For Wyatt, who was attuned to nature as few people were, it was a glorious time. It was also a season of pressure on a ranch, when the calving was over and the babies were standing steady on spindly legs that often looked incapable of supporting their ever-increasing weight. Wyatt found each morning a challenge as he organized his crew and assigned tasks for the day. Livestock needed to be vaccinated. Bull calves had to be banded. Irrigation lines that had developed weaknesses during the brutal freezes of winter always popped a few gaskets. It was nothing to look out across a field to see five or six geysers spewing from wheel lines, and they had to be fixed, posthaste.

Kennedy aced his spring finals and switched gears from scholar to rancher overnight, but unlike in the past, he grabbed a shower and took off for town when his shift ended. When he had irrigation duty, he returned at six in the evening to move wheel lines and swap out defective sprinkler heads, and he was up the next morning to do it again at six. Slade held to a twelve-hour watering schedule, and Wyatt was proud of his brother for manning up to do his job even when it interfered with his love life.

Erin could no longer while away the mornings with Firecracker. Wyatt needed her to partner up with a crew member and do her share to keep the ranch operating like a well-oiled machine. He assigned her to work with Tex. He’d seen the genuine dismay in her expression when he’d told her that her competitiveness pushed the elderly Texan to work harder than his aging body could handle, and Wyatt hoped that Erin’s kind heart would overrule her tendency to outperform everyone when she was with the old man. She had a loving nature and a great capacity to care about others, be they human or animal. Working with Tex would be a constant governor for her, similar to the ones installed in new cars to keep them from reaching dangerous speeds.

Instead of neglecting Firecracker and allowing her to backslide, Erin began working with the horse in the predawn gloom and then again at night after the bunkhouse kitchen was cleaned up. Wyatt admired her for that. While the men did only the required work, Erin was tacking four extra hours onto her day. That told Wyatt more about her than she would ever know. She loved with her whole heart. She was compassionate in a way that many people weren’t. When she decided to help someone, in this case a horse, she didn’t slack off when the going got rough. He was proud of her, and he couldn’t help but wonder what more she’d discovered about herself while working with the mare.

Due to sexual deprivation, Wyatt still struggled to sleep well at night. But the long, fair-weather days taxed his body so much that he eventually fell into an exhausted slumber. He saw Erin dozens of times a day, and each encounter left him aroused. She moved with such grace, the muscles of her body working together like dancers on a stage. He noticed that her figure had grown more streamlined and somehow softer looking since she’d come to work for him. He attributed that to the fact that she no longer haunted the Crash and Burn to lift weights and pump up certain parts of her body. Ranching targeted every muscle, but in a natural, unfocused way that fostered lean strength.