“Out on the north field. We have a situation.”
I laugh humorously. “That’s not the only one.”
He winces. “He feels bad about last night.”
“Sure seems like it.” I wave my hand at him. “Rhett always seems to send you when he doesn’t want to deal with me.”
“It’s not like that. I swear.”
Baylee honks, and I grab my purse. “I have to run some errands. Do you want me to take the boys or do you want them to stay with you?”
“Can you keep them? I need to head back out.”
I don’t bother responding because I’m afraid of what I’ll say to my brother-in-law. “Gabriel. Austin. Put your shoes on. Baylee is taking us for a drive.”
As we head out the door, Beau calls out, “When will y’all be back?”
I glare at him. He wants to be nebulous about shit? I can dish that out too. “Later.”
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?”
