Branded Mountain Heart (Heart of the Mountain #4)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

TUCKER

The calf is stuck.

"Easy, girl." My voice stays low. Steady. Same tone my dad used on panicking animals for thirty years before his heart quit on him in the south field.

She bellows. Deep, guttural, exhausted.

Reaching in, I find the calf's jaw, ease the head around until it lines up with the legs. Mama's muscles contract hard against my forearm and she tries to stand. Dolly blocks her, nipping just enough to hold the line.

"Good girl. Both of you."

One more contraction. The calf slides free in a wet, steaming rush, and I clear the membrane from its nose, watch the first breath shudder through a brand new set of lungs. Mama turns, already lowing, already licking. The calf blinks up at me with dark, unfocused eyes.

Eight hundred and one.

Sitting back on my heels, I wipe my hands on my jeans and let out a breath that's been locked in my chest for the last twenty minutes. Hank trots over, nudges my elbow with his nose like he's checking my work. Dolly's already scanning the tree line for coyotes because she never stops working.

My phone buzzes in my back pocket. Then again. Then a third time in rapid succession, which means it's Josie.

She lands at 2. Guest cabin is ready right?

Also she's bringing equipment so don't freak out about the cases

Tucker I swear to God if you don't answer me

Leaning against the fence post, I type back with one clean thumb.

Busy. Calf coming.

Three dots appear immediately.

OMG is it okay?? Send me a picture!!

Also the photographer. Tucker. Please.

The photographer. Right. Josie's big plan to drag Brant Ranch into the twenty first century with a new logo, a website, social media content, and whatever else she cooked up during her marketing meetings in Reno.

She pitched it over Thanksgiving dinner with a slideshow on her laptop, complete with graphs showing direct to consumer beef sales and agritourism revenue projections.

My answer was no.

Her response was to hire someone anyway.

Cabin's ready.

Thank you!! You're going to love Lena she's amazing

Her portfolio is incredible Tucker seriously just look at it

Not going to look at it. Don't need a portfolio to tell me what Brant Ranch looks like.

Been staring at it my whole life. Four generations of Brants have run cattle on this land.

My great grandfather cleared the first pasture with a mule and a back that never fully straightened again.

My grandfather built the barn that still stands.

My dad expanded the herd to eight hundred, taught me to ride before I could read, and dropped dead at fifty two walking fence line after supper.

The ranch doesn't need a brand. It needs rain, decent hay prices, and a fence crew that shows up when they say they will.

Back at the barn, I strip off my shirt, use the hose to wash the blood and mud off my arms. The water's cold enough to make my teeth clench.

Hank and Dolly drink from the trough while I grab a clean henley from the hook inside the tack room and pull it on, settling my hat back over hair that probably needs cutting.

Manny's already got the feed truck loaded. He nods at me from the driver's side, coffee thermos in hand.

"247 dropped?"

"Bull calf. Both fine."

"That's the one you were watching?"

"Yep."

He takes a sip. "Josie still sending that photographer?"

"Yep."

Manny's been working Brant Ranch since before my dad died. Knows every fence line, every water source, every cow by number. Also knows when to stop talking, which is why he just nods and drives off toward the north pasture.

The morning burns through fast. Fence repair on the west boundary takes two hours. A section of irrigation pipe needs replacing near the creek crossing, and that eats up another hour on my back in the dirt. By noon, my shoulders ache in the good way.

Standing on the porch of the main house, I eat a cold roast beef sandwich and watch the road.

The ranch house sits on a rise with a clear view of the gravel drive that winds up from the county road.

Guest cabin's about a hundred yards east, small but solid.

Clean sheets, stocked kitchen, fresh towels.

My mother would've insisted on flowers, but she's been gone since I was seventeen, and nobody's taught me what to put in a vase.

Two fifteen. The dust plume appears on the county road before the car does.

A red SUV rental, shiny enough to blind a man. It takes the gravel drive too fast, kicks rocks against the fence posts, and pulls to a stop in front of the barn instead of the house because there's no sign pointing where to go. Because this is a cattle ranch, not a hotel.

The driver's door opens.

Heels hit the gravel first. Red ones. Then legs. Then a sundress with some kind of loud floral print that belongs at a rooftop bar in Vegas, not a working ranch in the Nevada mountains. Dark hair spills over bare shoulders, and silver rings catch the sunlight on nearly every finger.

She's short. Curvy in a way that the sundress isn't hiding. Brown skin, red lipstick, camera bag already slung over one shoulder like she was born attached to it. Both hands are full. Phone in one, iced coffee in the other, and she's somehow also managing a rolling equipment case with her hip.

Hank trots over to investigate. Dolly stays on the porch with me because Dolly has standards.

"Oh my God, hi, hello, you're beautiful," the woman says to my dog, crouching down in those heels to scratch behind his ears. Hank rolls onto his back immediately. Zero loyalty in that animal.

She looks up toward the porch. Toward me. Brown eyes, warm and sharp at the same time, scanning my face, my clothes, the sweat stains, the dirt on my boots. Taking inventory with a photographer's eye. Cataloging.

Something loosens in my chest. And something tightens lower.

"Tucker Brant?" She straightens up, extends a hand with three silver rings on it and nails painted the same red as her shoes. Her smile is wide, easy, practiced. "Lena Cordero. Josie hired me to make you famous."

"Josie hired you." My handshake is brief. Firm. Her fingers are small in mine, warm from the coffee cup. "I didn't."

The smile doesn't falter. If anything, it gets brighter. She tilts her head, looks me over again, slower this time. Deliberate. Those brown eyes travel from my hat to my boots and back up, and she nods once like she just confirmed a theory.

"Don't clean up," she says. "You're perfect."

Then she lifts her camera and points it at my face.

My hand comes up before the shutter clicks. "Don't."

"Don't what? Stand here? Breathe? You'll need to be more specific, cowboy."

"Don't point that thing at me."

She lowers the camera but keeps the smile. Tilts her head toward the guest cabin, eyebrows raised. "That mine for two weeks?"

Two weeks. Fourteen days of this woman on my property. In my space. Loud and bright and impossible to ignore. Already talking with her free hand, already looking at my ranch like she's framing it for a shot.

"Cabin's ready. Towels are in the bathroom." Turning toward the house, I add over my shoulder, "And it's rancher. Not cowboy."

Her laugh follows me inside. Low, warm, and way too pleased with herself.

Dolly gives me a look from the doormat that says she's already worried about me.

Yeah. Me too.