“She knows what she’s doing, Wade. You have to let her do it,” Doc Lucy says as she grabs my arm.
“Any of these big guys out here have symptoms?” she asks Caleb.
“The red and white there, tag thirty-two. She started this morning.”
She did? Why didn’t he tell me that? I’d been out here since four this morning and hadn’t caught her symptoms. How did Caleb know and I didn’t?
“Okay, where does the feed come from? Was it put out fresh this morning? Are the feeders cleaned out regularly?
“Feed comes from Marley’s feed store in town. It’s fresh, and they’re cleaned regularly,” I reply.
She walks into the pasture, and I start to follow her. She whips around and puts a hand up, placing it on my chest.
Electricity shoots through me like I touched the fence. I pull back a little.
“I don’t think so, cowboy,” she says haughtily. “You’re not coming in the pasture with me.”
Cowboy.
Damn it, that made my cock twitch toward her.
I shift uncomfortably as I narrow my eyes.
“It’s my herd, I’m not going to…”
“This could be as simple as something in that ground,” she snaps as she points at the dirt. “Or any ground those dirty ass boots have walked on, containing something that’s making the cattle sick. I am not going to risk contamination or an uncontrolled area.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?”
“Do you have a degree in vet medicine? Have you been studying bovine illnesses in a lab for the last two years?”
“No, Miss High and Mighty, I haven’t, but I know my herd and this land. I’m not going to let you out here by yourself, especially not with those two bulls loose in the pasture. It’s on me if you get hurt.”
“I’m not going to get hurt. I know my way around a pasture. If you’ll remember, we had the meanest bull this side of the Mississippi when I was growing up. Yours don’t scare me.”
“You been out to anyone else’s ranch today?”
“Yes…”
“These two have been raised in this pasture with each other, but the second they get wind of another bull or the scent of a heifer in heat from your clothes.”
“I was wearing a hazmat suit.”
“You know that’s not enough. You need someone in there to keep an eye on them.”
She narrows her eyes and glares at me. “I’m not discounting your experience,Mr. Callahan. I know better than anyone that a rancher knows his animals and his land better than any doctor ever could. In this situation, I need to narrow the possibilities down tremendously. No one walks into this pasture or handles the cattle without wearing surgical scrubs and gloves. You want in here, suit up.”
“Well, Your Highness, I ordered all the hazmat stuff when this first started. Because of the outbreak, though, it’s all on back-order. I don’t have anything.”
“She’s right, Dad,” Caleb interjects. “I’ve been reading studies and—”
“You’ve been reading studies?”
“Yes, sir,” he replies, raising his chin defiantly.
I shouldn’t be surprised. He’s an incredibly smart kid, but these cattle and all the animals on the ranch are like his pets in a way. He’s been helping to take care of them since the day he got here.
“If you would have let me finish, you can get them out of my bag,” she says as she gives me a cocky little smirk before I turn around to suit up as she demanded.
