Free Once and for All by Jeannie Watt Page B

local charity function.
    “Yes, but you’re not going out afterward. If Ty goes, you’re coming home with me.”
    Beau looked as if he wanted to say something more, but just rinsed the sponge and headed for the kitchen table.
    Four hours later the Beast pulled up to the house. Beau was sitting on the sofa, staring sightlessly at the TV, and Sam was almost asleep in his chair.
    “Have a good time?” Sam asked with a yawn.
    “Not bad,” Tyler replied.
    “What’d you do?” he asked casually, although he was also checking for the telltale odor of smoke or alcohol.
    “Hung out at the bowling alley, which is why I smell like smoke,” he said gruffly. “Then we went to the café for food.” Tyler did not seem thrilled to give a recitation of his evening’s activities—even an abridged one. He walked away without another word, shrugging out of his hooded sweatshirt as he headed down the hall to the bathroom. Sam watched him go, then shook his head and went to shut off the kitchen light before going to bed. It was his job to know what his nephews were doing, his job to see that they didn’t get into trouble, which was so easy to do nowadays.
    A few minutes later, he heard the boys talking in the bedroom they shared. Tyler was giving an expanded version of the evening, no doubt. Sam just hoped Beau wasn’t hearing something that he himself should be aware of.
    He took off his shirt and tossed it in the laundry basket in the corner of the room. Then he sat on the bed, resting his forearms on his thighs, his head bowed.
    Dave and Maya should be the ones raising their boys, feeling the swell of pride when their sons did well, and propping them up when they didn’t. Setting the rules, enforcing the consequences. Sam felt more at ease in his role now than he had a year ago, but he still saw the potential for disaster every time Beau and Tyler went out the door.
    And he missed his brother. Sometimes he wondered how life would have turned out if he hadn’t talked Dave into taking his place at the fateful veterinary conference, hadn’t convinced him that Maya could use a little time away from Wesley. Would he have been hit by the car instead of his brother? Would Dave and Maya be mourning him?
    Logically, it would have been better that way. Then his brother would have had the opportunity to see his boys grow into men, and Sam’s nephews would have had parents who knew what they were doing.
    Instead, Sam had the boys, the boys had him. All he could do was to hold on tightly and hope for the best.

    I T SNOWED THE NEXT DAY , just as Lucas had predicted. Big lazy flakes drifted to the ground early in the morning, becoming a total whiteout by afternoon. Twenty-four hours later, the temperatures dropped and the wind picked up, piling drifts around the ranch buildings, to the point that any door facing north was unusable. The first calf dropped in the middle of the blizzard, but fortunately, the birth went well and Lucas had the baby and mama in the warm barn. If Jodie could have her way, all the animals would be in the barn. It was not weather for any creature to be out in.
    For the most part the cows didn’t seem to mind. They bunched together and put their butts to the wind, hunching up against the cold as their hair grew thick with rime ice. Lucas assured her that the animals had seen worse. They were all strong and well-fed, and the only ones he was worried about were the very pregnant heifers, which he had in pens near the barn, out of the wind and ready to be brought in if necessary. At least they were the only ones he worried about until the next morning, when the sun finally broke through, glinting off the crystallized snow. He went out to start the tractor to feed, and found part of the herd in the far pasture missing. At least five cows, maybe six. Each worth several thousand dollars.
    “Where would they have gone?” Jodie asked when he came in to report. She already had a headache, having spent the morning trying