As long as they didn’t mess with her or with Sawyer anymore, it wasn’t her problem, so she wasn’t going to worry about it.

* * *

Sawyer’s phone made a buzzing noise that said a text was coming through, but he ignored it. It was probably his sister, Martina. She and her family attended a church that started earlier and ended before the customary twelve o’clock.

He loved his family, even his bossy sister and overprotective brothers. He’d really like to take Jill to Comfort to meet them, but to drive that far and back in one day wouldn’t work. They had promised to visit Fiddle Creek over Easter, so he could look forward to that. They would bring their RVs and park behind the bunkhouse, and he could show his brothers the ranch while his sister, his mother, and his brothers’ wives got to know Jill better.

Youtakeyourwomanhometomeetthemamaonlyifthingsaregettingserious, that smart-ass voice in his head said. AnditmightbeagoodthingtotellJillthattheyareplanningtovisit. That means tell her before the weekend they are arriving.

Sawyer nodded when everyone around him was shaking their heads. Jill poked him on the thigh. “Are you listening to the preacher?”

He shook his head.

“It looked like you were disagreeing with the Bible, nodding like that,” she said.

“I was thinking about something else,” he admitted.

She blushed.

“Evidently you were too.”

The blush deepened, and his hand dropped from the back of the pew to her shoulder. He squeezed and leaned over to say softly, “After lunch with Finn and Callie, want a repeat of last night?”

She didn’t nod, but then she didn’t shake her head, but the slight upturn to her full mouth was a yes in his books.

The preacher wound down, making his final plea in veiled words to both families that the feud would consume them if they didn’t make peace. Sawyer didn’t see either side softening up a bit.

Jill suddenly jerked her cell phone from her purse, which was sitting on the floor right beside her foot. She read the text message, tapped Sawyer on the shoulder, and said, “We’ve got to go right now.”

Sawyer’s blood turned to ice. The only reason a person left the church was if a catastrophe had occurred. “Is it Polly?”

“No, but it was Aunt Gladys. She’ll meet us at the store. There’s a problem on the ranch.”

The congregation stopped listening and stared at them as they left the church. When Sawyer opened the squeaky double doors, suddenly a whole sea of Gallaghers hurried outside behind them.

“Damned Brennans,” Betsy said. “They’ve cut the fences between Wild Horse and Fiddle Creek. Our cattle is all mixed up with Fiddle Creek’s cows again. We’ve got to get this sorted out, or we’ll have mixed breeds on both ranches if they’ve let Granny’s Blonde d’Aquitaine in with your Angus.”

“Shit! I don’t want that breed mixed with our stock. They’ve messed with the wrong woman,” Jill declared.

If it was the truth that they’d involved her even more in this crappy pig-shit war, or if they used it as a ruse to try the kidnapping stunt again, she fully intended to join the war and wipe both families off the map. Now they’d spend the whole damned afternoon sorting out cattle, when she could be over on Salt Draw, having dinner with Callie and playing with those kids.

Gladys was fuming by the time they reached the ranch, cussing like a veteran sailor as she showed them the area where more than two hundred head of Wild Horse cattle roamed over a field of sprouting winter wheat. If it hadn’t been for the difference in the brands on the hips of the black cows, they wouldn’t have been able to tell them apart.

Betsy frowned and yelled at Tyrell. “Someone got it wrong. This isn’t our Blonde d’Aquitaine herd. This is just our regular Angus stock.”

“What are you doing with that breed?” Sawyer asked.

“It’s something Granny wanted to try. But these are our regular Angus cows. Not even a bull amongst them. It won’t take long to get them sorted out, and then we’ll take all three of you over to Wild Horse for dinner,” Betsy said.

Gladys checked the barbed wire. Yes, sir, it had been cut smooth right in the middle between the two metal fence posts. The Brennans had had her sympathies more than the Gallaghers down through the years, but now they’d lost every bit of it.

It took a lot longer than they thought it would. When the job was done and the fence fixed, it was well past two o’clock. Gladys refused to go to Wild Horse but did offer to take Jill and Sawyer down to Gainesville to a little café that made the best chicken-fried steak in North Texas.

“What about Polly?” Jill asked.

“She and Verdie decided to watch movies all afternoon. She’ll be fine,” Gladys said.

Chapter 21

While the Gallaghers were busy herding cattle and fixing fence on the south side of Wild Horse, four Brennan men simply opened the gate on Wild Horse Ranch, down next to the Red River and herded the light-colored, floppy-eared bull and his harem across the shallow stream and up over the bank on the Oklahoma side, where two cattle trucks waited.

The last cantankerous old heifer refused to get into the truck like her cohorts, so they shooed her back across the river and into the pasture before they shut the gate. Careful not to touch anything without gloves, they damn sure hoped the weatherman and the sky weren’t lying to them. They needed the driving, hard rain to wash away the hoofprints leading over into Oklahoma.

“Ready?” Russell Brennan asked when his nephew, Quaid, climbed up into the cab.

“Across to the bridge crossing back into Texas, through Gainesville, and to our destination. We should be there in an hour,” he answered.

“Maybe they’ll think twice before they steal any more of Mama’s hogs. The new stock are arriving this week. She’s buying Herefords this time.” Russell fired up the engine and drove toward the dirt road leading to Highway 32, which would take him to Marietta where he’d catch I-35 south into the outskirts of Gainesville.

“Herefords?”

“Looks just like a Hereford cow. White face, white feet, red body. They’re supposed to grow off quick and produce quality meat. But the important thing is no one within a hundred miles of Burnt Boot has them. No one would dare steal them,” Russell explained.

They listened to the country music countdown. Russell kept time with his thumb on the steering wheel. It was about time they did some serious damage to the Brennans after the hog-stealing business. He’d told his mother then that they should strike back and strike hard, but she wanted to wait a spell until a time came when they’d least expect it. He had to give it to the old girl, she flat-out knew her way around a feud. When it was his time to rule the family, though, he intended to do things different. He would retaliate immediately, and the Gallaghers would soon learn not to mess with him.

“What would you do, Uncle Russell, say if Leah got it in her head she wanted to get hitched to a Gallagher?” Quaid asked.

“There’d be one dead Gallagher. Do you know something I don’t?” Russell’s thumbs went still.

“No, sir. It’s just that it’s been all these years, and it’s going to happen someday.”

“Not on my watch, it’s not. And it damn sure won’t be my daughter,” Russell said.

An hour later he backed the first of two trucks up to the Salt Holler bridge. Wallace opened the gates, and cattle meandered out at a slow speed, wary of the old wooden bridge under their feet, eyes rolling at the deep ditch beneath them.

Wallace removed his hat and slapped a cow on the flank. She took off, and the rest followed her lead, bawling the whole way to the other side, where they split seven ways to Sunday. Some going to the left, some to the right, some in a hurry, some slowing down to taste what little grass they could find.