They had a good calf crop this year, and most of the cows were pregnant again, so there could be no pussy-footing around with the weaning. Every day a calf was at a pregnant dam’s teat was a day the fetus wasn’t getting all the nourishment it needed.
“Come on, missy, come on,” Logan urged the little girl who was fighting with everything she had not to lose her mama. That ‘little girl’ weighed about five hundred pounds, and she was putting up a hell of a fight. She was wily, especially for a cow, an animal not known for its great intellect. But this girl anticipated his every move.
Finally Chesapeake, their new, and still learning, herd dog, scrambled over from wherever she’d decided was more important, and between Ranger’s stomping hooves and Chessie’s barks and nips, the last calf was forced back into the weaning pasture.
From Ranger’s back, Logan closed the gate and locked it. “Alright! Hit the switch!” Over by the shed, Steve flipped the switch, and a low hum, pitched under the cacophony of bereaved cattle, rose up and faded out. The fence was live, and the weaning was, for the most part, accomplished.
Logan rode over to the main fence, where Honor sat on the top rail. He’d given her a hat for her birthday at the end of August, and she looked sexy as hell, sitting there in jeans and boots and a fleece-lined leather jacket, that black, flat-topped Stetson on her head, all her golden hair blowing back in a chilly fall breeze.
He brought Ranger sidelong to the fence and bent over for a kiss. She gave it to him, but he saw that her eyes were misty. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”
“They’re all so sad. All those babies crying, and their moms, too. How can you stand it? And you electrified the fence?”
“The current is low. Just enough to bop their nose, so they don’t bring the fence down trying to get back together. Here”—he held out a gloved hand—“hop up. Let’s take a ride.”
She stood up on the fence, and he helped her swing her leg over the saddle in front of him. Ranger was a big, strong horse, a worker, so he didn’t mind the little bit of extra weight, though he shifted on his hind legs as he accepted it.
In the nearly three months since the Founders’ Festival, Logan and Honor had settled in. She was still living on the ranch, though she hadn’t made plans to do anything with her apartment. She went into town occasionally, when she had to do something for Natalie’s case or deal with some other issue. Logan went with her as often as he could.
The publicity storm had subsided, but insurance still hadn’t paid out for her office and car. It was caught in a hell of red tape, and until that got resolved, she couldn’t afford to lease a new office. Her current landlord’s insurance payout was also held up, and he was threatening to sue Honor if he didn’t get it soon.
So her career was still stalled, and she’d turned all of her impressive energy on Natalie, whose case was turning out to be very complicated.
Her career was stalled, but their relationship was in full flower. They’d had a couple of talks so intense they’d almost been fights about how much he could take care of her and whether or not her current struggles were making him feel more secure, only to lose his shit again when she got back on her feet.
She really didn’t want him getting too comfortable taking care of her. And she really hated not being able to take care of things on her own.
For his part, Logan felt calm—and not just because she needed him, which she did. She was only affording her mortgage on her Boise apartment because she had no other expenses right now. She was only able to handle Natalie’s case so well because the Cahills—the whole family—were writing the checks she needed for expenses.
Sure, it felt good to be needed, and he could live like this always, but he’d figured something out the day after Founders’ Day. Standing in Honor’s apartment, laying himself bare to her, he’d gotten his hands around the thing that had been eating at him, and he was choking it out. He could wait for someday. He could see Honor still with him up ahead, even if he couldn’t tell exactly what that looked like. He knew he’d see it when he got a little closer, and he knew she’d be with him.
That was later. For now, damn, he was happy. It felt good, to love somebody like this. And to feel her love him back.
Logan rode them out into the larger pasture, keeping along the edges. “See how the mamas are going back now that we’re not holding them off? What we do is called fenceline weaning. Everybody’ll yell a bit today, and the calves will complain for a couple of days when they want milk, but what we did a couple of weeks ago, herding the nursing pairs into this pasture, that was so the calves would get used to it and their dams could show them where to get the good grass and alfalfa hay, and the water. They don’t need milk anymore. They just want their mamas. Well, they still got their mamas. Look.”
Cowdini’s dam was back at the fence, putting her head over the top; she was a mature breeding cow, with several calving seasons behind her and another one around the corner; she understood how this whole process worked and how she could get to her calf to give her comfort without getting a jolt. Still yelling, but with a less desperate tone, the calf lifted her nose and met her mom’s. She quieted at once.
“Back in the day, this was a much harder time. Back then, we’d sort calves from dams and herd the mothers way off, out of sight of their babies. The wisdom back then was that the calves would get over it faster if their moms were nowhere to be seen. Some still think that’s true. But seeing it both ways, I can tell you this is kinder. They still don’t like it, but it’s not as scary.”
“Why do you have to wean them? Won’t they do it themselves? When they’re ready?”
“Yeah, they would, eventually. But this is a beef ranch, counselor. These calves need to go to market soon, and most of those cows have another calf brewing. They need to put their energy to making the new babies strong.”
Honor took off her hat and leaned back against his chest. “All those pretty babies are going to be hamburgers?”
“Not all of them. We keep a percentage for breeding, to keep the herd fresh. At auction, we’ll sell off some to smaller ranchers looking to expand their herd. But yeah, most of those babies are going to be meat.”
She sighed. “Will you disown me if I decide to become vegetarian?”
He laughed and kissed her cheek. “Nope, but you’re gonna get pretty durn skinny, trying to avoid meat at this family’s table.”
Her smile was more serious than he liked. Lifting her chin on his finger, he turned her head so he could see her eyes. “Hey. Our herd is happy. They have good lives spent grazing on this gorgeous land, and we send them to a humane market, to be sold off to decent stockers and ranchers. We do what we can to ease the stress of the hard things. And it’s good business, too.”
Honor took her head from his finger and gazed out over the ranch. What they could see, standing here at the juncture of two pastures, with the mournful sounds of weaning all around them, was a tiny fraction of what the Twisted C was.
“It really is beautiful here,” she finally said and leaned back on him again.
Logan pushed his hat back and bent down to bury his face in her hair, at her neck. “Yeah, it is. I love you.”
She purred softly. “I love you. Can we ride like this for a while?”
“Sure. Ranger won’t mind. And the hands can take the rest of the work.”
He straightened his hat, and Honor put hers back on, and they rode off toward the woods.
*****
This meeting is going long
Can I meet you at the restaurant?
Logan smiled and rubbed the towel over his freshly showered head. They were in Boise for the night so Honor could meet with the federal prosecutor in Natalie’s case. In law’s quest to take Evan Hall down, the case had gone from county jurisdiction right past the Staties and straight to the Feds. That damn trip to Oregon. One night, and a convenience-store security camera, could put Natalie Thomas in federal prison unless she put her family on the line and gave Hall up.
But she had Honor Babinot in her corner, so if there was a way to get her out of this, it would be found.
Right now, however, Logan was more interested in Natalie’s problem taking a break for the evening. He wanted a romantic dinner with his woman, at the fancy new restaurant she wanted to try. He texted her back.
Sure but how are you gonna get there
I can rideshare. I’ll be like 15-20 behind you.
It drove him nuts that she still used rideshare apps after what had happened with the limo driver. The guy had been quiet since he’d been on probation, probably because Honor had spent almost all that time in Jasper Ridge, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other crazies out there. In daylight, he could deal; she’d rideshared to get to her meeting and meant to get back here the same way. He didn’t like it, but he hadn’t raised a stink. Now, though, it was late in the afternoon, and it would definitely be dark when she was dressed for dinner and leaving here.
I hate rideshare
Why dont I just wait for you
They won’t hold the rez if we’re late.
Angelos would have held it for me
Yes, I know. The Cahill name is known far and wide.
But not at Tyro. You’re just any old dude there.
Who needs to hold our rez, please. I need to go.
I dont want you taking rideshare so late
Ill pick you up
We can miss the reservation
There are other restaurants
…
…
He could almost hear her protests from across town. He was being too protective, too bossy, too whatever. She didn’t like him telling her what to do. So he added a spoonful of sugar.
Please
…
Okay. McClure Building. I’ll meet you in the main lobby.
Thanks counselor
Don’t get cocky. Love you.
Love you right back
Satisfied that he’d won that skirmish without starting a war, Logan called Angelo’s and booked a table for an hour later than their Tyro reservation. Just in case. That gave Honor some time to wind down after her meeting before they dressed for dinner. He went back to her girly pink bathroom and hung up his towel, then into her bedroom to dress.
It had been just about four months since Judith Jones had blown a hole through Honor’s life, but she had not yet made any firm decisions about what she would do next. For those four months, they’d both been hovering in a comfortable limbo, figuring out what they had together but not making any forward steps. Logan was content to hover for awhile; he had Honor at the ranch, and every day, she seemed more deeply woven into that life. Her work energy was devoted to Natalie, and she said she didn’t have enough left to work out what happened next in her career. Not yet.
When she had to come into Boise, he came with her most of the time, and they made a little date out of it, having a nice meal, seeing a show, things like that. When she came in to see her Boise Bitches, he usually stayed at the ranch. He was working his way up to being able to tolerate them. They still made him a little jealous. And her friend Lizbet was … a lot.
He was imperfect, but he didn’t think he was a dick anymore. Not to Honor. And he meant to keep his distance from her friends until he was sure he wouldn’t be a dick to them, either.
Overnight trips like this one were his favorite. He’d handled a little business, arranging for the press release announcing the Cahill Fellowship winner. Honor had her meeting with the Feds. And then they’d have a nice, slow, delicious meal and come back to her apartment for some nice, slow, sweaty dessert.
It had been his intention to dress for dinner now, but since he was going to pick her up and bring her back, he pulled on his jeans and flannel shirt instead. They could dress together. After he made sure she was good and relaxed.
He set her alarm and used his keys to lock all her locks, hating that she felt she needed all this, and a secure elevator too, to be safe in her own home. Then he took the elevator all the way down to the garage, where his truck was parked in Honor’s spot.
He’d just keyed the fob to unlock the door—the chirp was still echoing softly against the concrete walls of the garage—when he was punched hard, three times, in the back. He tried to spin and put up his hands, to fight off whoever had come up behind him like that, but his arms and legs stopped working, and he fell, bouncing painfully off the fender of his own truck before he landed hard on the floor beside it.
The garage had gotten strangely grey and blurry, but he saw a dark figure like the Grim Reaper standing above him. The Reaper crouched close—oh, it was a bearded man in a hoodie; funny, he’d always pictured the Reaper like a skeleton in a cloak—and snarled, “You can’t take her from me.”
That didn’t make any sense. Who did the Reaper want? Honor? Well, fuck that. Honor was his. “She’s mine,” he said. His voice sounded weak and weird.
Then the Reaper lifted his hands together and punched down hard. Logan saw a wet, red glint on a blade just before it struck his chest.
He couldn’t breathe. It was like that time when he was a kid and he’d fallen into the spring rush of Cahill Creek and gotten swept under in the current. He’d nearly drowned, but his father had pulled him out, and his mother had given him mouth-to-mouth. He didn’t remember those parts, but he’d heard them ad nauseam as part of Cahill lore. What he remembered was fighting the current, trying to get and stay above the surface, and the full, bubbling gurgle of trying to get a breath with lungs full of water. And the panic when he couldn’t.
This felt like that.
As the Reaper walked away, Logan pawed at his jacket for his phone. His arm and hand didn’t want to work, and it was getting hard to see, but he kept trying, and finally he had his phone in his hand. He needed his dad to come and save him, and his mom, he needed Mama, but he couldn’t get the screen to unlock. Running out of time, he pressed ‘Emergency.’
But he was out of breath before anybody answered. Out of breath, out of time.
PART FIVE
Chapter Eighteen
This time, rather than peer out the glass wall of the lobby at the McClure Building, she opened the doors and went out onto the sidewalk, scanning the area for Logan’s enormous truck. She really needed to get a car of her own, but her auto insurance was squabbling with her business insurance, and they were both squabbling with her landlord’s insurance, all over who had to pay what. It was early October, four whole months since Judith Jones had left a bloody crater of death and ruin in Honor’s life, and she still hadn’t found her way back to the surface.
The Natalie Thomas case had kept her busy and intellectually challenged. What she and the Feds had just worked out this afternoon, though, would very likely end that work. It was good—it was huge, and would keep Natalie out of prison and her family safe—and Honor felt good about it. She felt pride for the first time in months. But once the ink was dry on the deal, she wouldn’t have anything else to do. It was just about time to give up and try to find an associate’s position at another firm—if the PR poison had faded from her image.
Or maybe she should just give up completely.
The temptation to simply give Logan what he wanted, to give up and fall back and let him catch her and hold her and take care of her, got stronger every day. He took good care of her, and it made him feel good to do it. Despite their troubles over this very issue and how painful it had been to find a balance between them, sometimes, she just wanted to give in. Learn to be a ranch wife.
Not that they’d ever talked about marriage. Not that she had ever in her life cared whether she ever married or not. Not until Logan.
He’d been, and still sometimes was, freaked out about how loving her was changing him, but she was changing, too. She’d been happy to be married to her work. She’d thought she’d known who she was and what she wanted and why she wanted it. But that had started to fall apart before Judith had killed Debbie. It had started to crumble even before Hon
or had given Silas Bellamy an ultimatum. The first tremblor had been the day she hadn’t gotten junior partner—and that meant her life had never been as stable as she’d thought.
And now she had nothing. Nothing but Logan, standing there, all hot and strong and persuasive, and yes, sometimes she looked at Emma and Gabe and thought, could I be happy in a life like theirs?
She didn’t didn’t know. But she doubted it. She’d need more.
Unable to see what ‘more’ meant, she’d decided not think think about it just yet. She’d have to soon, though. Her accounts were tapped out. Occasionally, the frightened girl in her head second-guessed the size of her donation to the memorial fund she’d helped set up in Debbie’s name, to make sure her son could go to college and to help him transition to his life with his grandparents out of state. That money could have kept her own plates spinning for a few more months. But Jed was an orphan because of her, so she shut that annoying little pipsqueak in her head up.
Meanwhile, there was Logan, at her side. Strong and hot and ready to take care of her. Wanting to. Needing to.
It hadn’t been so hard to give in this afternoon and let him pick her up. Honestly, she preferred him to be her car service. Of course, she’d much rather actually have her own car.
But where was he?
She checked her phone again—it hadn’t chimed a text, or a call, but she’d been waiting almost an hour since he’d offered to pick her up, and her mild irritation was becoming worry.
She sent him a text: Hey. Everything ok? Where are you?
Logan never used punctuation in his texts, but Honor was a lawyer and tried never to put anything in writing that wasn’t conventionally punctuated. Punctuation made meaning.
Someday (Sawtooth Mountains Stories Book 2) Page 22