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"Uncle Alex! Ohplease don't tell dad He'll ground "

The girl looked legiti told she couldn't ride her horse for a week, the sae Riding horses had been life for s than ju a ravine that stuck out to me in particular

"Pro to make my tone sound as serious as possible, but I didn't really have the paternal sternness that her dad, ed to use

"Promise I'll wait until my lessons" She answered affirmatively

I nodded "Good But if I catch you again you know I'll have to tell your dad about it" I hoped that she wouldn't take that word of caution the sa would have ht"

She smiled and nodded at h the pasture and I headed on s I needed to accomplish on this particular day

I needed to give the vet a call and see when they could conancy checks on the mares It was a task that we sometimes handled ourselves, but was best left to the professionals Doc Halloran had always been the one to service our horses and check up on the wild herd out back, but he had recently retired, and there was a new vet setting up shop at his practice He had assured everyone that the new vet was going to be able to take care of us all just the same and I took his word for it The er than I had been aliveand possibly even longer than my father He was in his 80s, and it ell past ti up his hat I trusted that thethe new vet that would take over for hi with all of the nearby ranches, but I

knew that soeneration would have an issue with it They always took issue with so up what they were used to as the norm

The barn door squeaked as I opened it and I rab soet done It was the sort of thing I could assign to one of the hired hands to make sure it happened, but if I left it up to one of my brothers to notice it, then it would be forever before it was taken care of Pete was too busy with the business side of things, and I couldn't really blahter and h work for any one er brothers as much slack, but everyone knew that Jake was up to his own thing and the tere always off doing as they pleased as soon as their as done Stephen and Saest, and while I knew I could ask the tail than running errands for me I was always the one who noticed the details and paid attention to the sood thing or if I was slipping into er around toof the ranch

I grabbed the small notebook fro the mares that we needed to have checked They were spread out across the three barns, and it was going to take me a while to count which ones had been with a stallion in the past feeeks We kept meticulous records on which mares had been hich stallions, but there had been an incident about a o with Nevada Rebel, one of ourinto a group of mares before anyone could stop him I tried to keep a close watch on that, and iven the nature of e did Accidents happen though, and if any of the roup that Nevada Rebel had infiltrated turned out to be pregnant, then ere going to have to spring for the DNA testing once they foaled It was pricey but a require to purchase a horse whose lineage couldn't be confirmed

As I ht up withover his shoulder He wiped the sweat from his brow, and I could see that he had already been up to so

"Where are you headed?" I asked