Chapter 21 #2
They didn’t bring me down here to ask me about what happened in the goddamn office, they wanted to know about the incident with Carter.
Oh my god, I was the dumbest motherfucker on this planet.
Wilder had warned me that Sully would probably want to hear it from my own mouth, to verify my story was straight and didn’t change. But here I was, too caught up in my own deep paranoia and self-inflicted doom spiral to connect the fucking dots.
I sighed, dropped my arms in order to rub a hand over my face. “Yeah, so I caught him over by the feed playing with it. He was using the metal scoop to move it around. At first, I thought he was starting restocks earlier but then I spotted the weed killer bottle he had next to him.
“If we took you to where we store the chemicals, do you think you could identify the bottle?” Sully asked.
“Absolutely.”
He nodded, looking back to Wilder. “Shall we?”
I barely held back a bone-deep sigh of relief as we headed toward the back entrance of the building, far far away from the damn office. Honestly, it was a wonder I’d made it this far in life without giving myself an actual heart attack induced from unnecessary stress.
Because between sneaking around with Wilder, and now this whole Carter situation, I was one good panic attack away from keeling over in the middle of this goddamn ranch.
As easy as it would be to get lost in whatever mess was happening between Wilder and me, we did have a much bigger issue to deal with.
Judging by the way Sully was handling this meeting, it was clear Wilder had filled him in on everything the second he had the chance yesterday which meant they were both taking this seriously.
As they should.
Having even the slightest possibility of someone poisoning our rescue animals was beyond fucked up. And yeah, maybe there was a chance I was wrong and misread the entire situation, that Carter had somehow been exactly where he wasn’t supposed to be for an entirely innocent reason.
But so what?
I’d rather be overly cautious than give anyone the benefit of the doubt when it came to the lives of the animals we were working our asses off to rehabilitate.
Carter working here for as long as I had didn’t mean shit if he was constantly getting himself into some kind of trouble. Most of the time it was petty shit, like fighting with the other ranch hands and picking arguments with whoever he could if the day struck him wrong.
We all knew how to handle him, when to stand up to him and tell him to fuck off when we needed to.
Well, except for Dusty... but even he was starting to learn how to hold his own these days.
Outside of that, the guy was simply a ghost all of us forgot about until something else happened with him mysteriously at the epicenter of it.
Coming up to the storage shed, the doors groaned against the hinges before letting out an ear-piercing screech when Wilder and Sully yanked the doors open.
I winced at the noise, resisting the urge to clap my hands over my ears while they fought to open them wide.
The inside wasn’t much to look at, about the size of a standard tool shed with narrow but well-organized floor-to-ceiling rows of shelves lined with bottles, jugs, and metal cans. All of them had labels facing out, making it easy to see what was available.
Most of it was pest and weed control, standard stuff that would be kept around a property like this and used away from whatever livestock we have to keep from running the risk of contamination.
A quick glance told me everything looked to be in order, no obvious spots suddenly looking a little too empty, though that didn’t exactly mean something hadn’t been tampered with.
“See anything familiar?” Sully nodded to the shelves.
Stepping inside, I let my eyes roam again.
While I’d only gotten a brief look at the bottle, the label was distinct to stick out in my memory: a white bottle with a bright green label and a red ‘X’ through the center of the words.
The moment my eyes landed on it, I knew.
Tucked back behind another set of containers, shoved out of immediate view like someone had gone out of their way to hide it.
I carefully slipped it off of the shelf to hold it up.
This wasn’t some random misplacement—someone had obviously tried to cover up their tracks. The kind of person that would wait around for me to leave the stables before coming back to clean up whatever evidence was left behind.
“This one.”
Wilder’s eyes narrowed on it when I turned around to show him. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
He held out his hand to take it from me, our fingers brushing together for a single second. Something hot and electric shot through me, sending a shiver racing up my spine. Even now, in the middle of this potentially disastrous situation, my body had tunnel vision.
I swallowed hard, forcing myself to focus. His eyes darted up to meet mine, just enough for me to catch them slightly widening before he quickly moved back from me, giving us both enough room to breath again.
Well, at least I wasn’t the only one feeling this still.
Sully slipped the bottle from Wilder’s hands, turning it over to run a finger over the back label where the ingredients were listed. His lips moved silently as he mouthed while he read, his expression growing dark the further he went.
Then, quietly to himself, he muttered a low, “Shit.”
A bad sign if I’d ever heard one.
“Did you end up testing the feed?” I asked.
Wilder was the first to answer, though he started with a shake of his head. “We’re still waiting for someone to come out and take a few samples. Even if they come today, we won’t have results for at least a week.”
“We can’t wait that long,” I argued.
Who knew what that bastard could get up to with an entire week at his disposal?
His gaze softened. “We won’t. We’re going to send this bottle with the feed to get them both tested against each other. If nothing comes back, then it’s safe to say this has all been one big misunderstanding.”
“And if not?”
His jaw clenched. “Then Carter will be dealt with.”
Thank fuck.
That was all I needed to hear.
Sully looked up, finally pulled his focus away from the bottle. “I’m going to call the facility again and get them over here ASAP. Asher, thank you for walking us through everything.”
I flashed him a quick smile. “No problem. Let’s hope I’m wrong, yeah?”
Even as the words left my mouth, though, I could tell both of them were coming to the same grim conclusions I already had: no matter what, Carter was trouble.
Had been for a while. This situation was merely a drop in the bucket of the issues he’d caused since coming to the ranch last year, and it seemed things were only growing worse as time went on.
Whether he’d done something or not, for none of us to question if he was capable of doing anything like this spoke volumes in and of itself. If anyone had come to me and accused Laken of doing the same thing, I would’ve preached up and down to the high heavens that it wasn’t possible.
For Carter?
Not so much.
“Once I hear from them on a timeframe, I’ll let you know.” Sully turned to Wilder, waving the bottle.
“Keep me updated.”
The older man nodded, then turned on his heel, boots digging into the dirt as he did so and without another word, headed back toward the main house.
I exhaled out slowly.
I really, really hoped I was wrong. That’d I’d misread the situation and jumped to conclusions because it was easier than believing Carter was simply fooling around. Even if I wanted him gone and out of here for being a pain in the ass, using the horses as collateral damage wasn’t worth it.
And I sure as hell didn’t want Pelly caught up in the crossfire of some sick vendetta.
A firm hand landed on my shoulder.
“Hey…” I turned slightly to Wilder while he gave me a firm squeeze. “You did good.”
The words sank deep into me, unexpectedly melting away whatever residual tension that had been lingering in my body since Sully had pulled me from the arena.
Now that we were alone again, I could finally breathe.
I tipped my head to the side. “Did you talk to Carter yet?”
He shook his head. “I’ve been having Dallas keep a close eye on him while we get this all sorted out. No sense in causing a big fuss if it turns out to be a simple misunderstanding.”
“Right. Makes sense.” I ran a hand through my hair, brushing it back from my forehead.
He watched me for a long moment, his eyes dark and unreadable like always.
Before I could say anything, he let go of my shoulder and stepped forward into the storage shed. His large body blocked the afternoon sun, shrouding me in a dark shadow when I craned my neck to look up at him.
My breath caught in my throat when both of his hands came up to touch my face, hesitating only for a split second before he cupped my jaw with both of his palms.
“I mean it,” he murmured, his voice low. Soft. “You keeping a level head about all of this... it isn’t easy.”
I knew what he was saying underneath all of that: me keeping a level head when Pelly was involved wasn’t easy. And while that was true, there wasn’t much else I could do in the meantime to help move the process along quicker.
We were moving on other people’s timelines, forced to sit on the sidelines until someone called us back in.
I was only keeping myself in check because I needed to, or else I was going to drown myself in the deep end.
“Learned from the best,” I teased.
Wilder let out a soft snort, gently tracing one of his thumbs along my cheek in a nonsense pattern. Just the whisper of a touch, barely there, burning all the same. Sinking deep into my skin like the marks on my neck that I had hidden under the collar of my jacket like another prized secret.
“I don’t know about that,” he replied.
Being this close to him so soon after yesterday was making my head spin.
We were too out in the open for me to do what I really wanted: drop down to my knees and pry apart the fly of his pants to get my hands on his cock again.