In a Cowboy's Arms (Hitting Rocks Cowboys) Read Free Page A

She has a broken foot from being stepped on.” There was no need to phone Liz Henson, White Lodge’s new vet. Jarod’s sister, Avery, could splint it. “Would you help me put her in the back?”
    “Sure.” Together they lifted the calf, careful not to do any more damage, but the mother bellowed in protest.
    “I know how you feel,” Jarod said over his shoulder. “Your baby will be back soon.”
    Ben chuckled. “You think she understands you?”
    “I guess we’ll find out the answer to that imponderable in the great hereafter.” Jarod closed the tailgate and then shoved his cowboy hat to the back of his head, shifting his gaze to the new foreman of the Hitting Rocks Ranch. The affable manager showed a real liking for his sister, but so far that interest hadn’t been reciprocated. Ben needed to meet someone else. “You were going to tell me something?”
    “Avery sent me to find you. I guess your phone’s turned off.”
    “The battery needs recharging. What’s up?”
    “She wanted you to know Daniel Corkin died at White Lodge Hospital early this morning of acute liver failure.”
    What?
    Jarod staggered in place.
    Sadie’s monster father had really given up the ghost?
    “The Hensons were with him. They got word to Liz and she phoned Avery.”
    The news he hadn’t expected to come for another decade or more sent a great rushing wind through his ears, carrying painful whispers from the past that he’d tried to block out all these years. They came at him from every direction, dredging up bittersweet memories so clear they could have happened yesterday.
    But Jarod managed to control his emotions in front of Ben. “Appreciate you telling me.” After a pause he said, “If Avery can’t tend to the calf, I’ll call Liz. You go on. I’ll follow on my horse Blackberry.”
    Ben nodded and took off.
    Long after the truck disappeared, Jarod stood in the pasture to gentle the calf’s mother, adrenaline gushing through his veins. Sadie would show up long enough to bury her father. Then what?
    He threw his head back, taking in the cotton-ball clouds drifting across an early May sky. With Sadie’s mother buried in California, it no doubt meant the end of Farfields. Sadie hadn’t stepped on Montana soil in eight years. The note he’d received in the hospital after his truck accident when she’d left the ranch had been simple enough.

    Jarod,
    You begged me to consider carefully the decision to marry you. I have thought about it and realize it just won’t work. I’m going to live with my mother in California, but I want you to know I’ll always treasure our time together.
    Sadie.

    For eight years Jarod had done his damnedest to avoid any news of her and for the most part had succeeded. Until now...
    By the time he rode into the barn, twilight was turning into night. He levered himself off Blackberry and led him into the stall.
    “You’re kind of late, aren’t you?”
    Jarod couldn’t remember when there wasn’t a baiting tone in Ned’s voice. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the youngest of his four cousins walking toward him. Ned’s three siblings were good friends with Jarod.
    He scrutinized Ned, who was a year younger than him. Even that slight age difference upset Ned, but the rancor he felt for Jarod ran much deeper for other reasons. They were both Bannocks and lived in separate houses on the Hitting Rocks Ranch, but the fact that Jarod’s mother had been a full Crow Indian was an embarrassment to the bigoted Ned. He liked to pretend Jarod wasn’t part of the Bannock family and took great pleasure in treating him like a second-class citizen.
    Ned was also still single and had always had a thing for Sadie Corkin, feelings that were never reciprocated. “It took me longer than usual to check out the new calves. How about you? Were you able to get the old bale truck fixed today or do we need to buy a new one?”
    “If it comes to that, I’ll talk it over with my dad.”
    Grant Bannock,