Free Cowboy Heart (Historical Western Romance) (Longren Family series #3, Kitty and Lukes story) by Amelia Rose Page A

her to guard my behavior against.
                  "Pretty much everyone is headed into town tonight," Robert said as he helped me into the wagon.  I saw Sarah twitch away the kitchen window curtain and, just as fast, flick it back into place but I thought Robert had seen.
                  I didn't mind he knew I had people watching out for me.
     
                  We wove through trees, along the river I'd followed when Mr. David Lord had given me a ride.  I hadn't seen much of him since arriving.  According to Sarah, he had a ranch of his own not far away, but 10,000 acres is farther away than I was used to.
                  Moving along beside the river, I could easily see now how low the water was and understand the problems Big Sky Ranch faced.  The drought was a couple years old and water rights had caused more than one court case and more than one shooting over the last few summers.
                  "Did you get the herd to a good pasture?" I asked, because I'd been silent for far too long.
                  Robert gave me a look that said clearly this wasn't the topic of conversation he would have picked.  "They're all up in the east pastures, above where the creek's blocked off."
                  "Was it blocked?" I asked.  Maybe it didn't interest him overly, at least not tonight, but I still wanted to know if someone had done it on purpose. 
                  "Mr. Getties has a tendency to block up the stream at his place," Robert said.  "Not the first time.  William's taking him to court, but old Getties, he's never happy, even after California passed the no-fence law that means ranchers have to keep their animals off farmer's land and not the other way around.  He's still insisting our cattle are in his garden and demanding recompense."
                  Mr. Getties had a bit more than a garden.  He owned nearly as many acres as Big Sky and he grew grains, but I understood what Robert meant.  It wasn't the most romantic conversation, he was right there, but I wasn't blushing for a change, or stammering or completely unable to talk, and this was my sister's and her husband's concern we were discussing, so I followed my line of thought.
                  "The day I arrived, there was a fire in one of the south pastures.  Mr. Lord and I drove right into it."  I bit my lip and watched the river briefly before asking, "Do you think that might have been Mr. Getties' doing?"
                  He took a breath, as if uninterested, then said, "Ayah. No way to tell for sure.  Look there, do you see that robin?"
                  I didn't, actually, wasn't even sure there was a robin in the expanse of willow he was pointing at, but I took the obvious suggestion to change the subject and, after that, we talked about him.
                  Which I really didn't mind a bit.
     
                  "San Francisco?" I asked as we drew close to Redding.  I'd only been to San Francisco once and the idea that Robert had been born there made him seem mysterious and elegant, even if he was currently living on a cattle ranch.
                  "Went to school there, to university briefly.  I thought"—he cleared his throat—"I was going to study law, but the more I watched my father's business dealings—he was a gold miner, in the rush of '49—the less I wanted that side of human nature."
                  I sat back in the wagon, waiting for Redding to draw us in.  I could hear fiddles playing now and see the gas lights flickering against the oncoming dusk.  The hotel stood tallest of the structures in town, at two stories, and that was our destination. 
                  "So you chose animal nature?" I ventured.  If I'd been born a boy, instead of my brother, Jacob, being the boy, I'd have studied veterinary medicine.  Jacob wasted being