Read Online B00DVWSNZ8 EBOK by Anna Jeffrey - Free Book Online

food.
    Water over the dam , Jude thought now. She missed her great-grandmother who had passed at age ninety-five, just four years ago.
    "I want to feel useful, Daddy ," she said, veering back to the conversation with her father.
    "But sweetheart, you are useful. You help me buy good bulls. Your research and knowledge are more help than you'll ever know."
    "That's no big deal," she said.
    And it wasn't. It wasn't even a challenge. Her knowledge came from her education in biology and genetics. Most of her research and her contacts all over the Southwest and West came via her computer and the telephone. If she decided to go outside the ranch to acquire a bull, she could locate him and spot his quality as a sire with a glance at his registration papers and his statistics. She could make deals to buy with one eye closed and one hand tied behind her back. She kept such thorough records on premium bulls, rarely did she ever have to actually see one standing in a pasture somewhere to know if he was worth considering.
    The corners of Daddy's mouth lifted into a smile that led to a chuckle. "You might not think so, but if I didn't have you to do it, I'd have to do it myself. And as you keep reminding me, I'm a klutz on the computer."
    Jude smiled and shrugged. "You just haven't tried to learn to use the computer."
    "If managing the bull herd isn't enough, look at the work you do at the school, teaching these harebrained kids around here a little science. You work with your horses. You've got ol' Patch in the best shape he's ever been in. The paint horse show's coming up in Fort Worth. Why don't you take him over there and show him off a little?"
    He referred to her paint stallion. Patch's snow-white coat was marked with large black patches so perfect he looked as if he had been painted with a brush. A Tobiano paint, his bloodline went all the way back to the 1870s and one of the original Circle C stallions her great-great-great-grandfather had purchased from the Comanche.
    If not for Patch's illustrious bloodline, he would have been gelded and sold to be used as some dude's pleasure horse. He was a fine horse all right and he met the ranch's criteria for being a good using horse, except for one fact. Ranch hands, superstitious by nature, preferred solid-color horses.
    "He is in good shape, but he can't compete in those events. I haven't trained him to be a show horse."
    "Don't they have a team penning round? Why, smart as Patch is, he could do that one on three legs."
    The event required a team of three riders who had practiced together. Jude laughed, rising to her feet. She carried her glass to the bar's small counter and dumped her ice cubes into the sink. "Oh, Daddy. What am I going to do with you? I can't compete in team penning. I'm not part of a team. Patch is a cow horse and he knows it. He wants to do real work."
    She returned to her father's chair, sat down on the arm and hooked her arm around his shoulder, taking in again the scent of Aramis and cigars, now mixed with whiskey. "Let me help with the weaning and I'll show you just how good he's gotten at cutting calves."
    Her father patted her forearm. "Jude, honey, weaning's a hard, dirty job. And sometimes it's dangerous."
    Jude didn't disagree. At the Circle C, weaning was an age-old, fast-moving process that cowhands, under Daddy's direction, had made as efficient as it could possibly be while dealing with dimwitted animals that had an instinct to bunch together in herds. She had never dwelled on the dangerous part of ranch chores. It was a given that riding or handling animals that outweighed humans several times over carried an element of risk. "Getting dirty has never bothered me and I'm not afraid."
    "I know you're not," Daddy said. "I didn't raise you to be afraid of anything. But it makes an awful awkward situation having you out there with the hands. They feel like they need to look out for you and protect you. I don't want you putting yourself or one of them in