Thankfully, they’d had the foresight to wear their irrigation boots, a souped-up, meatier version of rain boots. Zane’s sister had even sent some for Styles to wear.
Except, Styles didn’t really need them because Zane spun him up and around and nestled him on his shoulder.
“Maybe! Look! Now I’m taller than the tower!” Styles sounded like a football announcer.
“That means you’d get soaked by the rain first, since you’re so high up.” Mabel reached over and tickled Styles’s side. He shrieked and laughed.
Man, this is fun.
A future with Mabel. That’s what he wanted more than anything. He wanted to traipse around farmland in huge boots and listen to her interact with kids.Theirkids.
That thought should have scared him, but it didn’t. It just felt peaceful. Like it was something completely natural, a succinct order of events. Just right in every way.
They reached the herd of cattle and skirted around them, careful not to upset them. The animals all seemed to be gathered around a central hub, which was strange because the feed troughs were several yards away.
The sound of moving water hit him the same moment he saw it. Whoever owned these cows had built a dam in one of the runoff streams coming down off the lake, and Zane would bet money it was illegal.
He set Styles down on the ground. “Hold Mabel’s hand, okay?” he shouted back to them as he neared the herd. “I don’t want you guys to get too close to the cows right now. Plus, there are all kinds of cow pies here.”
“We’ll watch your back from here.” Her tone was breezy, and Zane turned to look at her again. She was so tuned in to him, her slight smile spreading when he looked at her.
Man alive, she was beautiful.
If he didn’t get this illegal dam taken care of, there would be a world of trouble. There was a reason dams like this weren’t allowed. Not only did it weaken the water supply for everyone down the chain, but it also perpetuated the biggest issue with water sanitation: silt. Particles built up behind a dam like this could prove very problematic for the whole town.
He pressed his shoulder against a cow and leaned hard. If he could get her moving, that would get the others moving along too, and he could have a better look.
The cow bellowed, her face showing her annoyance. “Come on, lady. You’re only making things worse here.” Eventually, she moved, but she still seemed ticked.
When he got a closer look, his heart sank even more. The dam, overgrown with weeds, crabgrass, and honeysuckle, looked to be a few years old. “The nerve,” he said, wishing he recognized the name of the man who owned this parcel of land that Mabel had told him on the drive.
Circumventing the proper channels to save money on water was illegal, no matter how you looked at it. But that didn’t mean some people had qualms about bucking the system. If Zane and Mabel hadn’t been working on this project, it might have gone undetected for a long time still.
He stepped up on the embankment to try to move away some of the weeds to get a better look. That was his first mistake. His second was not looking well enough when he went to step down.
Landing in the soft dirt, his foot gave way and he slid down, compromising the entire embankment and sloshing around in what felt like quicksand. He sank down, landing straight in the water right on his backside.
Chapter 18
“He did you guys a favor.” Mabel felt her pulse throbbing in her neck. The blood was still rushing in her ears. She glanced again at the water commissioner, who was looking out over the scene of the flooding with disdain.
State Bureau of Land Management officials surrounded the area, a huge dredger scraped at the stream, and the cows were being loaded on a livestock trailer, looking very put out.
The county water commissioner lifted a worn baseball cap to scratch under his graying hair. “Finding this thing? Yes. That was a big favor. Destroying it and infiltrating the area with sediment? Not good.” He tsked and glanced down at his tablet he’d been furiously typing into moments before. “Not good at all.”
She glanced back at Zane. If it weren’t such a gut-wrenching moment, where the water safety of the whole town had been compromised, Mabel would have been completely undone by the sweetness of the scene. Zane sat on the tailgate of his truck, Styles asleep on his shoulder. His jeans looked wet still, even though it had been over an hour since he’d been sitting in the bottom of the mud-choked stream.
As it was, Zane looked exhausted and humiliated. He was taking this kind of hard, and it tugged on Mabel’s heartstrings. Or maybe hewas just angry about the whole thing. People who built illegal dams were a problem to the whole community.
Mack joined her as she began walking over to Zane’s truck. “Glad you were here to help him.” He nodded toward Zane. “I’ve heard of dams not much bigger than this one that become a drowning hazard when they break like that.”
Mabel shuddered. “That is so not cool to think about. I’m glad I was here too. But he feels awful about it. And Styles should really be taken back to Zane’s.”
“I know.” Mack shook his head. “I tried to tell Zane he could leave.”
He carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. He feels responsible for everything.
“I’m not surprised he’s still languishing here like a soldier unable to leave his unit.” Mabel swallowed down a prickle of sadness at the thought. Zane was like one of those guard dogs who felt the responsibility of the family’s well-being, whose very lives were all on his shoulders. It was a big burden.
