Prologue
Ice covered the shoveled walk from the house to the milking barn, and the path was slick with it. The predawn air was cupped by a dark sky chiseled with frosted chips of white stars. Each gulp was like sipping chilled razor blades that sliced, then numbed, the throat before being expelled in a frigid steam.
Wrapped in a multitude of winter layers, from long johns to knitted muffler, Shane MacKade headed toward the milking parlor and the first chores of the day. Unlike his three older brothers, he was whistling between his teeth.
He just plain loved the frosty and still hour before a winter sunrise.
His oldest brother, Jared, was nearly seventeen, and went about the business of running a farm like an accountant approaching a spreadsheet. It was all figures to him, Shane knew, and he supposed that was well enough. They had lost their father two months before, and times were rough.
As for Rafe, his restless fifteen-year-old soul was already looking beyond the hills and fields of the MacKade farm. The milking and feeding and tending of stock was simply something to get through. And Shane knew, though they never really talked about it, that their father’s death had hit Rafe the hardest.
They had all loved their father. It would have been impossible not to love Buck MacKade, with his big voice and big hands and big heart. And everything Shane knew about farming—everything he loved about the land—had come straight from his father.
Perhaps that was why Shane didn’t grieve as deeply. The land was there, so his father was there. Always.
He could have talked about that thought with Devin. At fourteen, Devin was already the best of listeners, and the closest to Shane’s own age. Shane was going to make the big leap to thirteen next Tuesday. But he kept the thought—and the feeling—to himself.
Inside the milking parlor, the first of the stock shifted and mooed, tails swishing as they were prepped. It was a simple enough process, could even be considered a monotonous one. The cleaning, the feeding, the attaching to machines that would pump the milk from cow to pipe, from pipe to tank for storage. But Shane enjoyed it, enjoyed the smells, the sounds, the routine. While he and Devin dealt with the second line of stock, Rafe and Jared led those already relieved of milk outside again.
They made a good team, quick and efficient despite the numbing cold and early hour. In truth, it was a job any one of them could have handled alone, or with very little help. But they tended to stick together. Even closer together these days.
Still, there were chickens and pigs to see to yet, eggs to gather, muck to shovel, fresh hay to spread. And all this before they gobbled down breakfast and climbed into Jared’s ancient car for the drive to school.
If he could have, Shane would have skipped the school part entirely. You couldn’t learn how to plow and plant, how to harvest or judge the weather by tasting the air, from books. You couldn’t learn from books how to look into a cow’s eyes and see that she was ailing.
But his mother was firm on book learning, and when she was firm, she was immovable.
“What the hell are you so happy about?” Grumbling, Rafe clanged stainless-steel buckets together. “That whistling’s driving me crazy.”
Shane merely grinned and kept on whistling. He paused only long enough to talk encouragingly to the cows. “That’s the way, ladies, you fill her up.” Content as any of his bossies, Shane moved down the line of milkers, checking each one.
“I’m going to pound him,” Rafe announced to no one in particular.
“Leave him be,” Devin said mildly. “He’s already brain-dead.”
Rafe smiled at that. “It’s so damn cold, if I hit him, my fingers would probably break off.”
“Going to warm up some today.” Shane patted one of the cows waiting in the stanchions to be hooked for milking. “Get up into the thirties, anyway.”
Rafe didn’t bother to ask how Shane knew. Shane always knew. “Big deal.” He strode out of the milking parlor, toward barn and hayloft.
“What’s eating him?” Shane muttered. “Some girl dump him?”
“He just hates cows.” Jared stepped back in, smelling of grain.
“That’s stupid. You’re a sweetheart, aren’t you, baby?” Shane gave the nearest cow an affectionate swat.
“Shane’s in love with cows.” Devin flashed the wicked MacKade grin, which had a dimple flickering at the corner of his mouth. “He has better luck kissing them than girls.”
Immediately insulted, Shane narrowed his eyes. “I could kiss any girl I wanted to—if I wanted to.” Under the layers of clothing, his lean, rangy body was on full alert.
Recognizing the signs, Jared shook his head. He just didn’t feel like a tussle now. There was too much work to do, and he had a big test in English Lit to worry about. Devin and Shane were too evenly matched, and a fight between them could go on indefinitely.
“Yeah, you’re a regular Don Juan.” He said it only to focus Shane’s attention, and temper, on him. “All the little girls are puckered up and waiting in line.”
Devin made a long, loud kissing noise that made Jared want to slug him. As Shane pivoted to do just that, Jared stepped between them. “But before you make their hearts flutter, lover boy, the water trough’s iced over. These cows are thirsty.”
Aiming a glance that promised Devin retribution, Shane stomped outside.