Page 40 of Memories of Us

With a smirk, I peered over the tall cow’s back. “No, B. I knew about the other women, but that was before we slept together. After that point, you said you didn’t want to be with anyone else. But....”

“But what?”

I shrugged and continued to move through the cows with Brenton a few steps behind. “I never asked what you did when you weren’t with me. When we took that step to sleeping together, I was seventeen and over six hours away. You were almost twenty-one, living a completely different lifestyle in college. I loved you, yes, but I wasn't under any pretenses of who you were in Dallas. Here you were mine, and there you were theirs.”

“That's shitty.”

“That was the fucked-up, complex shitshow we were.”

Hands on his hips, he looked up with a pain-laced grimace. “I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse. How in the hell did you put up with my shit? Me saying I loved you but still sleeping around sounds like a pathetic excuse for a man.”

“Boy. You were a boy. I was a girl who fell in love with you before you ever even noticed me. I was your dealer's little sister, the help. If it makes you feel better, you told me, a lot, that you didn't deserve a friend like me, someone who believed in you as wholeheartedly as I did.”

“Fuck,” he yelled as he dodged a massive horn.

“Don't yell at them,” I admonished with a grin.

“He—” Bending below my line of sight, he stood a second later. “She, sorry, almost took off my head. They should pick on someone their own size, like a damn elephant.”

“Well, maybe you should be more careful.”

“How many do we have now in the entire herd?”

“Seven, eight hundred, I think? Not sure really, but it's grown over the past couple of years. Your grandfather stopped wanting to sell the babies.” I shook my head and smiled at the cow in front of me. “He became softhearted toward the end.”

“He was a good man,” Brenton said so softly I almost didn't hear it over the quick burst of wind.

“He was.”

“I noticed on the ride that most of the wells weren't active. Are they dry?”

“Nah, I don't think your place will ever be dry. They stop pumping when the price of oil drops below a certain dollar amount. When it jumps again, you'll see all of them moving.”

Still smiling, I ran a hand down the cow's spine and moved deeper into the herd. Oil was how the Graves family made their fortune a generation or so back, and just like old oil money did, they kept getting richer and richer as the demand for it continued to rise. I didn't begrudge the family for it; this place was theirs, mineral rights and all. The story was Brenton's great-great-great-great-great-grandfather claimed it all those years ago when the land was still a part of Mexico.

A streak of something dark down the hind leg of a cow snagged my attention. Weaving between the massive beasts and their horns, I placed a comforting palm on the ribs of the injured female.

Careful to stay out of her kicking range, I inspected the wound. I angled my head side to side, the bright sunlight providing the perfect illumination to see four long, straight gashes down her hindquarters. The blood had turned dark and dry, signaling the wound was at least a day old. Only a few areas oozed clear fluid at that point.

From the looks of it, stitches weren't required, but she did need it cleaned and maybe a shot of antibiotics to ward off infection. Beside her, a baby calf considered me before dipping his head beneath her belly for a drink. My gaze stayed on the suckling calf. After as many births I'd helped with since graduation, you'd think I'd be over the mixed emotion. Which I was, I guess, with the birthing part, but watching the baby nurse, the natural beauty of a mom taking care of her offspring, opened an old, deep wound of my own.

“Everything okay?” Brenton asked from a few steps behind me.

I shook my head to dislodge my regretful thoughts. “She's hurt,” I said over my shoulder. “From the looks of the claw marks, her gashes are from a big cat. I'd say a bobcat, but could be a cougar. I've heard reports of a few in the area. I bet she was protecting her little guy.”

After a soft, loving pat down her side, I began searching for other injuries in the massive herd. A few looked like they’d battled with some barbed wire, but there was nothing like the gashes on the other, which solidified my initial thought of the momma protecting the only calf of the group. Through my inspection, I noted a few pregnant heifers, which meant new future prey for the unknown predator.

Someone had to stop the killer before those ladies gave birth.

Pausing in an ample open space, I wiped a layer of sweat from my forehead and lip with the hem of my shirt. Even with it being dry-fit, I'd sweated through the back. The heat index had to be over a hundred degrees even so late in the afternoon. I should’ve pushed back when Brenton suggested coming out, told him we'd do it tomorrow before the afternoon heat had a chance to turn the land into Hell's living room.

A loud, close rattle drew my attention to the ground.

And that was when I saw it—them—sending a bolt of pure fear straight to my core.

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