Cowboy Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #3, Kitty and Lukes story) Read Online Free PDF Page A

another time.
     
                  Big Sky Ranch was every bit as big as the name indicated.  Once the ranch hand named Mike had been dispatched to take the message, Sarah relaxed.  My mother wouldn't get the message for some time, but Sarah has always been of the opinion that acting means whatever needed taking care of has been taken care of, even if no one else is aware of a change having occurred.
                  I really had left a note right where my mother could find it.  There's not a day that goes by that she doesn't have a cup of tea in the afternoon, no matter how hot the day.  I reminded myself of the note and tried to work up enthusiasm for the tour of the Big Sky.
                  It was impressive.  In Gold Hill, we had a nice sized house with a beautiful garden my mother took great care of and, whenever she was away, Maggie or my Uncle Matthew did, because neither Sarah nor I had ever been able to grow much of anything.  (That's not completely true—I can make weeds spring up.)
                  But here in Redding, Sarah had blossomed into a gardener and she had acres for it.  Not that she gardened alone.  The Big Sky wasn't just her home, it was a business, and she had to feed more than just herself and William, which meant growing a lot of everything.  There were people working around the entire ranch, in the garden, in the stables, in the pastures. 
                  "Do you ever get lost out here?" I asked her as we stood in the corn.
                  "You are a silly goose," Sarah said, and led the way through what, to me, was a maze of very tall stalks. 
                  Beyond the garden, the grazing fields started, shining in the sun.  Feed was hard to come by, expensive to bring in and keep in stock, and it took up space.  It was easier for her and William to grow their own or partner with grain farmers.  To the north of the ranch house, not that far from the kitchen where we'd talked, was the ranch hand bunkhouse I'd seen through the kitchen windows.  It was empty as it was early evening, everyone still working before they'd come into the ranch house for dinner, so Sarah led me through it.  The place was simple enough, with a front porch with straight back and rocking chairs and, inside, potbelly stoves, gingham curtains in the windows, cots covered with bright quilts, armoires for clothes and trunks the men had probably brought with them.  There was a sink in one corner and a bathtub, screened off behind more curtains.
                  We toured the stables, where horses snorted warmly as Sarah pitched out evening feed.  The milking shed was the other half of the stables and, beyond that, more outbuildings, barns and pastures, where cattle milled about.
                  Together, we stood with our arms on the top of the rolled metal bars that made up the gates, watching as the cattle stood swishing their tails in the evening heat.
                  "How many—cows?  Are they cows?"
                  She grinned at me.  "Cattle.  Head of cattle."
                  "Looks like the whole thing to me."
                  "Very funny."
                  "How many?  Mr. Lord said your William had taken 1,000 head to Oregon—that still sounds funny—to… "  I hadn't seen William since the wedding.  He was such a taciturn man and Sarah so vibrant and not at all reticent—Sarah could talk the wings off a magpie, our father used to say—that I was glad of the weeks between my arrival and his return.  What would he make of my flight?
                  Her gaze had returned to the pasture, where the remaining herd stood docile and seemingly uninterested in much of anything except the occasional mouthful of grass and a salt lick. 
                  "Did he sell them?"  There was a crease on her forehead I didn't