Page 58 of The Way to a Cowboy's Heart

“I’d better go and check the cattle,” he said at last. “Check there aren’t any babies in trouble out there in this storm. Sometimes the thunder spooks the new mothers.”

“Can I come?”

“You want to go out there in this?”

“Why not? It’s only rain. I’m a Londoner, remember?”

“London doesn’t have Montana mud.”

“I’m no shrinking violet, in case you hadn’t noticed. I can look for calves in the rain, as well as you.”

“Then come on. I can always use a second pair of eyes.”

Indeed, the mud was no joke, and Liam packed some supplies in the Gator, and headed up the fence line, looking for calves. Beside him, Emily kept a sharp lookout, but they found no calves in their sweep of the pasture. They did, however, near the river, find a cow that had just calved, but there was no calf in sight. She was bawling piteously.

“That’s not good,” he said under his breath.

“Do you think the calf was stillborn?”

“Possible. Wouldn’t be the first.” He stared out at the landscape, at the river running past their property line. He’d seen cows give birth in awful places before and also calves get into trouble trying to get to their feet the first time. But seeing the river so close gave him a bad feeling. The mama cowmooedloudly.

“I’m going to go walk down along the bank. You stay here. I don’t want you anywhere near that water.”

“I’m not afraid of a little—”

“You can drive the cart. That’ll help most.” He walked away, leaving her in the shelter of the Gator as the rain intensified. Slowly, she followed him as he inspected the river’s edge. The mama cow followed at a distance, bellowing for her calf. Liam walked a good five hundred feet before he threw his arm up in the air.

“Found it!”

She pulled up next to him and jumped out. “Is it alive?”

He slid down the steep embankment of the river, muddy from the rain. “Well, it’s not dead. Yet.”

The poor newborn calf had somehow ended down the riverbank, half in the freezing water. A bad look, indeed. Liam scooped the baby up in his arms and attempted to climb the bank. But the mud made it too slippery. He tried two more times before he gave up.

“See that rope in the back of the Gator?” he called over the sound of the rain. “Tie one end to the Gator and throw the other end down to me!”

She did ask he asked—rather proud of herself for managing a good knot—and after a few moments wrestling the rope around himself, he picked the half-frozen calf back up and instructed her to back the Gator up.

Slowly, she did and, finally, he climbed over the riverbank safely. They wrapped the calf up in a tarp stowed in the back of the cart and Liam held it as they headed back to the ranch. The mama cow trotted along behind, bawling the whole way. As for Liam, he was covered in mud from head to toe. She was soaked through and sure she didn’t look much better.

“Best we get them into the barn and warm this one up or it won’t make it in this rain. You okay?”

“Is it a boy or a girl?” she asked.

“Heifer. Girl.”

The calf’s black nose stuck out of the tarp and twitched a little. “Poor little thing.” They pulled into the yard with the cow following them at a good clip. He blocked her from leaving the pasture until he could settle the calf, which they did finally in the warm straw of a stall in the small barn. Liam rubbed her down with a blanket and left her wrapped there as he went for the mama cow.

It wasn’t until Emily stepped to the doorway of the barn again that she spotted the black town car parked up by the house. Assuming it was one of Liam’s brother Will’s town cars, she gave it little thought, starting toward the cattle gate to help Liam. That was until she saw the door open, and her father and brother stepped out into the rain.

“To have a basic ingredient that can be prepared a million different ways is a beautiful thing.”

–Alice Waters–

Chapter Eleven

Standing beneath apair of umbrellas, Lord Quinn and her brother, Malcolm, stood sizing up Emily and Liam, who were covered with mud and soaking wet.

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