We hustled along the fence line toward the far corner of the pasture, Boone picking his way while Gunner, Jake, and Miguel cut across on foot. The cow lifted her head as we approached, ears flicking, but she didn’t spook. She shifted her weight again, favoring that left hind.
Gunner crouched first, eyes on her legs. “No swelling,” he said. “No heat.”
Miguel nodded. “Could be sore from the birthing. New momma.”
The calf bumped her udder, latched, and started feeding, tail twitching. The cow stood for it, tense but steady.
“Could be muscle strain,” Miguel said. “Hard delivery. Or she slipped in the night.”
“Retained placenta?” Jake asked.
Gunner shook his head. “Passed clean from what I saw. Appetite’s good too.”
Miguel watched the cow a second longer. “Could also be nerve pressure,” he said. “Calving can pinch it. Usually comes right on its own.”
Gunner and I exchanged a nod, and Jake grinned—Miguel had good instincts. “What do we do now then?” I asked him.
“We watch her. Twice today. If she’s worse by evening, we separate her and move her closer to the barn.”
“Yep, good call.”
Gunner went over to the ATV, and now was my chance to make sure Miguel was okay. “Lucas was out of order the other morning,” I said to reassure him.
Miguel went scarlet again, touching his hairon reflex. “I kinda liked it.”
Oh. Well, that wasn’t what I expected.
“My boyfriend doesn’t compliment me much. So yeah…”
I cleared my throat—this was where I said something about his hair, right? Although the sound of a car drawing close had all of us looking up at the same time. Tires on frozen ground, an engine pushed harder than it needed to be.
“Fuck,” Jake muttered under his breath.
“What the hell?” Gunner added.
Miguel’s posture shifted instantly. Shoulders tight, his focus snapped from the cow to the gate. The easy certainty and soft blush he’d had a moment ago drained away.
My gut dropped.
What the fuck was my dad doing out here? He shouldn’t be driving, but yet again, he’d found the keys Olivia swore she’d hidden. Fuck. Maybe secreting the keys away wasn’t enough—maybe I set fire to the rattling old truck, so he had nothing to drive.
His wheels crunched over the frozen ruts and stopped too close to the gate. He didn’t get out right away. Just sat there with the engine running, staring at us.
The instinct to brace hit me along with the panic in my chest.
He climbed out slowly, the hitch in his step more pronounced this morning, jaw already set. His eyes went straight to the calves, then to me. Shit—he was supposed to be with Olivia this morning? I pulled out my cell, and yep, front and center, a message from her to say he’d walked out again that had been delivered when I was at breakfast. I hadn’t even checked my phone, and I blamed that squarely on Lucas, with him getting all up in my space.
Dad shouldn’t be here. I needed to fix this because the others had all stiffened and gone quiet. I stalked over to him.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, tired, trying to guide him back to his truck and assessing what level of crazy he had going on this morning.
“Doing my fucking job, boy,” he snarled. Great.Thatkind of crazy. The one where he’d gone back to when he’d been in charge, and I was the wayward son who needed a strong hand on him. I even tensed, waiting for the punch. “They all checked?” he asked as if it was his right to know when he was no longer the foreman. No, that was me, and fuck, I wasn’t only the foreman; I owned a stake in this place.
I wiped my hands on my jeans—the specialist said I should live in his world, and that this would calm him down, but I hated that I even had to answer. “Yes.”
He pointed at Miguel and laughed. Not loud. Worse than that. Hateful. Nasty.
“Shit, you’re letting the girly run this?” he sneered, staring at Miguel, who took a step away before he realized what he was doing and stopped.
