I went on and told her other ways that Jake had seemed to change, including no longer following the plan set forth by Luke. From the little I’d seen of it, some of his ideas were decent enough, but the others were clearly designed to cut corners without regard to the health of the horses, such as the cheaper feed.
“That’s good,” she said when I was finished. “Your father would never have changed his mind no matter what happened. Lord, that man was obstinate. I think you must be right about Jake.”
We talked a little longer about the baby and then she filled me in on the book she was reading for book club and her latest quilting project—she was making lap blankets for the local senior center—before saying goodbye. I continued rocking as I looked out over my ranch.
I admitted to myself that I’d cherrypicked the examples that I’d shared with my mom about Jake, focusing on the ones that showed him in a good light rather than the ones that made me want to tear my hair out in frustration. But I felt good about my relationship with him.
When he did turn stubborn, sometimes it had been good. Like taking me to urgent care when I’d hurt my ankle or convincing me to go to the dance.
As much as I’d argued at the time, I knew he’d made the right call with my ankle. I would’ve definitely continued working and walking on it if the doctor hadn’t told me not to. And the dance ended up being a lot of fun and I ended up gaining a couple new clients from there.
Big questions remained, though. Would we live together? In what ways would his stubbornness be an issue? Then there was the fact that he’d yet to have a conversation with me about Twister. I needed my stallion’s stud fees if I was going to build my business and compete against the corporate chain.
Things were good between us, but as I’d told my mother, I wasn’t rushing toward a relationship with him. We had time.
TWENTY-FIVE
JAKE
“Thanks.” Julia smiled as I handed her a bottle of water. She’d taken one look at the buffet table laden with catering from Bite and Brew and turned a little green.
I’d quickly steered her to the other side of the ranch’s living room, which was covered in pink baby decorations for Caitlyn and Brian’s baby shower. The couple was expected to arrive any minute now. I would be glad to get this show on the road. I was excited about having a niece, but this kind of party really wasn’t my thing.
Too much pink, and I had no interest in playing any of the games.
“Julia was telling me about your agreement over Twister. He’s a great horse,” Shannon Cafferty said when I joined the two women and Declan.
“We’re still working out the details,” I said, not wanting to get into it. I’d been successfully avoiding going there with Julia since the night we’d made love in my bedroom.
“I’ve switched to artificial insemination entirely,” Shannon said, and I looked at her in surprise. I remembered the conversation we had outside Martin Ranch Supply when she’d been wrestling with whether to use live cover or AI.
She saw my look and held her hands up in surrender. “I know. I never thought I would, but Declan put me in touch with a colleague of his who shared a lot of interesting data. Once I got over my stubbornness, I had to admit that it makes more economic sense and also widens my options for semen.”
“A lot of breeders are making the switch,” Declan said.
“It’s safer for the animals and we catch the mares at their best chance of conception,” Julia added.
“I don’t care for it,” I said, unable to stop myself from commenting. “The research shows that conception is more likely with live cover.”
“You risk injuries that way, though,” Declan pointed out. “Injuries that could easily be avoided.”
“Nature’s been following that method since the beginning of time.” I knew about the worries Shannon had when one of their stallions hopped the fence to mount one of her senior horses, but this wasn’t what we were talking about. We were talking about intentional breeding and I didn’t see any reason to change what worked.
“We’d be living without cars and electricity if humanity thought that way,” Julia argued, turning toward me.
“That sounds overly dramatic,” I said. Both Shannon and Declan immediately found an excuse to back away from the conversation, which was probably wise.
“Dramatic?” she echoed. “You’re not concerned about the safety of your mares should a stallion get too rough and cause injuries?”
“Not if I’m keeping an eye on them. It’s easy enough to put a stop to anything potentially dangerous before it goes too far.”
Julia crossed her arms. “Of course, you’d have to come to an agreementwiththe stallion’s owner before any of thatcouldtake place,” she said.
“And I said I wasn’t ready to talk about it.”
“All I’m asking is that we agree on the details of Twister’s stud fees, put it in writing, shake hands, and be done with it. That’s not being dramatic. That’s business, which you claim you want.”
“I do. I want Twister to mate with my mares, but we’ve got time to figure out the details.”
