"Kristenson, Agatha - The Rancher's Wife" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kristenson Agatha)

The Rancher's Wife by Agatha Kristenson


Chapter 1


The late afternoon sun was still blazing hot. Kate Sutherland wiped
the sweat from under her ponytail and bent again to pull tender green
onions from the crusted earth of the garden. The flies and bees sped
by in a monotonous tune of buzzing through the corn stalks and over the
tomato plants. It hung in the still heat that shimmered over the
fields beyond.

Kate straightened again and wiped her brow, looking out over the green-
gold rolling plains through the big poplar that stood guard over the
edge of the garden. It was almost a blinding color, the wheat gold
that burned the eyes and leeched their moisture in a Van Gogh painting.
Arles must have been very much like South Dakota she decided.

She moved over to the cucumber patch and pulled three big ones for
dinner, feeling their slick green silky length in her hand. Cole would
be home tomorrow. She blushed then, realizing those phallic vegetables
had made her think of her husband. Well, it had been a long time. Six
weeks in France while she'd been here alone on the ranch except for the
hired hands.

Kate wandered over to the strawberry patch, her basket almost laden now
with vegetables, the good things she grew every summer in this
unpromising earth. If the foreman hadn't been so new she could have
gone with Cole. She still didn't quite understand what was that
special about a Limousin bull but Cole studied every night after
dinner, the breeds, the blood lines, the beef per pound, the
proportions of bone and gristle and fat. A Limousin bull was finally
what he had to have ... and so he'd gone.

There were times when she almost hated the pedigrees and charts of the
cattle that Cole studied. He kept meticulous records and knew every
calf and the day it was born and who its great great grandparents were.
For this was the excuse he used every time she mentioned adopting a
child. "Hell no! I know too much about genetics. Adopting a kid from
one of those agencies would be like buying a bull or a heifer without
knowing the pedigree. You're liable to get stuck with anything! A
runt or worse!"

A sigh of apprehension escaped Kate's dry lips. What was Cole going to
say when he got home tomorrow and found out about the two high school
boys she'd hired to help for the summer. They were not of the "best"
bloodlines certainly. From the inner city, not much better than
foundlings. Hard tough city boys who knew nothing about ranches or
ranch life.