Trusting Them Read Online Free PDF

tonight. I’m not worried so much about the snow tomorrow as the wind. We can’t possibly drive to town if it’s still whipping around like it is now.” Brock looked out the kitchen window and sighed
    “She’s gonna bolt first chance she gets,” Brady finally said.
    “Yeah.”
    “What are we going to do to stop her?”
    Brock didn’t turn back around. He couldn’t bear to face his brother like this.
    “Nothing. Not a damn thing.”
    “Why the hell not?” Brady demanded.
    “Because number one, we can’t keep her prisoner here and number two, she’s hiding something from us. She doesn’t trust us and we don’t know what sort of trouble she might be in.” Brock ran a hand around the back of his neck.
    “She needs time to learn to trust us. One day isn’t long enough. Especially when two men are taking care of her.”
    “Well, it’s all the time we have, Brady. If the weather eases up enough tomorrow, we have to take her to town. She’s sick. I’m worried about pneumonia.”
    “Yeah, you’re right. It’s just that she’s ours. She belongs with us. I feel it inside of me.” Brady thumped his hand on his chest.
    “I know. I know.” Brock hung his head, then turned back around.
    “Let’s go break the ice in the water troughs again and check in with the hands on the cattle. It will be dark soon.”
    Brady shook his head, but walked over and grabbed his coat and hat off the hooks by the back door. Brock could tell there was going to be a fight before it was over with. His brother wasn’t one to back off something he wanted. And he wanted little Jeni pretty damn bad.
    Brock grabbed his own coat and hat. After putting on the coat, he shoved the gloves from his pockets over his big hands. He could well imagine running those hands over Jeni’s sweet skin. He could just imagine how her rosy breasts would look held in his weathered palms. Dark skin and light silk together. He groaned and pushed the errant thoughts from his head. He had work to do and it wasn’t getting done standing around daydreaming about something that probably would never happen.
    The wind assaulted him as he opened the back door and then pulled it closed behind him once he’d stepped out into the thigh-deep snow. They’d shoveled a path to the stables and between the two barns, but the blowing wind just covered them back up again. Even the sparse trees on that side of the house couldn’t break its persistence. Brock pushed through the snow until he got to the first barn. Then he circled around to where the fence ended at the back of the barn. There, on the other side of the fence, stood a round watering tub, all of five feet in diameter and about three feet deep.
    Brock didn’t bother brushing the snow off the top of the frozen water. Instead, he took the pick they kept by the barn and swung it over his head again and again until he’d broken through the ice to the water below. It splattered up and over the snowy top. He broke up a few more pieces, then moved over to the next one.
    Most of the cattle were gathered together in a tight mass of mooing cowhide and twitching ears next to the barn. A section of the barn roof extended out a good six feet, with rough-hewn poles holding it up as a makeshift shelter from rain, sleet, and snow. As long as the cattle had food and water, they would be fine in the snow. The only worries he had were the calves, only about seven months old. He debated rounding them up and putting them in the barn for the night but figured that it would take a miracle to separate them from the herd.
    Their spread was by no means huge, but they did run a good head of cattle. He knew at last count they had sixty calves. Most of them would go up for sale, but he would keep a few to keep their herd young. They would sell out some of the older ones to make room for the newer blood. They usually bought new blood every spring to keep down the inbreeding that often doomed a herd.
    He finished all four water troughs and