The announcer’s voice booms over the speakers, rattling the metal chutes. “Next up in team roping—Hunt Blackwood on the head side.”
A steer explodes from the chute, dirt flying, hooves pounding.
Hunt’s horse surges forward, ears flat, perfectly in sync with him. Hunt swings his rope high, smooth and sure, and in a blink the loop drops over the steer’s horns.
“He’s good, ain’t he?” someone says.
Elena snorts. “Don’t let him hear you say that, Chuck. Man’s ego barely fits in the arena as it is.”
Chuck leans on the rail, grinning. “What can I say? He ropes clean. Cocky or not, he’s one of the best in the Canyon.”
“He’s cocky as fuck,” a woman says, and she isliterallydrooling.
They are not wrong.
The header’s job is the clean catch, and Hunt makes it look easy. The steer jerks sideways, muscles straining, but Hunt’s horse plants hard, turning left, dragging the steer just enough to give his partner a clean shot.
The heeler’s rope sings through the air, snapping tight around the steer’s back legs.
In less than seven seconds, it’s done. They’ve stopped the steer, caught head and heels, the whole run neat as a choreographed dance.
The crowd roars. Cowboys slap the fence. Dust hangs in the air like smoke.
I can’t help it—I am fascinated.
Team roping’s not just brute strength; it’s timing, trust, and hours of work between horse and rider. Hunt tips his hat toward the stands, grinning wide, and for a second, I see why they call this man cocky. He’s earned that title fair and square.
CHAPTER 11
cade
My daughter has met Sarah a couple of times, that’s it, and yet, she’s obsessed with her.
Like father, like daughter.
I noticed Sarahfor realwhen she came with her father to Blue Rock. She was helping him because his assistant was away. We had a cow in distress, and Sam had been called in the middle of the night.
She’d been sixteen to my seventeen.
I knew who she was, but she was a year behind, so I hadn’t paid much attention. That changed quickly.
Her small hands grip the flashlight as she firmly holds the beam right where her daddy tells her to.
“Alright, Sarah, tell me what’s wrong with our girl here?” her father asks as he examines the cow standing restless in the chute.
I frown until I realize that he’s teaching her, testing her.
“She’s not eating, her belly’s bloated, and you said her stomach’s shifted. So…it’s a displaced abomasum, right?”
Sam smiles as he presses along the cow’s left side. “And when does a cow usually get DA?”
I glance at Sarah. She’s thinking so hard, I swear I can hear the gears in her head.
“After calving, or sometimes when feed changes, the abomasum fills with gas and flips out of place, usually sliding up on the left under the ribs.”
She recites it like she’d been studying out of a textbook. I’m so damn captivated, I’m ready to marry the girl.
“What do we do when a cow has DA?” Sam holds out his hand.
