Page 13 of The First Day of Breeding Season (Wildfire Ranch #4)

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Clouds roll in as we climb into the hills, threatening some rain.

“You all right to press on until the weather hits?” Drew hollers over his shoulder.

I lift my voice so I know he hears me clearly. “Smart plan.”

And it really is, because by the time the bulls find the first few cows, the sky is as growly as my mentor. In the distance, thunder rumbles, and the wind carries the first few drops of rain our way, although the heavens don’t actually open up, much to the dismay of the horses.

One of my favourite facts about horses, learned when I was a little girl, is how much they usually like rain.

“It’ll come soon enough,” I promise Ace after I dismount at our campsite on high ground, just a short walk from a watering hole where Ten Gallon is already sniffing at a mature cow.

I notice Drew do a quick count of the cows, and I do the same, while also thinking about what the best observation points would be.

“You want to set up your cameras?” he asks.

“Do you mind?”

He waves me down the hill. “Go before it rains. I’ll get the horses taken care of and set up camp.”

I grab two of the cameras that Dr. Lowry helped me secure through a student grant.

It’s not possible to observe the herd twenty-four hours a day, so the cameras have a lot of advantages. In addition to more complete data collection, the footage will also add a multimedia element to my final project, and can also be used by Wildfire Ranch on their website and on social media.

This first week will be about figuring out the optimal places to leave them to capture footage across the entire two month-long breeding season that the bulls will spend on the mountain.

When I get back to where we’ll spend the night, Drew has a tarp strung up.

He’s also changed the horses out of their saddles and bridles, leaving them in simple halters.

“There’s a nice stand of trees just down the path where they’ll be okay for the rest of the day and night,” he says, handing me their leads. “Can you tie them up there?”

“Yep.”

That doesn’t take long. Drew follows with a bucket of water for them.

I linger with Ace for another minute, but the sound of Drew moving gear around drags me back to the campsite soon enough.

I find him brewing up some hot water for coffee on a mini burner portable stove. And everything else is neatly stacked well under the tarp.

“The horses seem happy,” I say cheerfully.

Nothing.

“And Ten Gallon’s making friends already.”

Drew nods.

“Tough crowd,” I mutter under my breath.

If he hears me, he doesn’t let on.

When the water is ready, he clears his throat. “Where’s your Thermos?”

I grab it for him, and it takes it without quite meeting my gaze.

His hand hovers over the two different kinds of instant coffee he packed—black, and a three-in-one packet that has cream and sugar in it.

“I like it sweet,” I prompt.

“Thanks,” he mutters, and mixes that up for me.

When he hands it back, I take it, lifting it to my mouth.

“Careful,” he warns. “It’s hot.”

I blow across the surface, and that almost draws his gaze to my face.

I pause.

His attention tightens up.

I take a careful little sip, and then hum happily as I swallow the hot coffee.

“It’s perfect,” I murmur, looking at him over the top of the Thermos.

He’s staring at my mouth.

That’s close to my eyes. Progress.

So I back off, giving him some space as he makes his own coffee, then tucks the stove away.

The only other horseback camping trips I’ve done have been with other classmates. They were noisy and chaotic.

Drew, on the other hand, is tightly contained and quiet in every way. For such a large man, he has a small footprint, even when “unpacked.”

If I thought he wanted to make small talk, I’d compliment him on this.

Instead, I dig out my notebook and quickly jot down what I observed at the watering hole, including how the first thing Drew did was count.

Ranchers are always doing head counts , I write. Breeding is a numbers game.

I know the math. A mature bull is likely to breed forty or fifty cows over a season. A young bull, maybe only thirty. And it will take probably two months for all the cows and heifers to go into heat twice.

But something I’ve never thought about before right now is just how many times the bulls will service those cows and heifers over those two months to result in those thirty to fifty pregnancies.

It’s probably a lot more than once. Of course it is, but…how many?

That math is beyond me.

That math is why I’m here on this mountain, trying to pretend I don’t want to kiss the off-limits rancher. Trying to pretend I’m totally fine with the fact that he can’t look me in the eye after last night.

Last night….

I shiver at the reminder of just how hot his kisses were, desperate and possessive.

“You got a question?”

Sucking in a breath, I lift my head and pretend I wasn’t just thinking about how wet and squirmy I got when Drew shoved his tongue down my throat.

He’s leaning against a tree not far from where I’m sitting on a log. Now he’s staring down the hill to where Ten Gallon is still doing a lot of sniffing, but if he noticed me thinking, he must have been looking at me when I was writing.

“Umm…” I take a deep breath. This is the thing we’re going to talk about all summer, I better rip off the awkward bandage now. “I was thinking about breeding math. I know that with a natural cover program….” My voice fades out, nerves getting the better of me.

Drew waits patiently. Giving me the space to find my courage again, I guess.

I appreciate that. I swallow hard. “The math is different from a breeding program. He’s going to service them a lot more often before it takes, right?”

“Yep.”

“Do you observe any difference there between cows and heifers?” I put my notebook away, then stand so I can see better down the hill.

The storm clouds are gathering, and the wind is picking up, which is interfering with Ten Gallon’s efforts to find a cow who is already in heat, since the cows are bunching up now against the weather.

“If anything, the heifers take faster, I think. I’m pretty strict about only keeping the oldest calves.

They’re ready for it, I find. Where some of the cows don’t take on their first heat, and they need another one to fall pregnant, which means their calves are born later into the winter, and when it comes time to wean them… we sell those ones off.”

I wish I hadn’t put my notebook away, but I’m not going to forget that detail.

I won’t forget anything he says. All of Drew’s wisdom burns into my memory in a different way from anything else I’ve learned.

He adjusts his hat and squints up at the sky. “Sorry about the rain. That’s not fun on your first day.”

“It’s okay. Lots more days to come.”

These bulls will be up here for the next two months, and in that time should cover the whole herd. But the first few days are crucial to the success of the breeding season, especially with Ten Gallon, the untested young bull.

I know Drew will be observing him the most closely.

My job will be find the balance between assisting him as needed, and documenting as much as I can about the rest of the herd, and what the experienced bull, Thor, does with the cows.

“So what are you looking for with Ten Gallon?” I glance around. “And are you worried about where Thor has gone?”

He chuckles. “No. That bull knows how to find his way to the ladies, don’t worry. But right now, he’s about two hundred yards south of us.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve been listening to bulls in the summer pasture for twenty-four years.”

Oh. Right.

“He’s probably smelling the rain. He might not even join the herd until tomorrow morning, but once he does, he’ll be busy, don’t worry.”

I try not to smile, because I worry that a smile might disrupt the roll he’s on, sharing more than I was even hoping for.

But it doesn’t stop him.

Drew Lowry is a breeding nerd, and I’m so here for it.

“As for Ten Gallon…” He paces out from under the tarp a bit, letting a few drops of rain hit him as he takes a better look at the herd.

Then he shifts back again, this time a little closer to me.

“I need to observe him for libido. How he reacts to the cows who are fertile. He’s showing promise already, though.

You’ll get some great observation days out of him. ”

“Good,” I whisper.

He looks my way, but…above me.

I back up and push up on my toes.

His gaze lifts a little further.

I roll my eyes and he doesn’t even notice! He just keeps talking about the bulls, and I love it all. The rain rolls in, so he has to come closer still so I can hear him over the drumbeat on the tarp overhead, but his gaze stays resolutely anywhere but locking onto mine.

When I run out of questions, we stand side by side in silence. Not unlike how the cows are huddled together just below us in the pasture.

Oh, Drew. Why won’t you look at me? Are you so afraid of what you’ll see?