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Chapter 1
Meadow Dawson just stared at the slim, older cowboy who was standing on her front porch with his hat held against his chest. His name was Ted. He was her father’s ranch foreman. And he was speaking Greek, she decided, or perhaps some form of archaic language that she couldn’t understand.
“The culls,” he persisted. “Mr. Jake wanted us to go ahead and ship them out to that rancher we bought the replacement heifers from.”
She blinked. She knew three stances that she could use to shoot a .40 caliber Glock from. She was experienced in interrogation techniques. She’d once participated in a drug raid with other agents from the St. Louis, Missouri, office where she’d been stationed during her brief tenure with the FBI as a special agent.
Sadly, none of those experiences had taught her what a cull was, or what to do with it. She pushed back her long, golden blond hair, and her pale green eyes narrowed on his elderly face.
She blinked. “Are culls some form of wildlife?” she asked blankly.
The cowboy doubled up laughing.
She grimaced. Her father and mother had divorced when she was six. She’d gone to live with her mother in Greenwood, Mississippi, while her father stayed here on this enormous Colorado ranch, just outside Glenwood Springs. Later, she’d spent some holidays with her dad, but only after she was in her senior year of high school and she could out-argue her bitter mother, who hated her ex-husband. What she remembered about cattle was that they were loud and dusty. She really hadn’t paid much attention to the cattle on the ranch or her father’s infrequent references to ranching problems. She hadn’t been there often enough to learn the ropes.
“I worked for the FBI,” she said with faint belligerence. “I don’t know anything about cattle.”
He straightened up. “Sorry, ma’am,” he said, still fighting laughter. “Culls are cows that didn’t drop calves this spring. Nonproductive cattle are removed from the herd, or culled. We sell them either as beef or surrogate mothers for purebred cattle.”
She nodded and tried to look intelligent. “I see.” She hesitated. “So we’re punishing poor female cattle for not being able to have calves repeatedly over a period of years.”
The cowboy’s face hardened. “Ma’am, can I give you some friendly advice about ranch management?”
She shrugged. “Okay.”
“I think you’d be doing yourself a favor if you sold this ranch,” he said bluntly. “It’s hard to make a living at ranching, even if you’ve done it for years. It would be a sin and a shame to let all your father’s hard work go to pot. Begging your pardon, ma’am,” he added respectfully. “Dal Blake was friends with your father, and he owns the biggest ranch around Raven Springs. Might be worthwhile to talk to him.”
Meadow managed a smile through homicidal rage. “Dariell Blake and I don’t speak,” she informed him.
“Ma’am?” The cowboy sounded surprised.
“He told my father that I’d turned into a manly woman who probably didn’t even have . . .” She bit down hard on the word she couldn’t bring herself to voice. “Anyway,” she added tersely, “he can keep his outdated opinions to himself.”
The cowboy grimaced. “Sorry.”
“Not your fault,” she said, and managed a smile. “Thanks for the advice, though. I think I’ll go online and watch a few YouTube videos on cattle management. I might call one of those men, or women, for advice.”
The cowboy opened his mouth to speak, thought about how scarce jobs were, and closed it again. “Whatever you say, ma’am.” He put his hat back on. “I’ll just get back to work. It’s, uh, okay to ship out the culls?”
“Of course it’s all right,” she said, frowning. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
“You said it oppressed the cows . . .”
She rolled her eyes. “I was kidding!”
“Oh.” Ted brightened a little. He tilted his hat respectfully and went away.
Meadow went back into the house and felt empty. She and her father had been close. He loved his ranch and his daughter. Getting to know her as an adult had been great fun for both of them. Her mother had kept the tension going as long as she lived. She never would believe that Meadow could love her and her ex-husband equally. But Meadow did. They were both wonderful people. They just couldn’t live together without arguing.
She ran her fingers over the back of the cane-bottomed rocking chair where her father always sat, near the big stone fireplace. It was November, and Colorado was cold. Heavy snow was already falling. Meadow remembered Colorado winters from her childhood, before her parents divorced. It was going to be difficult to manage payroll, much less all the little added extras she’d need, like food and electricity . . .
She shook herself mentally. She’d manage, somehow. And she’d do it without Dariell Blake’s help. She could only imagine the smug, self-righteous expression that would come into those chiseled features if she asked him to teach her cattle ranching. She’d rather starve. Well, not really.
She considered her options, and there weren’t many. Her father owned this ranch outright. He owed for farm equipment, like combines to harvest grain crops and tractors to help with planting. He owed for feed and branding supplies and things like that. But the land was hers now, free and clear. There was a lot of land. It was worth millions.
She could have sold it and started over. But he’d made her promise not to. He’d known her very well by then. She never made a promise she didn’t keep. Her own sense of ethics locked her into a position she hated. She didn’t know anything about ranching!
Her father mentioned Dariell, whom everyone locally called Dal, all the time. Fine young man, he commented. Full of pepper, good disposition, loves animals.
