corporate world. Walls were not his cup of tea. He liked open spaces, horses in the field and bulls moving around their pens.
Blake, his older and less charming brother, could have the corporate gig. If someone had to count the money, it might as well be Blake.
Jackson whistled for the dog. He came running from the field, brown splotches on his back where he’d been rolling in the grass. When the dog got close enough, Jackson groaned.
“Bud, you stink. Get out of here.”
Bud wagged his tail as if being stinky sounded like a compliment.
He shrugged down into his jacket and trudged down the driveway toward the barn. Horses whinnied and trotted along the fence line. Cattle started moving from across the field.
He flipped on lights in the barn and a few whinnies greeted him. He stopped in front of the stall of the little mare he’d bought last week. She stuck her velvety black nose over the door of the stall and he rubbed her face. She’d make some pretty foals. Her daddy had sired quite a few champion cutting horses. Her brother was a champion barrel horse. If people were concerned about pedigrees, hers topped the charts.
A minute later he walked on down the aisle to the feed room. As he unhooked the door he heard a truck easing down the driveway, the diesel engine humming, tires crunching on gravel. He stepped back to the center of the aisle and shook his head. Travis, late as usual.
As much as he loved his kid brother, Jackson missed Reese. They were closer in age and understood each other a little better. But Reese was deployed to Afghanistan and wouldn’t be home for a year.
It was going to be a long year. He’d be doing a lot of praying during that time. He and God would be on pretty good terms by the time Reese came home.
Travis whistled a country song as he walked through the wide doors of the stable. He was tall and lanky, his light brown hair curled like it hadn’t seen a brush in days. Nothing slowed Travis down. And nothing ever seemed to get him down.
“I didn’t expect to see you up and around today.” Travis pulled on leather work gloves.
“Is that why you waited until noon to feed?” Jackson blew out a breath, letting go of his irritation.
“Had a cow down and had to pull a calf. I knew everyone here had plenty of hay until I could get here. And I also know you well enough to know you can’t stand staying down.”
“Yeah, I feel better.”
“Good, but let’s not go crazy, right?” Crazy, as in give himself a chance to heal.
“Right.” Jackson scooped grain into a bucket and headed for the first stall. They were only five horses in the stable; the rest were in the pasture. There were two stallions, a gelding he was training for a guy in Oklahoma City, a mare that had been brought over for an introduction to his stallion, Dandy, and the little black mare.
“You left your front door open.” Travis stopped to pet the black mare. “You really think this mare is going to throw some nice foals? She’s small.”
“She’s fast.”
He didn’t remember leaving the door open and wondered if Jade had woken up. Fortunately Travis let it go. He grabbed a bale of hay and tossed it in a wheelbarrow without asking more questions. He pushed the wheelbarrow down the aisle, whistling again, and Jackson knew he wasn’t getting off the hook that easily. Travis didn’t let go of anything. But for now he seemed to be content with a nonanswer. He shoved two flakes of hay into the feeders on the stalls. When he got to the stallion, Dandy, he pulled off three flakes.
“Don’t overfeed him.” Jackson warned.
Travis grinned. “He’s a big guy doing a lot of work. He requires extra fuel.”
“Not every feeding.”
“I’m not five.” Travis pushed the wheelbarrow back to the hay stacked in the open area between stalls. He piled on two bales for the horses outside.
“I know you’re not.” But it was hard to turn off “big brother” mode. He’d been getting Travis out of scrapes for over twenty years.
“The charity bull ride for Samaritan House is next week. Do you think you’ll be able to go?” Travis was a bull fighter, the guy responsible for distracting bulls as the bull rider made a clean getaway. Or distracting bulls when the getaway wasn’t clean. Sometimes the bull fighter took a direct hit to keep the rider safe. That made him a hero. Travis had taken more than his share of hits.
Jackson slapped his little brother on the back. “I’m going to take a rain check.”
Travis grinned. “Really? What’s going on with you?”
The Russian accent was still noticeable, even after all his years in America, and being raised as a Cooper.
“Nothing, just not sure if I’ll be able to make it. If you need me, though…”
“No, we should be fine.”
They walked outside. The sun was bright and the sky a clear blue, not a cloud in sight. It hadn’t warmed up much and didn’t seem to be heading in that direction.
The corral held a few of their best bulls. Jackson walked up to the metal pipe enclosure and raised a foot to rest it on the lowest pipe of the six-foot-tall pen. He hadn’t ridden bulls professionally for several years. He trained them, sometimes hauled them and then sold them. The Cooper bull breeding program was his baby. Gage, the brother between Reese and Travis, was the bull rider these days.
Raising bucking bulls had become a big business, bigger than they’d ever thought it would be.
Travis pointed to a rangy, Holstein mix bull. “Bottle Rocket is scheduled for the championship round in Oklahoma City?”
“He is.” Not one of them had guessed that little bull calf they had bottle-fed would be a champion bucking bull. But there he was, pawing at the ground and looking for all the world like a top athlete and not the sickly calf they’d saved six years earlier.
A car rumbled up the drive. Jackson didn’t turn as quickly as he would have a week ago. Travis beat him to the punch. And that meant a lot of explaining for Jackson to do.
“Isn’t that Madeline Patton?” Travis crossed his arms over one of the poles of the fence but turned to watch as Madeline got out of the car and then the front door of the house opened.
What in the world was she doing here so early?
“Yeah, I guess it is.” Jackson turned his back to the woman and kid heading their way. He needed to think fast and distract Travis.
But of course this would be the day that Travis was focused and sharp. He pulled dark-framed glasses out of his pocket and shoved them onto his handsome face. Somehow Travis always looked studious in those glasses. And serious.
Jackson kept his own attention focused on Bottle Rocket.
“So, Madeline Patton and a kid that looks like you. Something you want to tell me?” Travis stared straight ahead, his voice low.
