The Other Side of Paradise by Laurie Paige

Author:Laurie Paige
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2006-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Mary changed clothes and escaped to the ranch chores soon after she and Jonah arrived at the lodge. He had customers in the store and a shrilly ringing telephone to answer, so she was on her own. She had things to think about.

Cal. With the name came other memories of her life with him. Cal had hit her several more times after the man had taken his money and left them. Would a father, a true father, try to sell his only child?

She wanted to believe he couldn’t possibly have been her dad, but that could be the desperate illusion of a lonely heart. Children needed to believe they were loved and wanted, but she’d learned in the orphanage that people deserted their families all the time.

Walking the meadow to observe the cattle and the amount of grass left for them to eat, she noted a yearling was down. Upon examination, she found its breathing was erratic. When she tried to get the youngster on its feet, she found it was too weak to stand. Alarmed, she checked the area, but saw nothing to indicate trouble.

Leaving that one, she looked over the other cattle in the area. A cow was acting strange, butting another away each time it came near. Her breathing was shallow and labored. Another cow tried to stand, but its hind legs buckled under it.

She whistled for Attila.

When the big jumper came to her, she leaped upon his back and rode him to one of the ranch horses at an easy pace. She swung over to the other mount and, grabbing handfuls of mane, rode at a gallop to the main house.

There she found Jonah still on the phone talking to a possible client. She waited impatiently for him to finish.

“We have some cattle down,” she told him. “Northeast corner of the pasture.”

He strode down the hall toward the back door. “What are the symptoms?”

She told him what she’d seen.

“Loco weed.”

“How do you know?”

“I sprayed it out in the spring. Dormant seeds must have sprouted when we had a couple of showers in July and August. I should have checked the field again.”

He sounded disgusted with himself. Mary made no comment. At the fence, when he whistled, all the cowponies came at a run. He swung up on one and was off in a blur. She chose the one she’d ridden earlier and followed a close second.

Arriving at the scene, she waited while he checked the yearling, then bent to study the ground. “Yeah, it’s coming up through the grass here. Damn,” he ended softly, the word directed at himself in anger.

“Do you want me to move the herd?” she asked.

He shook his head. “We’ll fence off this section and spray it out again. Remind me to check here next spring to make sure it doesn’t come back.”

She studied the plant so she could identify it next time she saw it.

“It’s common name is two-grooved milkvetch,” Jonah told her. “It belongs to the pea family. Not all of the vetches are poisonous, but many are.

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