Read Online The Love of a Lawman, The Callister Trilogy, Book 3 by Anna Jeffrey - Free Book Online

stallion's body, the arrogance in his bearing, the intelligence in his eyes. "Cutting horse, huh? You had him in shows?"
    "Some futurities in Texas."
    "He's got cow," Ava said.
    Isabelle chuckled and looked at Ava with obvious affection. "My little expert." She looked back up at John. "He's good with cows, all right, but he's high-spirited. Sometimes he takes some handling. He doesn't mean to be troublesome. His biggest problem is being a five-year-old stud."
    John laughed as the two mares ambled up to the corral fence by the big barn on the other side of the driveway and whinnied, no doubt feeling slighted. He turned, walked across the driveway to the fence and gave them a quick once-over. Izzy and her daughter followed. "These are good-looking nags, too."
    She cocked her head and looked up at him, squinting from the sunlight. "Get out your checkbook, sheriff. They're for sale."
    "They trained for cutting, too?"
    "You betcha. That's what Billy and I did in Texas."
    John's tongue itched to ask about the state of her and Billy Bledsoe's relationship and how she got her hands on horses like these three, but he restrained himself. "You show them, too?"
    "We—I used to. They're too old for futurities, but they're still qualified for some shows."
    "Who keeps them in shape?"
    "Me. It's what I do. I'm well known for it."
    John had spent most of his life in a world of horses. Women were all over it, calling themselves trainers, but he knew of few really successful ones. He looked her in the eye. "You don't say."
    "Right now I mostly just want to sell them."
    Like hell she wanted to sell them. He could hear that much in the way her voice softened a note when she said it. Still, if that was her story, why had she brought them here? Even with as little knowledge as John had about the cutting-horse community in Idaho, he knew it had to be small compared to the scene in the Southwest. The nearest buyer for a horse like one of these would have to be in Boise, or more likely Texas or California. Anywhere but here.
    She spun and marched toward the house. John couldn't keep from thinking her butt still had that twitch he had admired in high school.
    When they reached the backyard, he set the box of puppies on the ground. "I brought a doghouse with me and some doggie stuff."
    Izzy gave him a flat look. "Doggie stuff?"
    He looked right back at her. "Puppies gotta have something to chew on, right?"
    He returned to the front porch, picked up the doghouse and the sack of toys and Puppy Chow, then lugged them to the backyard. "Their shots are all arranged. No charge. All you have to do is take them by the vet's office."
    Izzy stood on the stoop, arms crossed under her breasts while he and Ava located and leveled the doghouse a few feet from the back door, resetting and readjusting it until the installation suited the kid. At the end of it, mud covered his boots and his hands and knees.
    "When they're grown," Izzy said, "I doubt if even one of them will fit into that thing, much less two. Does that mean you're going to show up out here with a second doghouse?"
    "I could." John walked over to where she stood a couple of steps up on the stoop, pulled his handkerchief from his rear pocket and began to wipe his hands.
    "Good thing. I don't have a penny budgeted for doghouses."
    Meanwhile, the puppies had climbed out of the box and waddled around the muddy yard, their tails whipping back and forth. "They can sleep on the porch," Ava said, picking them up, one under each arm. She carried the muddy-footed puppies into the house.
    Izzy held the door open. "Be sure to clean them up before you turn them loose," she said to Ava. She looked down at him and said, "See what you've done?" But he didn't detect true anger in her tone. "If you want to wash off the mud, you can come in and use the laundry sink."
    John stuffed his handkerchief back into his pocket, scraped his boot soles and followed her to a screened-in porch that ran the length of the house in back.