LITMIR.BIZ

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quickly changed the subject.

      “So,” she asked, glancing back at the two dogs trotting behind them, “why are Angel and Spike here instead of out with the herd?”

      There was a pause before he answered, as if he were grateful for the reprieve.

      “We’re training two new dogs to help out,” he said. “Phil thought it best to give these two a couple days off while the new pups are put through their paces.”

      She’d been a rancher’s wife long enough to know the value of herd dogs. When the dogs worked the cattle, they could get into tight places a cowboy and his horse couldn’t. The right dog could get a herd moving and keep it moving while never scaring the cattle into a stampede, which could cause injury both to cowboys and to herd. These dogs were well trained and were spoiled rotten by the cowboys, as she remembered. She’d teased Justice once that apparently sheepherders had been right about using dogs in their work and that finally ranchers had caught on.

      She smiled, remembering how Justice had reacted—chasing her through the house and up the stairs, laughing, until he’d caught up to her in their bedroom. Then he’d spent the next several hours convincing her to take it back. No cattleman alive had ever taken advice from a sheepherder, he’d told her, least of all him.

      Spike and Angel darted past Justice and Maggie, heading through the open doors of a barn that was two stories tall and built to match the main house’s log construction. The shadows were deep, and the only sound coming from the barn was that deep, insistent lowing Maggie had heard earlier.

      “Hey, you two, come away from there!” A sudden shout came from inside the barn, and almost instantly both dogs scuttled back outside and took off in a fast lope across the dirt. If they’d been children, Maggie was sure they would have been laughing.

      “What’s that about?” she asked, watching the dogs race each other to the water tank kept as a sort of swimming pool for herd dogs.

      “Mike’s got a cow and her calf in there. Probably didn’t want the dogs getting too close,” Justice told her, walking through the barn to the last stall on the right. There he leaned one arm on the top of the wood partition, clearly to take some weight off his leg, and watched as an older man expertly ran his hands up and down a nearly three-month-old calf’s foreleg.

      “How’s he doing?”

      “Better,” Mike said, without looking up. “Swelling’s down, so he and his mama can go back out to pasture tomorrow.” Then he did lift his gaze and smiled when he spotted Maggie. “Well, now, you’re a sight for sore eyes. Good to see you back home, Maggie.”

      “Thanks, Mike.” She’d gotten more of a welcome from the cowboys and hired hands than she had from her own husband, she thought wryly. “So what happened to this little guy?”

      Maggie wandered into the stall, keeping one wary eye on the calf’s mother, then sank to one knee beside the smaller animal. He was, like most of Justice’s herd, Black Angus. His black hide was the color of the shadows filling the barn, and his big brown eyes watched her with interest.

      “Not sure, really,” Mike said. “One of the boys saw the little guy limping out on the range, so he brought them in. But whatever was wrong, looks like it’s all right now.”

      The calf wasn’t small anymore. He was about six months old and wearing the King Ranch brand on his flank. He was well on his way to being the size of his father, which would put him, full grown, at about eleven hundred pounds. But the way he cuddled up to his mother, looking for food and comfort, made him seem like little more than an overlarge puppy.

      The mingled aromas of hay and leather and cow mingled together in the vast barn and somehow made a soothing sort of scent. Maggie never would have believed she was capable of thinking that, since before meeting and marrying Justice, she had been a devout city girl. She’d once thought that there was nothing lovelier than a crowded shopping mall with a good-size latte stand. She had never liked the outdoors as a kid and had considered staying in a motel as close to camping as she ever wanted to get.

      And yet being on the King Ranch had been so easy. Was it just because she’d loved Justice so much? Or was it because her heart had finally figured out where she belonged?

      But then, she asked herself sadly, what did it matter now?

      “See you later, Mike,” she said, then tugged at Justice’s arm. “Let’s get you moving again. Gotta get your exercise in whether you want to or not.”

      “I never noticed that slave-driver mentality of yours before,” Justice muttered as they left the barn and wandered around the side of the main house.

      “You just didn’t pay attention,” she told him. “It was always there.”

      He was moving less easily, she noticed, and instinctively she slowed her pace. He fell into her rhythm and his steps evened out again. She knew how much he hated this. Knew that he detested having to depend on others to do things for him. And she knew he was in pain, though heaven knew he’d be roasted over live coals and still not admit to that. So she started talking, filling the silence so he would have to concentrate on something other than how hard it was to walk.

      “Phil said you planted new grasses?” That was a brilliant stroke, Maggie thought. Get the man talking about the ranch and the prairie grass pastures and he’d get so involved, he wouldn’t notice anything else. Not even pain.

      “On the high pasture,” he told her, easing around the corner of the log house to walk toward a rose garden that had originally been planted by his mother. “With the herd rotation, we’ll keep the cattle off that grass until winter, and if it holds and we get some rain this fall, we’ll have plenty of rich feed for the herd.”

      “Sounds good,” she murmured, knowing her input wasn’t needed.

      “It was a risk, taking the cattle off that section early in the rotation, but we wanted to try out the new grasses and it had to have time to settle in and grow before winter, so…” He shrugged, looked down at her and unexpectedly smiled. “You’re taking my mind off my leg, aren’t you?”

      “Well,” she said, enjoying the full measure of a Justice King smile for as long as she could, “yeah. I am. Is it working?”

      “It is,” he said with a nod. “But I’m going to stop talking about it before you fall asleep while walking.”

      “It was interesting,” she argued.

      “Sure. That’s why your eyes are glazed over.”

      Maggie sighed. “Okay, so the pastures aren’t exactly thrilling conversational tidbits. But if you’re talking about the ranch, you’re not thinking about your leg.”

      He stopped, reached down and rubbed his thigh as if just the mention of it had fired up the aching muscles. He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky, a broad expanse of blue, dotted with thick white clouds. “I’m tired of thinking about my leg. Tired of the cane. Tired of being in the house when I should be on the ranch.”

      “Justice—”

      “It’s all right, Maggie,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m just impatient, that’s all.”

      She nodded, understanding. She’d seen this before, usually in men, but some women had the same reaction. They felt as though their worlds would fall apart and crash if they weren’t on top of everything at all times. Only they were capable of running their business, their homes, their children. It was a hard thing to accept help, especially since it meant also accepting that you could be replaced. However briefly.

      “The garden looks good,” she said abruptly.

      He turned his head to look. “It does. Mom’s roses are just starting to bloom.”

      Maggie led the way down the wide dirt path, lined on either side by pale, cream-colored bricks. The perfume of the roses was thicker the farther they went into the garden, and she inhaled deeply, dragging that

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