Once and for All by Jeannie Watt

businessman,” Jodie finished for her. He would want a live calf by the side of every cow. Profit for each investment.
    “Lucas can handle regular births, but he can’t do C-sections.” Margarite knocked on the wooden table. “Not that we’ll have any.”
    Jodie smiled weakly and stared back out at the line of cattle stretched across the snowy pasture, heads down, eating the hay Lucas had dropped.
    Would her father want Sam on the ranch on a regular basis?
    No.
    Would Sam agree to come on a regular basis?
    Probably not—unless the money was a sure thing.
    Was she feeling an edge of desperation? Definitely.
    “Hey, you’re fortunate none of those fancy mares Joe bought last summer are due to foal until spring,” Margarite said, breaking into Jodie’s thoughts. “You’ll be long gone by then.” She picked up her pencil again just as Sam’s distinctive bronze-colored truck appeared on the crest of a small hill about a half mile away.
    Jodie watched the vehicle disappear into the dip half a mile from the house. “Margarite?”
    The housekeeper looked up.
    “Is Sam a good vet?”
    “Yeah. He is.”
    Jodie did her best to keep an open mind, which wasn’t easy after hearing her father rant about Sam for months. “Did he make a mistake with my dad’s horse?”
    Margarite hesitated, then said, “I’m not a vet, so I can’t say.”
    A politically correct and totally unhelpful answer. Jodie went to the sink and rinsed her cup, setting it on the drain board before going out into the mudroom and putting on her barn coat. She wound a red silk scarf around her neck and went outside into the nippy midmorning air to wait for Sam.
    Mike Bower had better darned well hope that she never accidentally ran into him, because if she did, she was going to indulge in some retribution for putting her in her current position. Sam might or might not be a good vet, but she felt decidedly uncomfortable being in a position where she was beholden to him.



CHAPTER FIVE
    Have some answers. Please have some answers.
    Sam parked beside the pump house and went straight to the barn without acknowledging her, so Jodie crossed the wide drive to find out what was happening.
    He was in the bull’s pen, doing something with the big animal when she opened the door. She stepped inside, but hung back, not sure what he was up to or if it involved blood and gore. Bronson knocked his hoof against the stall door and Jodie went to see if Lucas had fed him yet. He hadn’t, so she put a flake of hay in the manger and then went in with the fork to clean the pen. She was spreading straw, shaking the flakes with the fork to loosen them, when Sam approached.
    “How’s the bull?” she asked, standing straight, both hands gripping the pitchfork.
    “I think he’ll get better now. If he doesn’t, I’ll have to operate.”
    “What’s wrong with him?” Jodie was focusing on the “get better” part. There was hope.
    “I suspect traumatic reticuloperitonitis.”
    “Which is?” A big long vet word. She hoped he wasn’t trying to dazzle her with smoke and mirrors and vocabulary.
    “Hardware disease. I think he swallowed metal, like a nail or wire, and it’s perforating his rumen.”
    “He what? Where would he get a nail?”
    “Feed. Cattle don’t chew. They swallow all kinds of stuff.”
    “My dad isn’t going to believe this one.”
    “If he continues in the ranching business, he will.”
    “What’s the treatment if you don’t operate? I mean…it’s a nail. That can’t be good.”
    “I fed him a magnet.”
    “Very funny.”
    Sam’s expression didn’t change. “It’s the treatment. Look it up on the Web.” He seemed pretty damned confident. “The magnet will pull the nail out of the rumen wall and the wall will heal if all goes well.”
    “Do you make this up?” Jodie asked.
    “Would I risk another lawsuit?”
    Probably not, and she felt a ridiculous urge to trust him. “Okay. You feed him a magnet. How do you get the magnet