solid, stocky girl about the same weight as the average coyote, but thicker in the chest and not as tall.
The dog’s short-haired coat was the glossy color of melted chocolate. Rich white cream splashed across her chest and muzzle, cresting between her eyes. Streaks of caramel ran up all four of Herriot’s legs and also framed her happy smile with the mischievous look of a sweet-toothed troublemaker. Twin caramel dots on the inside of her brows made her seem extra intelligent to Beth, and perhaps slightly fierce from a cow’s point of view.
With the exception of Beth’s father, the dog was the only living creature at the ranch who didn’t seem to be judging Beth’s fool actions. She pressed into Beth’s legs as they went downstairs to the kitchen, bumping her haunches along the wall.
Rose Borzoi was already at the stove. Beth’s mother was a striking woman made even more beautiful than she was in youth by a quarter century of admiration poured over her by her husband. No one took more pride in Rose’s physical and intellectual strength than Abel Borzoi. His wife was nearly six feet tall barefoot, and she always went barefoot in the house, summer and winter. Her one vanity was her feet.
Her coarse brown hair was still as long and as thick as it appeared in her wedding picture, though it had started to gray. Rose bound it daily in a braid, then threw it back over the wide shoulders of her husband’s work shirts, which were too big for her at the shoulders and yet also seemed to fit like a good trademark, rolled up to the elbows and billowing out over hips widened by childbirth and horse riding.
Beth’s father was at the table, drinking his coffee.
“Hi, baby girl.” He beckoned her into a snug embrace while he stayed seated. Abel Borzoi was an overweight, grizzly bear man with a wide jaw and clean-shaven face and an open spirit that smiled on sinners and saints alike.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, though the truth was her parents had risen early.
Rose acknowledged Beth by saying, “Dog goes out.”
Beth put Herriot out every morning. Her mother didn’t need to make a point of ordering it. Nevertheless, Beth sent Herriot out the back door without comment. The Blazing B had four dogs, and though Herriot was the only one who slept with the humans, she was not allowed to dine with them. Her food would have been already set out with the horses’ near the barn.
Beth washed her hands at the sink and then fetched the pot, the water, and the steel-cut oats she’d need to make the oatmeal. There were fresh berries in a strainer in the sink, and her mother tossed slabs of ham onto a hot griddle. Her brothers, Levi and Danny, would come in at six to eat. Rose and a hired cook made the big hot midday meal for everyone down at the Hub. When it came to supper, usually cold sandwiches and leftovers, it was every man for himself.
Whatever her parents had been speaking about, they weren’t going to continue in front of her.
“I’m going to fix this,” Beth announced. “I have a plan. Today I’m going to go speak to Mr. Darling’s attorney.”
“You shouldn’t do anything without speaking to ours first,” her father advised.
“Hear me out—maybe we won’t need him. Maybe we won’t need to go to court. I’m to blame here. I did a stupid thing, and I can own up to that. I’ll pay Mr. Darling what he wants. I’ll pay him back for as long as it takes.”
“And just where are you going to get the money for that small country it seems he wants to buy?” Rose asked.
“I’ll start with my tuition.”
Abel set his coffee cup on the table. “You will not. You’re going to vet school in September, Beth. There’s no reason for this incident to derail that plan.”
Rose scoffed. “Incident. Hear her out, Abel. She has a part to play in whatever solution we’ve got to come up with.”
Beth measured salt into her hand and tossed it into the pot of water. “My tuition will be like a down payment. And then I’ll get a job. Two jobs. We’ll negotiate a payment plan. Ten years, twenty years, whatever it takes. I might have to put vet school off for a few years, but I can save up for it again.”
Her father shook his head. “I don’t support the idea.”
“If we don’t come up with some