CHAPTER 2 SADIE
SADIE
The next pen held a black steer that looked solid when I ran my hands down his legs and checked his feet. His paperwork showed the wrong lot number, though. Off by three digits. Small enough someone could call it a clerical error, but I wasn't buying that for a second.
I closed the folder and moved to the next pen.
Dallas fell into step next to me, and I probably should have told him to leave.
This was Hollister business. Or depending on what I uncovered, a Hollister mess.
It was my family's reputation on the line.
But I needed someone who knew what normal looked like, and Dallas had been working stock around Mustang Mountain longer than I'd been licensed to treat them.
That was the reason I gave myself, anyway. It had nothing to do with the way he matched my stride without being asked, or how the knot between my shoulders loosened half an inch just because he was there. Nothing at all.
The red roan gelding in pen six shifted when I approached, but he settled fast. Good temperament. Clean legs. I checked his teeth, ran my hand along his flank, and watched him move. There was nothing that would scratch him from competition.
His file had an old certificate number that corresponded to a January inspection, not June. And the brand description didn't match what was burned into his hip.
“This one came off the same trailer as the brindle,” Dallas said.
I looked up. “Are you sure?”
“I was here when they unloaded. Holt's crew brought three trailers. This one and the brindle were on the second load.”
I pulled the brindle's folder from under my arm and opened both side by side on the top rail of the pen. Different certifying vets. Different dates. Same inconsistencies in the details that shouldn't vary if someone was just filling out forms properly.
“Who handled the gates when they unloaded?”
Dallas thought for a moment. “Pritchard. He's worked Hollister stock for years.”
“And after they unloaded?”
“Holt separated them himself. Told Pritchard which pens.”
That didn't sound right. Holt didn't usually micromanage sorting. He had crew for that.
I closed both folders and moved to the next pen, my jaw so tight my teeth hurt.
This wasn't sloppy, and it wasn't an accident.
Someone had gone through the trouble of falsifying veterinary certifications, switching animals between registered stock, and covering their tracks just barely enough that no one would notice unless they were looking hard.
Or unless a vet pulled an animal for lameness three days before the rodeo and started checking the rest of the Hollister-supplied stock.
The next two animals were clean. Solid health, matching paperwork, brands that lined up. I almost relaxed.
Then I hit pen nine.
The dun mare's papers listed her as four years old.
She had to be at least seven.
I stood there staring at the certification page, my stomach turning over, because that wasn't a typo.
That was fraud. Age affected value, competition eligibility, and insurance.
Why would someone forge a horse's age? Who would benefit from three years disappearing off a paper trail?
Someone had shaved three years off this mare's record, and the vet's signature at the bottom of the page said it was legitimate.
“Sadie.”
I looked up. Dallas wasn't looking at me. He was looking past my shoulder, and I knew before I turned that Holt was back.
He crossed the space between the stock office and the pen in long, unhurried strides, and this time he didn't bother trying to look calm.
“You need to stop,” he said.
“I'm doing my job.”
“Your job is to clear stock for competition, not manufacture problems where there aren't any.”
“There are problems, Holt. Real ones. These certifications are—”
“Minor clerical errors that you're blowing out of proportion.”
He stopped a few feet away, but close enough I could see the muscle working in his jaw.
“You pull more animals, people are going to notice.
They're going to ask questions. And the Hollisters don't need that kind of attention right now, not with the Kincaids already looking for any excuse to make us look incompetent.”
My gut clenched. He was pissing me off. “I don't care what the Kincaids think.”
“You should. Because if you keep digging, you're going to hand them ammunition.”
“If I keep digging, I'm going to make sure no one gets hurt on my watch because someone decided paperwork was optional.” I stepped closer, and Holt's expression darkened. “I'm a vet before I'm a Hollister, and if you've got a problem with that, you can take it up with the state licensing board.”
His eyes narrowed. “You think your license protects you from family consequences?”
“I think it protects me from covering up fraud.” I knew men like Holt. They'd exploit family loyalty if it benefitted them and they thought they could get away with it.
For a moment, neither of us moved. Then Holt's gaze cut to Dallas, standing quiet a few feet behind me, and he lifted his chin. “You got an opinion on this, Miller?”
Dallas didn't flinch. It would take a lot more than my uncle's threats to get to him. “It's not my place.”
“That's right.” Holt looked back at me. “But you might want to think about whose place it is before you make this worse than it needs to be.”
He glared at me for another second or two before turning on his heel and heading toward the grandstand.
I stood there, my hands shaking just enough that I shoved them in my pockets so Dallas wouldn't see.
The heat pressed down, and the smell of dust and manure and sun-baked metal filled my lungs.
I wanted to throw something. I wanted to scream.
What was I supposed to do instead… call every Hollister in the valley and ask what the hell they thought they were doing?
Dallas moved up beside me. Not in front. Not behind. Just next to me, close enough I could feel him there, steady as ever.
Close enough that I caught the clean sweat-and-leather smell of him under all that arena dust and hated that I noticed.
“What do you need?” he asked.
That stopped me. Not because it was a complicated question, but because it wasn't the question I was used to hearing.
Holt told me what I needed to do. My father told me what I should. Every Hollister I'd ever worked with had an opinion on how I ought to be handling things before I had the chance to figure it out myself.
Dallas just asked.
I looked at him, and he looked back, patient and calm and not trying to fix me or manage me or tell me I was making this harder than it had to be. He was just there. He was always just there, and I appreciated it more than he would ever know.
More than I could afford to let him know. Because if I ever started saying out loud what Dallas Miller's steadiness did to me, I wasn't sure I'd be able to stop.
“I need to compare these certifications,” I said. “All of them. The ones with inconsistencies.”
“All right.”
We walked back to the stock office, and I spread six folders across the desk, pulling the certification pages free and laying them out in two rows.
His shoulder brushed mine when he leaned in, and something warm sparked low in my chest. It would be so easy to lean into that, to cling to his broad shoulders and let him be the steady rock in my life.
But I had six forged certifications on the desk and a family name about to come apart, and I didn't have room for anything else.
That was what I told myself. It didn't explain why I didn't move my shoulder away.
The first three certifications had been signed by Dr. Hendricks, a vet out of Billings I'd met twice at conferences. The second three were signed by Dr. Kelso, who worked for a large animal practice in Bozeman and had a reputation for being thorough to the point of annoying.
I pulled two of Hendricks' certifications side by side and stared at the signatures.
Then I pulled the third and set it next to them.
“Sadie.” Dallas went still.
“I see it.”
The signatures were identical. Not just close or similar. They were exactly the same. Same loop on the H. Same angle on the final flourish. There was no variation in pressure or spacing. No one signed their name three separate times exactly the same way.
I pulled the Kelso certifications and compared them too. They were identical as well.
“They're stamped,” Dallas said.
“Or copied.” I sat down hard in the desk chair, the reality of what I was looking at rushing over me like an ice-cold tidal wave. “Someone forged these. All of them.”
Dallas didn't argue. That was one of the things I appreciated about him. He took me seriously, not like the men in my family who had a habit of questioning my judgement and downplaying my concerns. Dallas just stood there, looking at the pages, his hands flat on the edge of the desk, knuckles pale.
He had strong hands. I'd watched them gentle a thousand-pound animal down from panic and never once wondered what they'd feel like roaming over my skin until right now, which was exactly the wrong moment to start.
The door to the stock office opened behind us, and I turned to see Mayor Nelson stepping in, his shirt damp with sweat and his face flushed from the heat. He pulled his hat off and ran a hand through his thinning hair.
“Sadie. Dallas. Everything all right? I heard there was some trouble with the stock.”
I sighed, knowing the bigger this got, the worse it would be for the town. “We pulled an animal for lameness. I'm checking the rest of the Hollister entries now.”
“Good, good. Better safe than sorry, especially this close to the event.” He glanced at the folders spread across the desk, then back at me. “Do you need security to keep an eye on anything overnight? I can make some calls.”
“That might not be a bad idea.” Dallas leaned forward and rested his hand on the desk.
Orville nodded. “Braxton James would be my first call, but he's in Bozeman handling security for another rodeo event until August.” He settled his hat back on his head, the edges of his mouth tightening with concern. “I'll see who else I can pull in for now.”
He left, and I turned back to the certifications.
Dallas moved closer, his voice low. “If these are forged, someone had access to blank certification forms. And they knew enough about the process to make them look legitimate.”
“Which means someone with veterinary knowledge. Or access to someone who has it.” I stared at the signatures, a knot pulling tight behind my ribs. “And they were careful. They didn't use the same vet for all of them. They spread it out. Made it look routine.”
“Until you pulled one animal and started checking the rest.” Dallas lifted his hand, and for a second, I thought he was going to rest it on my shoulder.
He didn't. It settled back on the edge of the desk instead, an inch from mine, and the almost of it hummed against my skin worse than the touch would have.
It would be so easy to close that inch. To turn toward him and bury my cheek against his chest and let someone else be in charge for a few minutes.
I wasn't about to do that.
“Yeah.” I reached for one of the certificates, putting the paperwork between us where it belonged.
This wasn't a paperwork error or an innocent mistake.
Someone had falsified veterinary certifications on purpose, swapped animals between registered stock, and brought them onto the Mustang Mountain rodeo grounds three days before the biggest event of the summer.
And they'd done it using the Hollister name.
I looked at Dallas, and he looked back, and I saw the same calculation in his eyes I felt in my chest. This was bigger than one lame steer. Bigger than a few mismatched brands.
This was deliberate.
And someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure it stayed hidden.
“Where do I start?” I didn't need him to fight my battles for me, but I trusted his opinion.
Dallas was quiet for a moment. Then he reached across the desk and tapped the edge of one of the certification pages.
“I say we start with who had access to the forms,” he said. “And why they needed them.”
“You don't have to get involved. This is a Hollister problem.”
“Your problems are my problems, Sadie.” His eyes locked onto mine, and something moved behind them—something he shut down almost as fast as I caught it.
It was a nice thing to say. Friends said things like that. So why was my pulse jacking up like he'd just volunteered to save me?
He had his own reputation to worry about, and I wasn't about to drag him into something that might cause him any harm. But I'd worry about that when the time came. At the moment, I had a bigger issue to face. Someone had used the Hollister name to hide a crime.
And I was starting to think they'd expected me to help bury it.