Jade's Cowboy Crush: Witness Protection - Rancher Style: Gavin's Story (Sweet Montana Bride Series, Book 2) by Kimberly Krey

Author:Kimberly Krey [Krey, Kimberly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Candle House Publishing
Published: 2013-12-22T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Has Lilly told you about the barn raising?” Earl asked Jade.

He secured an over-sized Zip-lock bag while Jade scooped in the fresh-cut corn. “Yeah,” she said. “I mean, she didn’t say too much about it, just that there’s a dance and food…”

“No real barn being built?” Earl said with a laugh. “Used to be in areas like this, barn raisings were ‘bout all the action folks would get, it seemed. Lots of people meeting up, the women bringing the food and the men working on the structure.”

Jade dumped in a final scoop, nodding to indicate it’d be the last. And while Earl sealed it up with large, shaky hands, Jade wrote the date on the next bag with a sharpie. “So how long have you been throwing the parties?”

“This will be our fifth year,” Earl said. There was no pause behind his answer. No moment of calculation.

“So what made you guys want to start having them?” she asked, unable to imagine what they could possibly gain from hosting such a thing.

“You uh, heard about my son, Alex,” he said, a sudden tenderness in his voice.

Jade nodded. “Yes.” She was grateful she and Gavin had already talked about it earlier in the week; glad she wasn’t hearing the news for the first time straight from Earl.

The man shook his head and sighed. “Alex was so set on running this place for me that, well it became his whole life. Allie got married. Logan did too. And Alex wanted to do the same. Have a family of his own. He just kept himself too darned busy all the time. Never went anyplace where he could actually meet a lady.”

Jade paused in handing over the next bag, only listened as the sweet man opened his heart to her.

“Ranching can be a lonely life if you let it, but it doesn’t have to be. He chose to do a great deal of it alone, and that kept him more strapped down than was good for him.” Earl paused to look out at the yard, as if he could see the ghost of his son moving about the place, working the land. She allowed her eyes to drift that way as well, trying to picture that very thing. A young version of Earl, working tirelessly to raise the cattle.

“I told him to slow down,” Earl said. “He wanted to take on more cattle, work our way into raising three or four times the amount, like Grant and his boys had done. But we just weren’t set up for that. Between the immunizations and the feed…” Earl faded off for a bit and shook his head.

A sigh passed through his weathered lips as his eyes settled back on the land. “Nobody saw it coming – the accident. Not Lilly. Not me. It ain’t right to bury one’s child the way we did. And it nearly destroyed us both. Was real hard on Allie, and Logan too, being his twin and all.” He wiped at the corner of his eye while giving her an apologetic grin.

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