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The loud bawling from the cattle showed their terror. In an instant, the mother charged the bear, stopping it from getting her calf. Standing between the bear and her child, she stomped her hooves and gnashed at the bear with her teeth.
“She’s taking out that bear on her own!” Cole shouted.
Porter had never seen anything like it. He jumped atop his squealing Appaloosa to get closer. He listened to Funches’s steed gallop behind him as they neared. He tried to get in a good shot. Cole had his gun, but he was having the same problem. It was impossible to take down the bear without getting the mother, too. They’d become a blur of teeth and stomping hooves.
Behind the fight, another mother cow gave a battle cry and charged. Joining forces, the two animals actually stood a chance against the predator.
Porter shot his gun in the air. The bear wriggled away from the two angry mothers. The snarling killer had enough and he ran in the direction of the forest. Funches turned his horse around and chased the bear until they were out of sight.
Cole went to the mothers. The brown one who’d been first to take on the bear was bleeding, though miraculously, she only wanted to get to her baby.
“Wow,” Cole said. His hand slid down the cow’s leg to assess the damage. “The power of a mother’s love, huh?”
Porter was speechless. He’d never forget the sight until the day that he died. He definitely believed mothers were hardcore like this. His own mother had done the same for them and more. It was why he’d never leave her side until he knew that she was out of the woods with that heart surgery. He breathed out a wretched breath. “Anything broken?”
“No,” Cole answered. “We’ve got some scratches. Still, it could’ve been much worse. I’ll take her and her baby to the barn to check her out.”
Porter nodded. “I’ll call Hudson.” Their oldest brother was better than any vet at patching up animals, and it saved on the bills. He hadn’t been lying to Funches. Things were tight in the Slade household since their mother’s sickness.
And no, they’d never admit that to West. He’d try to throw his money at the problem, which would be nice, but there were always strings attached.
Nash would discover that soon.
Cole gathered his reins and began the laborious process of herding the cattle back to the barn. Porter dialed Hudson, and when he didn’t answer, left a message to meet them. Before he pushed his phone back into his pocket, he noticed that he had two missed calls, one from West, and the other from Emily Mackenzie.
He jerked in sudden guilt. He’d promised to water her plants while she was away in Nashville. She was trying her hand at the country music scene. He wasn’t sure why he agreed. Maybe he was turning into too much of a softy, but it was the least he could do after all the awful things that his brother West had done to her family.
But the last time that he’d checked on her plants was a week ago. He winced.
Who to call back first?
He stared at West’s number. He’d want an update on their mother. His brother flew down here constantly on his private jet to be with their mother—that was one of the many reasons why he’d taken Nash with him to take on his workload, that and enlisting him to distract Devlin Trout’s daughter away from him. Anyone would be tempted to go after the young and beautiful heiress because of her money. She was crazy about him, but West was more fearful of losing his job.
Porter sighed.
West wasn’tallbad. Out of all the brothers, Porter was all about giving West a second chance… and a third… a fourth… a fifth… a sixth… a seventh. Wasn’t there some scripture about forgiving seventy times seven? Well, it felt quite literal in this case.
West had destroyed his own family through his greed. He lost his wife, Liv, in a messy divorce, and if he hadn’t cleaned up his life from the drugs, he’d have lost his two young sons, too. The problem was that West might’ve kicked his drug habit, but he still kept all his underhanded and sleazy ways of making money. And still… Porter—more than any of his brothers—wanted West to know that he was welcome home anytime.
That was before he’d talked Nash into coming with him. His twin had never gotten along with West. They were like cats and dogs the way that they fought.
And yet, despite all that, it seemed that the draw of money had been too much for Nash… and getting away from the ranching life. Porter stared over the rolling golden and emerald hills of wilderness and free range as Cole disappeared into the distance with the cows. He couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to leave.
But maybe Nash had a better reason to go than Porter understood.
His eyes flitted between the two missed calls and he dialed his twin instead. His call immediately went to voicemail. Typical. Porter took a deep breath and hung up before he left a message.
“Porter! Quit staring at your phone.” Funches came up behind him, leaning against his pommel with dancing eyes. His saddle squeaked at the movement—Funches liked to say that the sound was like his old bones. “You got a girl you’re hiding from the rest of us?”
He wished. Maybe that was his problem. He snickered at himself. “No, I was just calling, uh… Nash.”
Funches shoved his shotgun into the holster strapped to his saddle. “Why don’t you go and find your brother, Romeo?”
Porter let out a disgusted groan. Funches had called it. Hewasacting like a moonsick calf. What was his problem anyway? He’d known the day would come that he’d part ways with his twin, but he missed the guy. Darn it. And he never wanted anyone to know it—least of all Nash, who’d left with a big stupid grin like he didn’t care about leaving any of them. Once again resentment tightened his shoulders.
Porter shook his head at Funches’s suggestion to go after his brother. “Not happening.”
He always lost his head when his twin was around, and it appeared he also lost it when he wasn’t around. He needed a life… which was hard to do with the amount of work around here. He was working from sun up to sun down now that he didn’t have most of his brothers to depend on.
