the pony ring, a stuffed horse tucked under her chin, her little boots still dusty. She’s out cold, trusting as can be, while Sarah strokes her hair with a tenderness that twists my gut.
This is the woman who’d accused my brother of rape. The woman who burned my life to ash ten years ago.
And yet…she looks like she was born to have my daughter in her arms.
I grip the rail hard enough my knuckles pop, then stride up and scoop Evie out of Sarah’s lap. The stuffed horse Evie was holding falls to the ground.
“I told you to stay away from my kid,” I rasp roughly. I keep it low. I don’t want to wake up Evie.
Sarah picks up the stuffed horse that Evie was sleeping with. “Elena had to run a check on one of her hands at the bronc riding…so….” She clears her throat, holds the toy out like a peace offering. “I got this for her.”
I sneer at the damn thing, hating myself for being annoyed over a fucking stuffed animal. “I don’t want her to have anything that came from you.”
Her face crumples, devastation flashing in her eyes, and it slices through me sharper than barbed wire.
I turn on my heel before I say or do something stupid, like apologizing or hugging her. I walk fast, running away, Evie heavy in my arms and my own words like spurs raked across hide.
That burn only intensifies when Evie wakes up at home and cries for Pinky, the horse that Dr. K got for her.
I seem to have a knack for hurting the women in my life.
Sarah is not a woman in your life, Cade.
Right!