Chapter Four

      “There’s some.” Gabi pointed from the seat of his truck the a small patch of purple flowering weeds.

       “Vetch,” Jess said, shocked she was pointing at the very common weed here in Texas pastures. The list of plants that could have killed the heifers was long, but her pointing to vetch took him by surprise, as did her excitement about looking for poisonous plants on his ranch. He’d welcomed her enthusiasm for finding the plant that might be responsible for the death of his heifers. The woman had been hard at it from the moment she’d driven up. He was glad for the help but trying not to let his thoughts linger too long on how cute she was. She was there to help him out. And he was glad of it. But this? Vetch? It was everywhere. If it was poisonous, then he felt pretty stupid.

       “Yes, hairy vetch is a very poisonous plant when it wants to be.”

       “Seriously? I’ve never heard of vetch killing cattle. It’s a good, nutritious feed source.”

       “Most of the time it’s a great food source. Stop here and let me get a sample. See, vetch is a real tricky little plant. You can graze cattle on it forever and never have a problem and then one day, boom—you’ve got sick cattle. Dead cattle.”

       “How have I not known this?”

       She laughed. “You aren’t stupid. It’s a sneaky plant. It also just affects dark-skinned animals, like your Angus and Angus mixes.”

       “That’s weird. What does it do?”

       “It causes skin lesions around the head and the neck area, and also the tailhead.”

       “I didn’t notice that on the heifers that died.”

       “I didn’t notice it on any of the cattle you brought up for testing either. This is definitely not your culprit. But I’m getting samples of everything I see. Who knows, we could be surprised. There are some worse symptoms from vetch that you would have noticed, far more obvious alerts that something was wrong.”

       Floored, Jess listened to her finish talking about the symptoms this plant could cause in his cattle. He had to admit that he was impressed. She knew her stuff.

       Full speed ahead, she hopped from the truck and took some plastic baggies with her. He followed, watching as she snipped different plants and placed them in bags. Hands on his hips, he stared at his pasture with renewed wariness and wondered what other toxic plants he might be harboring right beneath his nose that he was clueless about.

       “Stop feeling bad about not realizing vetch is a toxic plant,” Gabi said, reading his mind as she squinted up at him in the late afternoon sun. “There’s only about a hundred known toxic plants in Texas alone. It’s not like you’d know them all. And, believe me, you’d be surprised by some of them. Some ranchers know a few, but honestly, not many ranchers would know them all. That’s what makes this so difficult. Some mimic others and some are toxic only under certain conditions.”

       She was close enough that he could see the tiny iridescent dark blue specks rimming her sparkling green eyes. Her eyes were incredible. He couldn’t stop staring. This need to look at Gabi Newberry had to be curbed.

       “How did you get to be so smart?” Lame question, Holden. “Did they teach you that in tech school?”

       “Are you kidding? Susan’s the vet, and even she has to pull out books and do a search to figure out which one it could be.”

       “So what you’re telling me is you’re extremely smart and you just know all this stuff about toxic plants that you’ve been rattling off to me.” That got him a big laugh and a wave of her blunt-cut nails.

       “No, no. I’m no brain. Me, I’m an in-the-trenches kinda gal. You know, I have to do the grunt work, get my hands dirty and learn things that way.”

       That made him smile. “So how do you know this?”

       She shrugged. “One of the places I worked my first year on the job had a major problem. Cattle were dropping left and right. It was a terrible thing. It took us weeks and a ton of dead livestock before we found out what the problem was. Turned out it was a combination of two things, not just toxic plants. That was what had everyone turned around so we couldn’t figure it out. Plain bad coincidence that there was a fungus in the feed they were buying and a Tarweed plant problem at the same time.”

       “So you spent a lot of hours in the pastures taking samples.”

       “You got it. And more time pouring through books and on the internet researching symptoms. Plants are really, really hard to diagnose. That’s why Susan thought I could at least come on out to see what the obvious plants could be that might be your problem. Not super smart, just super tenacious. I don’t tend to give up if I’m on a project.”

       “I’m impressed.”

       “Don’t be. Not one thing here to be impressed about. I’m a fairly stupid person. My past speaks loud and clear.”

       That made him even more curious about her past, but he didn’t pry. “I am impressed and grateful too for your help. If it had been one cow, it could have been anything. But four at one time worries me that they could all drop dead by morning.”

       “Then let’s get busy. Show me where the cows were found and let’s search those areas first. Chances are if it was toxic plants, the poisoning happened over a period of time. But it also could have been almost immediate. If so, we are on a race against time. Who knows, maybe we’ll catch a break and figure it out immediately.”

       Jess had a bad feeling that wasn’t going to happen as he led the way back to the truck and they headed toward the pasture where he’d found the dead cattle.

       Soon as he stopped, Gabi went to work. He tagged along beside her. They talked plants for a while and then took some samples.

       “Why did you decide to move here?” Jess asked, filling the silence that settled between them when they were again in the truck. He glanced at her as he drove through one gate toward the back pasture where the cattle had been grazing.

       “To be near my Gram. And God. Oh, wow, do I have a lot of catching up to do between me and God. And that is what I’m here for. Tell me about you, Jess,” she said, looking serious. “You and your brothers own this wonderful place. So you ranch all the time?”

       “This ranch is what I do with my brothers. My business is I buy and transport cattle for myself and others. That income supplements this ranch. The same goes for Luke. He has his rodeo stock. I’m just as worried about his stock as I am our cattle. He’s got a full schedule lined up for them and if we’ve got something infectious going on, then this