Read Online SEAL's Bride: A Secret Baby Romance by Vivian Wood - Free Book Online

“Will you two hurry up? I’m getting old up here, waiting on y’all.”
    Sawyer looked at Walker, who cocked a brow. Sawyer nodded, and Walker urged his horse into a gallop. Sawyer and Walker overtook Colt, although he caught up to them quickly.
    Riding hard, calling encouragement to their mounts, they flew across the gently rolling hills. The land began to slope down, small trees and shrubs springing up around them as they rode toward the river.
    As they got closer, the opposite side of the valley turned from dirt to sugarcane, an indication that they were riding near River Farm. Sawyer couldn’t see the farmhouse from here, but they did ride by a rickety pump house and a few feeble lean-to sheds.
    At length, they reached the barbed wire fence and rode west along it, heading for some specific spot that Colt had in mind. The fence was supported here and there with heavy wood posts, some in better shape than others.
    Colt stopped at a post that had rotted halfway up, the top half loosely hanging against the barbed wire lines that ran through it.
    “How many of the posts look like this?” Sawyer asked as they dismounted, giving their horses free rein to graze.
    “‘Bout 20, I’d say,” Colt said. “But a lot more of them need replacing. I’d hate to see the day that we wake up to find a big break in the fence, half the cows ranging downstream.”
    “Or worse, across Cur Creek in the sugarcane fields,” Walker said. “Braxton River would lose his mind.”
    Colt produced work gloves, pliers, snips, and a few small lengths of wire. “We don’t have to worry about that today. If we keep the ranch, we’ll eventually rebuild most of this fence.”
    “We’re just cutting the post free and linking the wire, huh?” Sawyer asked.
    Colt nodded. “Don’t know why anyone would build these with wood, anyway.”
    “Same reason we rode out here,” Walker said, squinting against the ever-brightening sun. “No good roads to move a lot of heavy metal, so I expect most of these posts are cut from trees down by the creek.”
    He pointed at the taller trees growing on the marshy banks of Cur Creek.
    “You know, I think you’re right,” Sawyer said, impressed with Walker’s analysis.
    “We need to spread out, do a quarter mile or so at a time, then come back and move the horses,” Colt said.
    Sawyer and Walker nodded, easily falling into a system. They each took every third post, working seamlessly together. It reminded Sawyer a little of back when they were teenagers; if they stepped out of line, which they always did, The Colonel would punish all three of them. To prepare them for the military, Sawyer supposed.
    So inevitably Colt would stay out all night, or Walker would provoke his father’s temper, or Sawyer would sneak off from the church social early. As a result all three of them would end up mucking out stalls, or transporting bales of hay. Furious at each other and at their father, barely speaking, but working as efficiently as possible.
    This was like that, but without all the simmering tension and anger. Well, mostly.
    Walker was silent, intent on his work. Colt, on the other hand, seemed to tire fairly quickly. Not that he said anything, of course, but he started to favor one leg and grumble as he went.
    His limp got progressively worse, and he seemed frustrated. Several times, Colt’s fingers slipped while he was working. Not uncommon, because the snips were a little tricky. Still, he would react a little wildly, even throwing his hat on the ground at one point.
    “Colt, man, you want to call it a day? Or go get some lunch?” Sawyer asked.
    Colt turned to him, cold fury in his eyes. “You calling me lazy, brother?”
    “Whoa, no,” Sawyer said, raising his hands. He looked to Walker for support.
    “I’m pretty thirsty, myself,” Walker said.
    Colt looked between Sawyer and Walker, then shook his head and shot them a disgusted expression.
    “Don’t you dare pity me,” he spat.
    Striding to his