Cook County: Lucky in Love Read Free

your man card and fried your brain—what little of it you had to begin with.”
    Chance only smiled as they continued walking around the pen toward the direction of the bunkhouse. The building, which housed the ranch hands who worked the property, had been empty for the past few years after Mark Calhoun had married a money-grubbing wench who’d taken him for nearly every last dollar. Left to his daughter, Kenzie, the ranch had suffered over the past two years since his death, but now Chance was taking control of operations, rebuilding the ranch to its former glory.
    One of the newly hired hands nodded at them as he stepped out of the bunkhouse and ran off to do whatever task he’d been assigned.
    “Didn’t you say you were buying some more cattle?” Lucky asked as they continued past the bunkhouse.
    “Yeah, at the auction this weekend. We have to get the size of the herd up, so I’m going to buy another bull and some cows. Once they breed, we should be in good shape. Come the next couple of years, we’ll be doing excellent.”
    “Kenzie already has a bull. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind servicing the ladies,” he commented. He knew Chance wanted to use the money he’d originally saved for a small ranch of his own to help bring the Calhoun ranch back to what it used to be, but good bulls were costly, and one really could do the job.
    “Old Henry is getting up in years. This might just be his last round at breeding. I figure it’s best to get a younger one now.” Chance stopped and spread his hands. “What do you see, Luck?”
    He looked around, seeing green. Lots of green. “Uh, I see grass.”
    “Is that all?”
    Lucky swiveled his head left to right, trying to pinpoint whatever it was his brother was trying to show him, but all he saw was a big stretch of land between the bunkhouse and the old cabin he knew was farther back on the property. “Pretty much. What am I supposed to be seeing?”
    Chance’s mouth curved up at the corner. “A stable and a big paddock.”
    “You’re moving Kenzie’s horses out of the old barn?”
    “Well, yeah, I guess I could so they have more room to maneuver, but this particular area will mostly be used for breeding cutting horses.”
    “Breeding…” Lucky narrowed his eyes at his brother. “What do you know about breeding horses, cattleman?”
    “Not much.” He continued looking forward. “Good thing I have a brother who does.”
    Lucky didn’t miss the glint in his eye. “This ranch has always been about cattle. Why add horses now?”
    Chance shrugged. “Why not? There’s plenty of land to allow breeding of both, and it makes good business sense.”
    “Kenzie knows of your idea?”
    “Yes. She’s fine with it.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “She’s pretty much just turned management of the ranch over to me.”
    Lucky turned away and started toward the direction of the old cabin. “The love shack still back here?”
    “Yeah, but it needs some work to be livable.”
    “I don’t recall it being used for a home.” He grinned. He’d worked the Calhoun ranch for a short stretch during his youth and had used the love shack himself. The cabin served as a nice little place to take a date for a little fun between the sheets. A red bandanna on the door warned other ranch hands it was in use. “I still can’t believe Kenzie never torched the place. She must have never known what went on in the cabin, or that you often used it.”
    “I told her there were snakes out this way. Big, nasty ones full of poison.”
    Lucky chuckled, recalling the young girl’s crush on his older brother. She’d been head over heels from the start, but with a ten year age difference, the little girl had been forced to suffer as Chance dated women of his own age. She won out in the end though, having grown into a beautiful woman and finally snagging her man.
    “Does she know about the love shack now?”
    “Hell no.”
    Lucky laughed out loud. “Whipped.”
    “If I’m