Behind us, Sheriff Clark steps forward, his expression dark with anger. “You told me you had all of this already,” he growls, his voice like rolling thunder. “You’re telling me you brought my entire department out here over a damn phone call?”
Reed’s jaw tightens. “Sheriff, I—”
Clark doesn’t let him finish. “Pack it up,” he barks at his deputies. “We’re done here.”
The officers hesitate, looking between Clark and Reed, but they don’t argue. One by one, they start heading back to their vehicles, their boots crunching against the dirt.
Reed glares at me, eyes burning with barely contained fury. “I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re just prolonging the inevitable. You have no jurisdiction here.”
I tilt my head, smiling coldly. “I don’t need jurisdiction, Dr. Reed. But I’m not about to sit back and let you ruin this community with whatever backwards agenda you’re pushing. This isn’t just cattle—it’s people’s livelihoods, their family legacies.”
Clark remains standing where he is, arms crossed, his presence an immovable force. “You heard the lady,” he says, eyes locked on Reed. “Time for you to clear out.”
Reed’s face darkens even further, but he doesn’t argue. He signals to his crew, and, one by one, the ag officers pile into their vehicles. The trailers, still half-full, remain parked, but the cattle inside are spared—for now.
When the last truck disappears down the dirt road, Bob Nance lets out a breath so heavy it seems to take the weight of the world with it. He turns to me, his eyes misty. “Sutton, I don’tknow how to thank you. If they’d gone through with this—” He shakes his head. “I’d have lost everything.”
I squeeze his shoulder. “I’m not letting that happen.”
The immediate disaster is handled, but the uneasy pit in my stomach doesn’t fade. Because this isn’t over.
How long until Reed strikes again?
Chapter Nineteen
Wade
I’m extremely distracted today as I can’t stop thinking about Sutton. How she tasted, how she smelled, how she sounded, how she felt. I cannot wait to see her and kiss her again.
All I can think about is throwing her over my shoulder, taking her back to that bed, and burying myself inside her.
I need another cold shower, or four.
My thoughts flit back to that Ronnie guy, too. I find it hard to believe that Sutton puts up with any of that guy’s shit. She seemed to be handling him well, and I knew that if I stuck around in their conversation, I would probably deck him. As much as I would love for her to remain in Hicks Creek, I don’t want to cause her to lose her job either.
The morning sun beats down, and I go over to the barn, trying to focus on fixing the latch on the gate. It’s a simple task, one I can usually do without thinking, but my mind keeps wandering back to Sutton and the cattle. It’s like all that I can hold in my brain these days.
“Boss,” Benny calls out as he stalks over to me. “You talk to Doc?”
“About what?”
“Ag officer and the sheriff were out at Nance’s. I heard in town that someone called in a tip that he was the cause of the outbreak.”
I immediately stand up and look back at him in shock.
“The sheriff is out there?”
“Sutton took off out of here like a bat out of hell. She was going to make sure they knew it wasn’t the case.”
I hand him the tools in my hand and start toward my truck, just as Sutton is coming down the driveway. I let out a breath as the tension leaves me momentarily. She’s back, so that’s got to be a good sign, but I don’t like that she took off to Nance’s by herself.
I chuckle inwardly for a second. She’s got balls of steel. She didn’t have any fear going up against the Department of Agriculture and the sheriff because she knew they were in the wrong. That says a lot about her as a person.
Everyday she’s proving my old opinion of her wrong.
Benny and I both make our way toward her before she parks. She’s climbing out of the truck, shaking her head as she looks back at Benny.
“What happened?” he asks.
