Gentle Cowboy Take My Heart (Maxwell Love #2) (COMPLETED)

Chapter 3

"Brooke! Hello? Anyone in that little head of yours?" Her brother, Jeremiah waves his hand in front of her face.

She jumps when he snaps his fingers loudly. "Yes! Sorry I just zoned out, I guess."

He nods. "I see that. What are you working on?" He steps around behind her a bit to see the screen of her computer, but she quickly snaps it shut.

"Oh it's nothing!" She quickly flashes a smile and hops up from the recliner.

Lowly he chuckles. "You keep saying that, baby sis, you'll tell me before too long."

Shaking her head she steps into her room and flops back onto her bed. The memory foam molds around her body as she stairs out the window at the lone mesquite tree in the yard. It sways back and forth in a soothing motion and before long her eyes flutter closed and she drifts off into a light sleep.

"Brooke, you are a very talented young lady, don't let anyone tell you different," Her mom, Tina, says with a smile. It is the day of graduation.

Throwing her arms around her mom's neck Brooke shakes her head. "Momma, I don't know how to thank you for all the time and love you have invested in me."

Holding her at arms length Tina grins. "Give me some grandkids to do the same with," she says with a wink.

Suddenly a crashing sound comes from the kitchen jolting Brooke from her nap and off of her bed. "Jeremiah! What are you tearing up in here?" As her gaze travels around the glass scattered across the floor and then up to her brother's saucer sized eyes she can only shake her head.

"I may or may not have been trying to make cookies and knocked the bowl off the counter?" He says sheepishly.

Looking up at her older brother she can't help, but to smile. "My brother Jeremiah Kendall was making cookies? No wonder the world stopped spinning."

He frowns. "Hey! I was trying to be nice."

She smiles and starts to pick up the large pieces of glass. "I know, you always are. Can you grab me the broom, please?"

In a few short seconds he has come and gone from the utility room and has the broom in hand. "Brooke, you don't have you act like it isn't a big deal I know that was Grandmomma's favorite bowl to cook in, your too."

"Accidents happen, even with twenty-six year old men. It's not your fault that it fell off and shattered." When she sees the look of pure guilt in his eyes she stands and wraps her giant of a brother in a hug.

"I miss her," he mumbles.

With her head against his chest she nods the best she can. "I know, me too."
***

Gary stabs the pitch fork into a mound of hay and lifts what sticks into the wheel barrow to his left. A few more times of that and it is brimming full with the fluffy substance. He stabs the pitch fork into the hay one more time, but this time he leaves it there and takes the wooden handles of the wheel barrow in his hands. Briskly, he strolls towards the barn. Once inside he stops in the tack room and fixes buckets of feed for each horse that is in either one of the six stalls or five pens.

When the eleven buckets have the perfect amount of oats and alfalfa pellets in them he takes them and deposits them in a red wagon. Tying the rope attached to the wagon handle to his belt loop he shakes his head and mumbles to himself, "I look like an idiot right now."

Absent-mindedly he takes hold of the wooden handles of the over loaded wheel barrow and starts his nightly routine. First, he starts with the therapy horses that stay in the stalls most of the time. Then he moves to the pens in the back. One of them holds a mare and three week old colt who is just getting over the scours. While the other is opened up to a small trap where four horses come up for a nightly supplement to their daily grazing.