Cattleman's Courtship (21 page)

And yes, it did make her afraid. Because she knew, this time around, if things didn’t work out she would be more than hurt.

She would be devastated.

“This is an amazing place,” Gordon said, turning around as if to get a better look. “These guys must be loaded to be able to afford to live here and keep it looking so good.”

Cara glanced around the yard. Yes, it was tidy, but Cara knew the sacrifices that had made it so.

“Nicholas works very hard,” she said, unable to keep the defensive tone out of her voice.

“He must. From what I heard, all Dale does is hang around the auction mart. I saw him there both times I went with Bill.”

“Hey, let’s get these animals through,” Dale called out from the corrals. “Haven’t got all day.”

Gordon raised his eyebrows and Cara made a note to talk to her uncle about the clinic’s new vet. Gordon needed to learn a bit more discretion if he wanted to work in a close-knit farming community.

A cloud of dust from the milling cattle greeted them and a few minutes later they were immersed in the work.

Gordon called out the tag numbers of the cattle as he ran them through and Cara filled them in on the form.

Cara couldn’t help feeling a burst of pride for Nicholas when she saw the heifers going through. They looked sleek and healthy, with beautiful conformation. They were some of the best cattle she’d ever seen and they would definitely improve the genetics of any herd they went to. Nicholas was a born rancher, she thought.

An hour and a half later the heifers were out in the pasture again and the cloud of dust was settling in the corrals.

“So what’s the next step?” Nicholas asked, pulling his hat off. He slapped it against his leg, beating the dust out.

Cara was about to speak when Gordon jumped in. “I have to come back and check the sites to see if there’s been any reaction to the TB test.”

“Still can’t figure out why that loser wanted us to do a TB test,” Dale grumbled. “Waste of time and money.”

“He’s the buyer and if that’s what the buyer wants, that’s what the buyer gets,” Nicholas said. “It’s just a precaution.”

“You probably won’t have to do this for the next group of cows you ship out,” Cara assured Dale.

Dale nodded but didn’t look at her, and apprehension shivered through her. Though she didn’t need his approval, Dale’s attitude would need to be dealt with if she and Nicholas’s relationship were to deepen. If.

The word hung over their relationship and Cara couldn’t delve too deeply into it. Not yet.

“I’ll only need to check a couple of the heifers,” Gordon was saying as he walked with Nicholas toward the corrals. “Did you bring the other cows in, as well?”

“Because I’m not shipping them, I moved them out to the far pasture again. Besides, you said this test was a formality.” Nicholas settled his hat lower on his head as the morning sun blinded him. Another beautiful day on the ranch. “I did.”

Nicholas climbed up and over a fence into the pen holding the heifers, the animals that represented the future.

Last night he had taken his horse out for a midnight ride as if hunting for some sign, some indication of what he should do. He knew his feelings for Cara were growing deeper every day and he knew he wanted to be with her.

But he also knew that she still wanted him to stay home. To work the ranch.

He’d imagined the picture and it tantalized. He thought of not having to take on work that required living in a guarded compound, watching your back while you made hard decisions about drilling, work conditions, employee discontent.

He wondered what it would be like to experience every day of every season on the ranch he loved so much.

He walked slowly through the milling heifers, glancing at their ear tags, easily recalling each of their mothers. He had chosen each of these heifers because their births had been problem free. Not that he would have known. He had been working on a rig in Newfoundland. His father was the one who’d been home to watch the births and make the necessary notations.

By being gone, he’d missed things happening on the ranch. Missed out on some of the rewards of the hard work.

And with that in mind, he’d worked up enough nerve to call his boss this morning. To talk about maybe cutting back on his hours. Maybe even quit completely. But he only got the answering machine.

He hadn’t told Cara his plans. He wanted to surprise her when they went out for dinner.

Nor had he told his father.

However, sooner or later his father would have to accept that he and Cara were together again.

He pushed the thoughts aside as he focused on the work at hand. Clambering up on his horse, he clucked to it, then easily separated the first five heifers into the sorting pen and from there into the chute where Gordon could check them.

He got off his horse, closed the gate behind the first five and leaned on it while he watched Gordon move from animal to animal, checking the sites where they had done the TB test.

“Could you send another five in?” Gordon said, sounding distracted.

“Sure.” Nicholas felt a niggle of unease. Cara and Gordon had both assured him this follow-up was simply a formality.

But he sorted five more out and sent them through.

When Gordon asked for five more, then another five, Nicholas’s unease grew. They processed the entire herd and when he closed the gate on the last of the heifers, he rode his horse out through the gate and toward the other side of the chute.

Gordon checked the last five heifers, then nodded for Nicholas’s father to open the head gate. The steel gate clanged and the heifers bawled as they charged to freedom, kicking up dust as Gordon pulled himself up and over the fence.

“What’s wrong?” Nicholas asked. “Why did you need to check them all?”

Gordon wasn’t looking at Nicholas as he pulled his gloves off. “I found three positives in the herd.”

A roaring began in Nicholas’s ears. “What do you mean?”

Gordon stuffed the gloves in his coverall pockets. “Sorry, Nick. Your herd has TB.”

The roaring grew. “I thought Alberta was TB free. Where could it have come from?”

“Possibly some of the semen you used when you artificially inseminated your cattle.”

“So what does this mean?”

Gordon glanced over his shoulder at the shining, fat, healthy-looking animals. The cream of Nicholas’s herd.

“Quarantine.” The word came out like a bullet and Nicholas grabbed one of the uprights on the corrals to steady himself. Quarantine.

A word associated with diseases that killed animals and livelihoods. Quarantine was the first step to something far more serious. “And after that?”

Gordon gave a listless shrug as if his diagnosis was simply another day on the job and didn’t mean the destruction of a herd Nicholas had spent years building up. “All the animals on this farm will have to be destroyed.”

“Horses, too?”

“Not sure about them, but my guess would be yeah.” Gordon peeled his coveralls off, stepped out of them and bunched them up. As if he was going to dispose of them as soon as he got back to the clinic.

“So what do we do?” Nicholas couldn’t stop the note of desperation in his voice. He couldn’t imagine the herd had to be wiped out because of one random test. “Could you test them again? Is there something we can do?”

“Not a thing to do.” Gordon shoved the coveralls under his arm. “I have a bunch of paperwork to work through and then I have to make the call. Meantime, none of your animals goes anywhere.”

The cattle liner was coming tomorrow to pick up the herd.

He already had half of the buyer’s money in the farm account, and most of that was already earmarked for special projects. The rest was supposed to have been their living money until he sold the crop.

Now he had to give it all back. And he was looking at the destruction of years of work. Gone.

Cara parked her car by the barn and got out. As soon as she heard the news from Gordon, she cancelled her next appointments, jumped in the car and came straight to the Chapman ranch.

She heard the bawling of animals and ran to the corrals where she hoped the heifers were still penned up. Awaiting orders from Gordon.

When Gordon told her what he’d found, she could hardly believe it. There hadn’t been a case of TB in cattle in Alberta for years. And these animals had no genetic connection to any herds in Canada or the States proven to carry tuberculosis.

She knew it was unprofessional of her, but she needed to see for herself and double-check Gordon’s diagnosis.

As she came around the corner, her gaze scanned the corrals looking for Nicholas, but she only saw Dale, standing with his hands in his pockets, staring over the penned-up heifers.

Cara hesitated but then walked over to his side.

“I’m so sorry, Dale,” she said.

He didn’t look at her, but kept his eyes on the seemingly healthy herd. “I can’t believe we have to kill them all. They’re the best animals we’ve ever raised.”

“I can’t believe it either,” she said quietly. She hesitated to ask the next question, but she had to for Nicholas’s sake. “Would you mind if I checked them myself?”

Dale gave a short laugh. “Go crazy. Won’t do any harm.”

Cara wasn’t sure what to think of that comment, but she climbed over the fence anyhow. The animals turned to look at her, which made it difficult to see the test sites for herself. But a few kept their backs turned to her and when one swished its tail, she saw the telltale swelling.

It wasn’t quite as significant as she thought it should be. Not according to what she’d seen in her textbooks or the pictures she’d checked online before she came.

But it was a reaction and she knew they couldn’t ignore it.

The animals jostled each other as they moved around in reaction to her presence. They looked so sleek and healthy. Their eyes were clear and they didn’t so much as sniffle.

Cara stood, her hands on her hips, watching the cattle, a sense of something off-kilter niggling at her. But she couldn’t grab hold of it or formulate it. Western Canada had been TB free for years. She knew Nicholas and his father had handpicked these animals from their own herd. They had used artificial insemination to improve the genetics.

Why here and why now in this herd?

The thought of these healthy-looking animals being slaughtered created a dull ache in her chest. What a waste.

Surely something wasn’t right?

She climbed over the fence, scaring a flock of sparrows drinking from the cattle waterer. Her heart jumped as they exploded up into the sky.

“Told Nicholas he should shoot those things,” Dale mumbled as Cara’s heart settled. “They’ve been hanging around the waterer steady the past couple of weeks. Found a bunch of dead ones in the barn.”

“Where is Nicholas?” Cara asked.

Dale scratched his forehead with his forefinger. “Packing for Calgary.”

“Why Calgary?” And why now? They had a crisis on their hands.

“He’s going back to work.”

Cara stared at him as the words beat in her mind in time with the flapping of the sparrows’ wings overhead. Of course. Nicholas’s solution to the problem.

Then she turned and strode to the house, her hands curled into fists, her feat pounding out a hard rhythm.

Had everything he said to her been a lie? His talk about staying, about taking a chance, about putting down roots, about hating the restlessness of his life? Was it all just so he could steal a few kisses?

Steal her heart again?

She stormed up the walk just as Nicholas appeared in the doorway, a duffel bag slung over one shoulder, a suitcase in his other hand.

As soon as he saw her, he dropped both to the porch with a resounding thunk. His eyes skimmed past her, looking somewhere over her shoulder.

“So what’s going on?” she asked.

“I’m leaving for Calgary tonight. I have a meeting and I’m flying out tomorrow. I was going to come over before I left.”

“To kiss me goodbye?”

“Cara, I’m so sorry, but I don’t have any choice.”

“And us? What about us?”

Nicholas frowned. “I’m only gone for two months. I’ll be back.”

“How are we supposed to maintain a relationship when you’re halfway across the world?”

“We can e-mail. Phone. Internet calls. It’s not that hard to maintain a long-distance relationship these days.”

“I don’t want a long-distance relationship. I want you.”

The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them. Great. Now she sounded like some pathetic whiner who couldn’t live without her boyfriend for a couple of months.

“I have to go, Cara,” was all he said, regret tingeing his voice.

“Why?”

Nicholas shoved his hand through his hair, then turned to her, and when Cara saw helplessness and fear in his eyes, her resolve wavered.

“You know what Gordon said. The heifers—they’ll be destroyed. Tomorrow Dad is rounding up the rest of the cows from the far pastures and bringing them down here. They’re going to be killed, too.”