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“Do I need to give you a minute?”
She laughed, then put her foot in the stirrup. “No. I’m good now.” She threw her leg over Shadow and settled in the saddle. “So what is it that Sawyer does in Missoula?”
“Boxing.”
“Oh. How long has he been doing that?”
“Since right after high school.”
“Hmm. Interesting.”
He cocked his head at her. “Can we stop talking about my brother now?”
“Yes. Of course.”
J.T. got into the saddle behind Finn, then shook his head at Joey. “You’re still thinking about him, aren’t you?”
“It’s a lot to digest. It’s like looking at one of those marble statues. Everything is just so…wow.”
J.T. put a hand on Finn, then backed Pablo from the rail. He clicked his tongue, and the horse started walking.
Finn giggled. “I’m riding a horse.”
“Yeah. You sure are.”
Joey and Shadow came up beside them and she glanced at J.T. “You know, you’re…morenow, too. And there’s a bit of a wow factor going on.”
“I guess we’ve both grown up.”
She sighed. “Yeah. I guess we have.”
They headed across a field of knee-high grass. “I thought we’d go to Round Hill. The herd’s on the other side of it. Finn might like to see the cows.”
“Sure. What do you think, buddy? Do you want to see J.T.’s cows?”
“Yeah. Do we get to round them up?”
J.T. laughed. “No. Not this time. We’ll be looking down on them from the top of the hill. And they’re not my cows. They’re the family’s cows. Which makes them your cows, too.”
They continued on in silence for a while, before Joey said, “I forgot how beautiful your property was.”
“You’ve got yourself some pretty nice property now, too. You’ll have to take a ride and explore a little one of these days.”
“I’d have to borrow a horse. And company would be nice.”
He smiled at her. “I suppose that could be arranged.” Finn had been quiet and J.T. patted his leg. “What do you think about all this, Finn?”
“I love it.”
“Good. You’re part of a ranching family now. Loving horses is pretty much required.”
At their slow pace, it took them an hour to reach Round Hill. When they got to it, they took the trail zigzagging up the side of it.
Finn thought it was an adventure, and he laughed the whole time while gripping the saddle horn tightly. J.T. whispered in his ear. “You’re quite the cowboy, son.”
He nodded. “I know.”
Round Hill was aptly named. It was an almost perfectly round, grass-covered mound rising forty feet above the meadow it sat in. The top of it was mostly flat and was about a quarter-mile in diameter. There was a stand of five twisty oaks growing nearly in the middle of it, and J.T. rode to it, then dismounted and tied Pablo to a tree branch. He lifted Finn to the ground as Joey rode up next to them and got down from Shadow. J.T. took her reins and tied the horse near Pablo.
