A Rancher To Trust. Laurel Blount
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by the open barn door. Bailey halted, too, just at the corner of the back porch, her heart pounding.
“That’s right,” she murmured coaxingly. “Go in there, where I might have a shot at cornering you!”
The valuable calf had been a farm-warming present from her friends Abel and Emily Whitlock.
Abel had shaken his head ruefully when Bailey thanked him. “Let’s see how you feel in a year or so. I know you’ve been wanting a milk cow, but they’re a sight more work than most people realize. They’ve got to be milked rain or shine, whether you’re sick or not, Christmas Day same as any other. Then there’s the milk you’ll have to deal with. A good milker will give you gallons a day. That’s a lot for one person to deal with. And you can’t sell raw milk at that store of yours, not unless you get state certified, and that’s near about more trouble and expense than it’s worth.”
Bailey had only laughed. She didn’t care if owning a milk cow was going to be a lot of work. In fact, she was counting on it.
Now that her organic grocery store was well established, she’d been hungry for a new challenge. She missed the invigorating struggle of building up a fledgling business. Working hard was what made her feel alive. And the tougher the work, the more Bailey liked it.
Given how this was going, that was a good thing. The minute she’d seen the calf’s fluffy red topknot, Bailey had christened her Lucille Ball after the iconic redheaded television star, and Lucy seemed determined to live up to her name. A day didn’t go by that the animal didn’t find some kind of trouble to get into. She was cute as could be, but right now Bailey almost wished Emily and Abel had given her a toaster.
Lucy blinked her long-lashed brown eyes at the barn doorway for a second or two. She gave her head another sassy shake, making the water slosh noisily inside the bottle. Then to Bailey’s dismay, the calf kicked her heels and started off again, heading back toward the front yard.
Bailey blew out a sigh. “I do not have time for this today,” she informed her squawking chickens as she stalked past them.
She really didn’t, but she fought a smile as she spoke. Yes, she had a lot to do, but she wasn’t complaining. This crazy overload was exactly the tonic she’d needed.
It wasn’t just the store. She’d been feeling restless for about a year now, ever since bookstore owner Anna Delaney had married Hoyt Bradley. Since then, Anna and Hoyt had welcomed their first baby together. Another friend, pastor’s wife Natalie Stone, was expecting her second child in a few months. And Emily Whitlock had not one but two sets of twins to take care of, in addition to managing the local coffee shop.
Bailey was over-the-moon happy for them all, but lately she’d felt her usual zest for life ebbing a bit. Okay. A lot. It was just that, compared to all the exciting and meaningful stuff going on with her friends, Bailey’s life had seemed a little...
Boring.
Well, not anymore. Not since she’d gone to that informational meeting about foster parenting hosted by Anna’s bookstore, Turn the Page.
Bailey had only gone to help Anna with the refreshments and to support Jillian Marshall, the local social worker who was giving the presentation. Bailey had never expected to walk out of there with a packet of paperwork clutched in her hand and a new dream burning in her heart.
But she had. The pictures of those little faces had stirred up a dream she’d given up on a long time ago. As the “surprise” only child of older parents, Bailey had longed for brothers and sisters. She’d promised herself that someday she’d raise a big, rambunctious family of her own—preferably on a farm with plenty of animals and homegrown vegetables.
At the time, of course, she’d assumed she’d share that life with...somebody special.
That part hadn’t worked out the way she’d hoped. But according to Jillian, single women could be foster moms. That nugget of information was a game changer. Bailey could build her dream family all by herself by giving a loving home to kids who needed one.
And since she couldn’t do that in a cramped apartment, Bailey’s first order of business had been sinking all her savings into a down payment on the biggest house with the largest acreage she could afford. Which also happened to be a really old house that needed an awful lot of work.
Jillian had shaken her head when Bailey had given her a tour. “Honey, I hate to tell you, but this place is going to have to be overhauled from top to bottom if you want to pass the home-study safety inspection.”
Bailey hadn’t flinched, even though her bank account was anemic now. “No problem. Just tell me what I need to do, and I’ll find a way to do it.”
“Well, for starters, you’re going to have to put a fence around that pond there. Bodies of water have to be fenced off. It’s a rule.”
When Abel had heard about that, he’d trucked over some extra fencing material he’d had on hand. Bailey had argued, but all she’d gotten was a lecture on looking gift horses in their mouths.
So fencing was today’s project. Unfortunately, it wasn’t going well, even without the impromptu calf chases. So far, she’d gotten exactly three fence posts in, and she’d been at it for an hour and a half. She definitely had her work cut out for her.
But first she had to catch that ridiculous calf. The question was, how?
As she walked by the barn, an idea struck her. She ducked inside and scooped a small amount of grain into a bucket.
When she rounded the side of the house, she saw Lucy standing in the front yard, nosing the water bottle along the ground. When the calf heard Bailey approaching, the animal picked up her stolen toy and tensed, ready to scamper off again.
“See what I have?” Bailey rattled the bucket.
The calf took three curious steps in her direction and halted. Bailey shook the grain again. That did it. Lucy dropped the bottle and trotted in Bailey’s direction. Bailey backed up slowly, leading the calf toward the barn and jiggling her bucket enticingly with every step.
Five minutes later, Bailey was latching the big wooden doors behind her and dusting off her hands.
One problem solved, fifty bazillion to go. And she had no idea how she was going to manage most of them.
But, she reminded herself, Jacob Stone’s last sermon had been all about how God often called ill-equipped people to do His work. “If you feel like what you’re being called to do is impossible but is something the world needs, you’re probably on the right track,” the minister had said. “Just focus on doing what you can and trust Him for the rest of it. And always be prepared for Him to work things out differently than you might expect.”
Well, Bailey couldn’t wait to see what God was going to do with her situation, and if He wanted to tuck some surprises in along the way, that was fine by her. After a year of feeling purposeless and bored, this excitement was a welcome change.
On her way across the yard, she stooped and picked up Lucy’s discarded plastic bottle. Returning to her fence, she stashed the slobbery container next to the last post she’d managed to get in and pulled on her work gloves. She hefted up her new post-hole diggers and focused on the spot she’d marked for the next post. Raising the heavy diggers as high as she could, she rammed them downward, biting into the soft brown soil.
She’d clamped out three more skimpy scoops of dirt when she heard the sound of a vehicle crunching up her rutted driveway. She turned to see a silver Ford pickup nosing its way toward her.
Just what she didn’t need right now. Company. Oh well. Maybe it was a friend she could draft into helping her get this fence up while they visited.
Bailey’s eyes narrowed as she got a better look at the truck. She knew pretty much everybody’s vehicle around here, but she didn’t recognize this one. It was a newer model, but it had the dings and scrapes of a work truck. She squinted, but the afternoon sun was glaring off the windshield. All she could tell about