Green Calder Grass (Calder Saga 6)

e holding pen into a long narrow chute that led to the head gate. A cowboy on the ground swung the pen gate shut, trapping the cow in the chute. Outside the pen, a calf bawled a lusty protest over the temporary separation from its mother. The cow answered with an angry bellow of her own.

Ignoring both, Jessy reined her horse away from the scene, her work done for the time being. In past years, she would have been taking her turn on the ground, down there in the thick of the action. But there was too much risk of getting kicked by a range-wild cow. The decision wasn’t prompted by any fear of personal injury to herself, but rather by a concern for the safety of her unborn twins.

As she walked her horse to the main gate, Jessy was joined by the second rider who had worked the penned cattle with her. “That’s the last of this bunch,” Dick Ballard announced, more as a conversation opener than a passing-on of information.

The sandy-haired cowboy liked to talk to anyone about anything. Tall and strong he might be, but not silent. There was nothing braggy in his voice. It had a lazy, conversational pitch to it, and a distinctly cowboy cadence that was warm and friendly.

It was rather like his face, which was otherwise ordinary in its features. Over the years, his sand-colored hair had thinned until he was almost bald on top, but few people noticed that, and not because he wore a hat most of the time. It was because of his eyes, Ballard’s most compelling feature. They were kind eyes, the dark blue color of new denim, always with a sparkle of dry humor lurking somewhere in their depths.

Jessy caught a glimpse of it when she started to reply to his idle remark, but Ballard held up a hand, checking her words.

“Don’t say it. I already know. We’ve got three more bunches to go.”

The line of her mouth softened into a near smile. “This is a cow-calf operation,” she reminded him.

“That’s why I like my job.”

As the pair approached the pen’s gate, it was apparent to both that Jessy was in a better position to maneuver her horse around to open it. And it never occurred to Ballard to do the gentlemanly thing and alter the circumstances. Long before Jessy had married Ty Calder, she had worked as a cowhand. No deference had ever been shown to her, and none was expected. Drawing a man’s wage meant doing a man’s work, regardless of the gender.

Jessy unlatched the gate, swung it open and walked her horse through, then gave the gate a push for Ballard to catch. He caught it, gave it another push, and trotted his horse through.

“I worked one long winter at a feedlot,” Ballard remarked. “The wages were high, plus a full range of benefits. But when spring thaw hit, the mud was so deep in that lot it was halfway up to a horse’s belly. It was nothin’ to wear out three horses doing one morning’s work. It’s the kind of job that’s probably good for a guy with a wife and family, but I couldn’t call it cowboyin’.”

“Isn’t it about time you got married, Ballard?” Jessy let the dun-colored gelding come to a stop by the pen’s fence rails.

“Me? Get married?” He drew his head back in feigned surprise and flashed her a wry grin. “That’s not likely to happen.”

“Why not? I heard you’ve been seeing Debby Simpson.” Jessy had spent too many years of her life razzing cowboys about their love lives, or lack thereof, to quit now just because she was the boss’s wife.

“I’ve two-stepped around the dance floor with her a couple of Saturday nights,” Ballard acknowledged. “But marriage just isn’t likely to be in the cards for me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re going to turn into a confirmed bachelor like old Nate Moore was,” Jessy retorted in an absently teasing fashion as her glance strayed to the activity at the headgate.

Old Doc Rivers, the paunch-heavy veterinarian, had completed his examination of the cow. Stepping back, he motioned to one of the hands to release the animal from the stanchion-like gate then turned to wash the fecal matter from the OB glove that sleeved his hand and arm.

“I don’t know about the confirmed part.” Ballard, too, glanced at the vet. “But it’s true, I am a bachelor. Don’t misunderstand, though. I don’t have anything against marriage myself.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“My horse does,” he replied with a straight face, and only the smallest hint of a laughing gleam in his eyes.

Jessy just gave him a look and shook her head. Although Ballard wasn’t among the descendants of families long associated with the Triple C, she had known him for years, certainly enough time to be comfortable with him, and with his attempts at humor.

Years ago, they had gone out together a few times. But Jessy had never regarded it as dating, although others had. In her mind, Ballard had simply stopped by her cabin a few times to shoot the breeze and have some coffee. On a couple of other occasions, he had given her a ride into Sally’s on a Saturday night. There definitely had never been anything remotely romantic about their relationship.

As the last cow was prodded into the headgate, Ballard observed, “Looks like I’ll have time for a smoke.” He reached inside the breast pocket of his yoked-front shirt, pulled out a thin packet, and extracted an even thinner square of paper from it. After returning the folder to its pocket, he reached in the other and came out with a flat tin of loose tobacco.

Jessy’s eyes rounded in amazement as he proceeded to tap a line of tobacco into the crease of the paper square. “When did you start rolling your own cigarettes?”

“About a month ago.” None too deftly, Ballard slipped the tobacco can back in his pocket and began rolling the paper around the tobacco, losing a good bit of it.

“I knew you were tight with a dollar,” Jessy declared. “But I never realized you were so cheap that you wouldn’t buy ready-mades.”

“It’s isn’t the money.” He licked the edge of the paper in an attempt to seal the roll, then began digging in his pocket for a lighter. “I’m trying to quit.”

“So you’re rolling your own?” Jessy wasn’t impressed with his logic.

“Well, you’ve gotta admit—a fella has to want a cigarette really bad before he’ll go through all this rigmarole.” With a snap of his thumb, the lighter flared to life. Ballard held the flame to the tip of the cigarette. The paper end blazed briefly.