Free The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 by Anna Jeffrey Page B

knowing how many of them treated their horses.
    No, she would take care of her money herself. If she lived frugally and nothing catastrophic happened, she could survive for two years, which should be enough time to get her business going and producing income.
    Unfortunately, she didn't see how she could avoid hiring help, even with the tightness of her funds. If she intended to shape up the horses for sale and/or cutting competitions, she had to buy a shipment of eighty to a hundred calves for the horses to work. More animals to feed and look after.
    The horses hadn't been ridden more than a few times in recent weeks and part of her dilemma was finding the time to work each of them forty-five minutes or an hour several days a week, along with cleaning the barns, repairing them and the house, advertising her services as a handler and more important, spending time with her daughter. And now, housebreaking dogs.
    Though vexed about the expense of hiring help, tomorrow she would call her aunt and her cousin and put out the word she needed a part-time hand. She would ask Nan to help write an ad to put in Callister's newspaper, which was published on Tuesdays and Fridays.
    She might even ask Nan to help write a letter to Billy. In the long run, a letter to her ex-partner might be more effective than a phone call.
    * * *
    "Here's a part-time job for you, John T."
    Dana leaned against John's office doorjamb reading the local newspaper. It was no secret that John's child support payments kept him strapped. Callister County sheriff's pay wasn't an executive salary. He frequently joked he needed a second job so he could afford to be sheriff.
    He peered at her through half-closed eyelids, didn't move his feet off his desktop. "Doing what? Sweeping floors at the Rusty Spur?" He covered his fact with his hat and closed his eyes.
    "Izzy Rondeau's advertising for help with her horses."
    "The hell." John lifted his hat off his face. His boot heels hit the floor. He sat up and leaned forward. "Lemme see."
    Dana passed him the newspaper. He read the ad, then handed the paper back and resumed his relaxed position. "Doesn't say what she's paying. Has to be minimum wage. She probably wants a grunt."
    For the rest of the day he thought about the ad and how long it had been since he had ridden a horse. At four p.m., he turned the office over to Rooster and Dana and headed out to Izzy's house.
    When he knocked at the front door, her little girl's face popped up behind the glass pane in the upper half of the door. She opened up, the puppies barking and bouncing around her. "Where's your mom?" he asked her.
    She held the door wide. "You have to come in. I can't hold the door open 'cause Mama doesn't want bugs to get in the house."
    "Oh, okay." John stepped into the living room and felt and heard the creak of the wood floor. He looked around. The room, with its aged pine paneling, looked old but cozy. The furniture looked fairly new—a long leather sofa, a cowhide chair. A huge, draping fern filled one corner and houseplants sat on the windowsills. All of it was spotlessly clean and welcoming.
    Ava looked up at him with huge coffee-colored eyes. Plastic clips that looked like little blue bows showed on either side of a part in her red hair. "Can you fix our fire? I know how, but I'm not allowed to if Mama isn't in the house."
    John turned his attention to a dying fire flickering in a brick-front fireplace. "Sure." He walked to the fireplace, stepping on layers of cowhides and Navajo rugs covering the floor between the hearth and the sofa. On the thick oak mantel he saw photographs of horses and trophies of various sizes and configurations.
    "Those are Mama's prizes," Ava said. "She's won a lot."
    "She sure has," John said, impressed. He returned his attention to the fire, found pine rounds in a bin beside the fireplace, then squatted and placed them on the grate.
    Ava spoke behind him. "Did you come to check on Harry and Gwendolyn?"
    He glanced at her