Robbie takes a deep breath. There’s not always an obvious difference between a pregnant cow and one who’s just calved. He can tell a difference in the belted cow himself, but is it only because he’s studying her so closely?

He watches Ed, who’s watching the cows as they hop on the trailer. The belted cow jumps in first, her two companions behind her as close as shadows. Robbie holds his breath, but Ed just closes the trailer door behind them and latches it.

Some of the tension in Robbie’s chest eases. Ed obviously doesn’t realize anything is materially different about the belted cow that left his property and the one he’s taking back home. But, now, Robbie has nothing to distract himself from the fact that Ed is taking three animals off the ranch, animals Robbie doesn’t trust him to care for. He thinks of the belted cow’s stubbornness, the bewildered expression she had when he pried her newborn calf from the ice, and how many times she kicked him when he got her squeezed behind a gate and milked her. Still, he’d rather she stayed in the pen where he could take care of her, and now, instead, she’s back at the mercy of an untrustworthy man.

Ed turns to him, and Robbie half-expects him to ask what he owes Robbie for the hay and the trouble of having the cattle, but then again, he isn’t surprised at all when Ed just grins and salutes.

“Thanks, neighbor. Hope I can return the favor some time.”

He turns to head toward the cab of the truck. Robbie knows this is the moment he should mention the calf and make his offer to buy. There’s no way Ed will refuse to sell him an animal he doesn’t even know exists at this moment. And even if he’d been anxiously awaiting the calf’s birth, all livestock has a price.

But sometimes people are irrational. Sometimes people tell you no, just out of spite. Robbie can’t bring himself to interrupt the silence as Ed and his nephew open and close the truck doors and pull away. Ed waves out the window. Robbie waves back.

The horses lost interest in the truck and trailer when they realized it didn’t have any horses as passengers. But while the others have gone back into the shed, Poco is standing at the gate, gazing hopefully at Robbie.

Robbie looks at him and blinks. “I’m a thief,” he confesses, abashed.

Poco flicks his tail; his right ear swivels back, then forward again.

“I don’t know. Don’t you think that’s worth feeling bad about?”

Quickly losing interest in human moral dilemmas, Poco turns and makes his way toward the hay bale, leaving Robbie alone, staring down his driveway for the second time in an hour, wondering how well he really knows himself.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lance

At least twice as he walks down the driveway, Lance considers turning back.

But as tempted as he is to run back to the hayloft, into Robbie’s arms—his bed—and pretend that there’s no world outside Riverside Ranch, he also knows that isn’t a reality for him.