Page 25 of July’s Cowboy Dallas

Cody stuffed the paper back in his pocket. “Thought so. Just checking. Need to update the intake logs before the inspectors come through.”

He walked off, already yelling at someone about water troughs.

Sadie stood there, her forehead creased. “Did you know stock came through your pasture?”

“No.”

“But someone used it.”

“Looks that way.”

She waited for me to say more.

I didn't.

Not because I didn't want to tell her, but because I didn't know what to tell her yet, and every instinct I had screamed at me to check before I dropped one more problem on her shoulders.

She had enough to deal with. She was already carrying the Hollister name, the pulled stock, her uncle's pressure, and the town's whispers. If Miller land was involved, that was mine to handle. Not hers.

“I should go look,” I said.

“We should go look,” Sadie corrected.

“I know that land better than anyone. It will be faster if I check it myself.”

Her jaw tightened. “This isn’t just about your land, Dallas.”

“It has my name on it.”

“And my license on the report.” Her voice stayed quiet, but something in it sharpened. “Those animals were pulled because of my call. If there’s evidence out there, I need to see it myself. Not after you’ve decided what matters. Not after you’ve bagged it up and brought it back to me like I wasn’t part of this.”

I knew she was right. That was the worst part. But the thought of Sadie standing in the middle of Miller land, looking at proof that my family’s pasture had been used to move bad stock, made something ugly twist behind my ribs.

“I’ll call you as soon as I know anything,” I said.

The words landed wrong. I heard it as soon as they left my mouth.

Sadie’s expression closed in a way that made my chest go tight.

“You’re doing it too,” she said.

I went still. “Doing what?”

“Deciding what I get to know and when I get to know it.”

“That’s not what this is.”

“No?” Her eyes held mine. “Then don’t go without me.”

I should have stopped right there. I should have listened. Instead, I told myself I was protecting her. I told myself I’d bring her proof, not another worry. I told myself a dozen things that sounded better than the truth.

I was afraid of what she’d see if my name was tangled up in this mess.

So I walked away. The look she gave me as I left made something in me go quiet and cold, because I knew before I ever reached the truck that I’d just shut a door she’d been holding open.

The Miller lease pasture sat fifteen minutes east of the rodeo grounds, past the main ranch road and down a two-track that hadn't seen gravel in three years.

I drove faster than I should have. The sun beat down, turning the cab into an oven. Dust billowed behind the truck. Grasshoppers launched themselves off the hood in bursts of brown and gold.