Dogs and horses…
Throw in a baby cow and I’m yours. Seriously. Nothing in this world makes me happier (sorry kids).
Growing up, my time was gladly spent with my spirited quarter horse mare and the black angus calves who shared her pasture. We won’t talk about why the calves had been purchased, but I will admit to being responsible for them not fattening up the way they should have and needing longer before going to market. Nothing like a girl and her born and bred cutting horse to keep cattle trim and fit.
While my current life only includes one of the above loves, a golden retriever who rules my world, I do my best to keep my writing life brimming with dogs, horses, baby cows, and of course, cowboys.
I went all in with the third book in my Grit and Grace series. There is a stray dog needing to be rescued by Beth Dawson, the caretaker of the Grit and Grace bunch, a newborn calf to protect, trustworthy horses, and a very hot but a little grumpy cowboy to make the night under the vast Texas Hill Country sky more interesting…
Panic rising in her throat, Beth was already climbing out of the truck. She shut the door on Sammie’s protest and started down the knoll as fast as she dared, a hand planted on her black cowboy hat. Her work-worn cowboy boots skidded in the loose, rocky soil and she had to watch out for grassy clumps that would send her tumbling head over teakettle.
As much as she loved her Grit and Grace partners, she loved the animals who also called this huge ranch home a smidge more. It was just how she was wired. Whether they were rodeo rough stock owned outright by her and her friends or the saddle horses and longhorns they leased from Asher Halliday, the billion-dollar oil dynasty heir who owned the ranch, Beth loved them equally. If one of the heifers was sick or in distress of some kind, it didn’t deserve to simply be shot. There had to be an alternative.
There had to be some way she could help the animal.
Her heart already pounding, Beth broke into a run the second she hit relatively flat ground. As she closed the distance between them, uncaring where her booted feet landed now, she could see Justin unzipping the case and removing a long barrel, scoped rifle.
Despite the exertion, her blood turned cold and her feet felt as if they were encased in concrete.
Justin leaned forward and drew a red ammunition box toward him. Beth was still fifty yards away from him when he opened the box and began sliding long, pointed bullets into the gun’s chamber, the morning sun glinting off the brass of each one.
“Justin!” Beth yelled, but the crisp January breeze blew her voice right back at her.
Another bullet went into the chamber.
“Justin!” she tried again.
He turned his head toward her, his face obscured by the brim of his dark-brown cowboy hat and the upturned collar of his shearling-lined jean jacket.
His body tensed. “What’s wrong?” he called back to her.
That’s what she wanted to know, but she continued running toward him.
She could see him look up toward the knoll where the ranch truck was parked, then back at her as she neared him. “What is it?” he asked, worry clear in his voice. “Is it Sammie?” He pointed toward the knoll. “The baby?” Everyone on the A Bar H had taken a vested interest in the welfare of Sammie and Alec’s baby. The kid was going to be drowned in love.
Beth slowed to a trot and glanced over her shoulder long enough to see that Sammie had climbed back out of the truck and was watching them with one hand braced on the truck’s door and the other on her undoubtedly aching low back.
When Beth reached where Justin stood at the open tailgate of his truck, she said, “It’s not that. Sammie and the baby are fine.” She paused to catch her breath while Justin expressed his worry by glowering at her. She ignored him and demanded, “Why are you loading a gun? Is something wrong with one of the bred heifers?”
His rigid posture relaxed and he went back to loading the last of the five rounds into the rifle. “They’re fine. At the moment. This isn’t for any of them,” he said, indicating the rifle.
Beth planted her hands on her hips. “Then for what?”
“Something’s been harassing them. When I came out at first light to see if any of them had calved, I found them bunched against the fence, breathing hard and lathered, as if something had been chasing them.”
“Like what?”
Justin gestured with a tilt of his head for her to follow him. He shouldered the rifle by its strap and led Beth around the back of the truck toward a patch of dirt still holding on to moisture from the last rainfall.
He dropped to one knee and pointed at a distinct animal track left in the mud.
Beth squatted next to him to better see the print. Though slightly smaller than her palm, the paw print had distinct pads and definite claws. “That looks canine. Coyote?”
Justin pulled in a breath, then shook his head. “Too big, I think. And the ground isn’t that soft, so whatever it was, is carrying some weight. Since there aren’t any wolves left in Texas, it’s probably a largish feral dog.”
Horror shot through Beth. “A dog? You’re going to shoot a dog?”
Justin settled his hazel eyes on her. “A feral dog, Beth. They can be just as dangerous as any predator. Especially around newborn calves.”
Beth’s brain understood Justin’s logic. Agreed with it, even. But her heart rebelled with a rending intensity. “A feral dog can be tamed. You don’t have to kill it, Justin.”
The normal warm-caramel color of his eyes turned to stone-hard amber. “You think I want to kill a dog? Or whatever might have left that print?”
Beth held his gaze. Despite having lived on the A Bar H for roughly seven months and seeing Justin nearly every day while he efficiently filled his role of ranch manager and she helped tend to and train the rodeo rough stock owned outright or leased by Grit and Grace, Beth didn’t really know Justin.
She said flatly, “I have no idea what you want, Justin.”
About the Author.
Having never met an unhappy ending she couldn’t mentally “fix,” Leah Vale believes writing romance novels is the perfect job for her. A Pacific Northwest native with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington, she lives in Central Oregon, with a huge golden retriever who thinks he’s a lap dog. While having the chance to share her “happy endings from scratch” is a dream come true, dinner generally has to come premade from the store.
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