Page 72 of Roping Her In

“That said, I’ve been thinking more and more that…maybe it is time we have another baby.”

A shock moved through JJ that nearly stopped his heart. He really couldn’t find out his cousin was living in a blow-up tent attached to the back of a pick-up truck and that his wife thought it was time to have another baby all in the same day.

“Are you serious right now?”

“Would I joke with you about this?” She smiled and touched her lips to his. “I know you’ve wanted a baby for a long time, and I appreciate you giving me time until I felt the same way.”

“And do you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I feel like we don’t need to wait to have another baby.”

“I love you, Scarlet,” he whispered.

“I love you too, Jay,” she said.

As he made love to his wife, JJ let every good, happy, joyful feeling be present inside him, and he prayed that God would be merciful and kind in giving them the baby they now both wanted.

28

Jake ignored his phone as it rang in his back pocket. Bennett and Val had just signaled that they had released more cows into the chute, and Jake needed all of his faculties. He’d check them as they went by, examine their ears, check their eyes, look at their teeth and gums, and send them down the chute for their spring vaccinations.

He had Hailey doing that on his side, and Hartford on the other. He’d put Leia with him at the beginning of the chutes, as she didn’t have to stand in the pen with cattle or bend over nearly as much as those giving vaccinations. She wasn’t due for another four months, but a woman of her height and size really had nowhere for a baby to go but out.

“Here they come,” she said from right behind him, as they worked back-to-back in the same small space between fence lines. His partner on the other side would hold the cow in place while the bovine got checked, and he’d given Leia a good cowboy named Asher, while he worked with Clay.

Beau worked in the chute with Leia, checking the cow’s hooves and hindquarters on the same side as Asher. Jake had Patrick checking hooves on his side, and the six of them could check two cows in under a minute and send them down the chutes for their shots.

Hailey and Hartford had two people working with them as well, preparing the vaccinations and taking the used syringes once they’d been administered. The whole thing came down to a system and science, and Jake had learned it from Squire. They could move through their herd in less than a week this way, and tomorrow would be the last day of vaccinations.

“Make sure you check all four feet,” Jake said to Patrick. “You’re looking for overgrown, curled, or cracked claws, swelling, discoloration, odors, foreign objects, or anything else that looks abnormal.”

“Yep, you got it,” Patrick said.

The interns had switched the techs they worked with, and while Hartford wasn’t living with Jake anymore, he still heard plenty about how much better Hailey was “so much better than Patrick.”

In the past month, Jake had been buying Leia gift cards to coffee shops and certificates for free cinnamon rolls since she’d had to take on Patrick. The interns only had one month left at Three Rivers, and Jake relived the conversation he and Hailey had had after the triple-date.

He couldn’t believe she wouldn’t take a position at Three Rivers if he offered it to her in a month. She’d told him multiple times that she needed a job, and that she wanted him to write her letter of recommendation. When he’d asked her what else she would do and what other jobs she might take, she hadn’t known.

Jake frowned, but the first cow arrived in the chute, and he focused on his job.

“Clear,” Leia called.

Jake repeated the word only a moment later. Beau cleared the hindquarters of his cow and sent it down the chute. Another jostled to take its place, and Patrick still stood there.

“Pat, what are we looking at?” Jake squeezed past Leia and looked at the hoof that Patrick had brought up. “Yeah, that needs to be cleaned, so you call clean and you send it to the right.”

“Clean!” Patrick yelled, and Clay moved the rail so the cow could go right. Clay pulled the section of fence back into place, exchanged a glance with Jake, and got set for their next exam.

On and on it went, with the spring sunshine beating down on them. Jake had to help Patrick several more times before they cleared the cattle for the day. They now had two corrals with cattle who’d been pulled, and Jake had to determine what to do with them.

He sent Hartford and Hailey over to one group, and he took Leia and Patrick with him to the second. He dictated his notes for each cow, citing their ear tag and the care they needed, and he worked through hoof trimming, an antibiotic eye drop administration, and other minor ailments before he released the cattle to their regular immunizations.

By the time he made it to his cabin that evening, the sun had started to set, and Hailey had left hours ago for her job at Feline Friends. In fact, they’d be closed, and she should be home by now. Jake wanted to ask her how her day in the chute had been, but he had a half-dozen other text messages and voicemails to deal with first.

The call he hadn’t taken earlier had come from Conrad Walker, and Jake tapped his voicemail icon to listen to the message.

“Hey, Jake, it’s Conrad,” the man said, his voice bright and bubbly. “Hey, I’m hearing really good things about Hailey out there at Three Rivers, and I’m wondering what you think about me asking her to be my farm manager.”