Read Online A Love to Call Her Own by Marilyn Pappano - Free Book Online Page B

she’ll be all good. But their mother wasn’t about to bother with a filthy stray. She told them she’d found the kitten a good home, but the next morning Jessy had seen the gardener burying its tiny, stiff body.
    It was a good thing she and her sisters hadn’t gotten sick.
    As they reached the fence surrounding the pasture, she gratefully took shelter behind her camera and focused on a calf, who lifted his head to stare at her, his mouth moving occasionally to chew the grass he was eating. “Are they nice?”
    â€œThe Belties?” Dalton stood a few feet away, his hands resting on the top wire of the fence. “They’re even-tempered, though you could piss one off if you tried.”
    â€œI could piss off Saint Paul himself if I tried.”
    The comment surprised a laugh from him, though not much of one. He was facing the same problems everyone in the margarita club faced, though his might be even tougher. There were support groups for widows, but she didn’t know of any that included men. Women were expected to need help, to ask for it, while men were supposed to somehow muscle through.
    But a startled laugh was a start. Did he realize the day would come when laughter, happiness, and smiles would be a daily part of his life again? When he would feel alive and hopeful again?
    She’d seen it with Carly and Therese, with Lucy and Ilena and the others. She hoped someday she would experience it for herself.
    â€œBelties are descended from an old Scottish breed and were bred for harsh climates, so they fit in fine with Oklahoma’s extremes. Their outer coat sheds rain, and the undercoat keeps them warm. They do well grazing in rough terrain and on grasses that other breeds won’t eat. Plus their beef is top-ranked for flavor, tenderness, and juiciness.”
    Jessy had been taking pictures while he talked but stopped at that last sentence and lowered the camera to look at him. “Look at those faces. How could you…” With a shudder, she started framing shots again. “It’s enough to make a woman go vegan.”
    â€œYeah, I think that’s illegal in Oklahoma.”
    Really, she loved a good hamburger or steak, and Lucy made a beef roast to die for, but Jessy’d never come eye to big brown cow eye before. Like she’d said earlier, when they were processed, packaged, and displayed in the refrigerator case at the commissary, they looked like dinner. Seeing them as sweet-natured big ol’ pets was disconcerting.
    Dalton stood quietly while she exhausted the photo ops with the cows, then she turned the camera his way. Unaware, he continued to gaze at the animals, or across the pasture to the line of distant trees, or judging by the seriousness of his expression, maybe all the way off to Afghanistan. Her finger hovered above the shutter.
    Other than her best friends, she didn’t like people in her pictures. They were clutter, distracting from the scene she wanted to preserve, messy and full of emotions. She had enough of that in real life. If she allowed them in her photographs, taking them would no longer be an escape.
    Yet she took the shot anyway, then shifted the camera a few inches to the left and quickly snapped a few of the barn. At the first click, he looked at her, then away, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of being photographed. He didn’t have to know she’d done so, did he? “Other than the margarita club, I don’t take pictures of people,” she said carelessly.
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œPeople are the only subjects in the world who complain about the end result. The cows, the barn, Oz”—she clicked a picture of the dog—“couldn’t care less what the photo looks like. But people whine. Not my people, but people in general.”
    If she was any judge, she’d say the information eased his discomfort enough that he didn’t pursue the matter. “The margarita club…They