Stealing Hearts (Wild at Heart #1)

38. RHETT

38

RHETT

Son of a bitch.

“He’s got a fever.” The bull stomps his hoof as I remove the thermometer from his ass. “Sorry, man. I hate doing this too.”

Jace shakes his head. “How did this happen? They’ve been healthy all season.”

“I don’t fucking know.” This is the fifth steer we’ve had to isolate. “When did the vet say he’d get here?”

“Hopefully by three. Thank God the cow-calf pairs are in that far back pasture.”

“This is probably bluetongue, which isn’t contagious animal-to-animal, but I wanna play it safe just in case.”

Because if this is serious, it could get bad, fast.

We’ve been out here since the break of dawn checking each and every animal. I got a call early this morning that one of the bulls was drooling and had blisters on his lower lip. That sent us all into action. Isolating the sick animals is our top priority right now. We have too much on the line to take any chances.

Something viral could take down my whole herd.

Which means we’d default on our loan.

Fuck.

I shuck off the glove and toss it in the large trash bin.

Jace wipes the sweat off his face. “Should we get some lunch? I’m starving.”

“There’s no time to eat. Go grab something if you need to, but we have to make sure this shit is contained and that we get the sick ones fluids and soft feed.”

Beau’s truck pulls up alongside the animal chute. “Brought y’all some sandwiches.”

Wayne taps my shoulder. “Boss, we got a problem.” Not what I wanna hear right now. He motions to the animal in front of me. “This is the steer that went missing this summer.”

That makes no sense.

I hang my hands on my hips. “Did we miss him somehow? Was he with the herd the whole time?”

“No, we count the herd every time we move them to a new field. Plus, he’s not in the vet’s reports we did last week. I just double-checked.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “So how did he get back in the herd? We haven’t had any cut fences lately, right?”

He shakes his head. “Checked that this morning. Everything looked good.”

When he walks away, I motion to Jace. “Can you walk the perimeter of the field where these guys were grazing?”

“Sure thing. What am I looking for?”

It takes me a minute to consider. “Repairs. Fences that were cut but then fixed.”

My brother chuckles. “Someone returned our steer and repaired the fence afterward? Who would do that?”

A sense of dread washes over me. “Someone trying to sabotage our operation.”

Like the fucking McAllisters.

We get the sick steer into a holding pen and resume checking the others. As Beau is checking the animal’s mouth, I motion to the house. “Are Paige and the kids okay? Did you tell them we’ll be working late tonight?”

“She, um, she’s still pretty pissed about last night.”

Shit. “Did you tell her we have sick animals? That this might affect whether or not we can repay Harlan’s loan? That our whole fucking operation revolves around these animals not being contagious?” I scrub my face. “I get that she’s upset, but she was dead asleep when I got home, and even though I tried to wake her, she didn’t budge. What was I supposed to do? Douse her with cold water?”

I tried to follow her home, but I had a flat tire, and it took me a while to change it in the dark. Then I found her sleeping on the couch.

As I think about it, my heart sinks. The woman must be livid. I don’t blame her, but it’s not like I planned to hash out shit with Darlene in the middle of a goddamn festival.

When that fuckhead Trig said I was keeping Darlene on standby, I could’ve killed him. But seeing the devastation on Paige’s face after he said that caught me off guard.

Does she really believe I could do that to her? Play her like she’s a chess piece I could discard?

Beau shoots me a look. “Don’t get mad at me. She really didn’t give me a chance to explain. Just said she needed to run some errands with Baylee and took the boys with her. Talk to her when you get home.”

“Yeah, I’m really looking forward to that after inspecting the mouth and asses of a hundred cattle today.”

He laughs. “You mean this ain’t fun for you?”

“Ha ha, asshole. I’m having a blast.”

I’m not much of a church-going man, but I can’t lie. I say a little prayer that we’ve found all the sick animals and that we’ll make it through this.

Because the entire future of my family—my wife, the boys, my brothers, and all my employees—depends on it.