Page 75 of Wilder

Carter jumped a mile, nearly knocking into the barrel as he spun around to face me. “Fucking shit, Torres. What’re you doing sneaking around like a fucking ghost?”

I crossed my arms, letting my gaze drop pointedly to the bottle before coming back up to him. “Could say the same for you. Is there a reason you’re messing with the feed?”

His jaw tightened.

And there it was.

That split-second hesitation before he answered. A too-tight shift of his shoulders while his fingers twitched at his side like he was considering whether or not to lie.

“What, you think you can leave for a month and then come back here and start demanding answers? Get a life.”

I frowned. “Deflecting from my question is only making you look more suspicious, you know.”

His lips curled into a sharp-edged smirk. He held up his hands, the handle of the metal scoop dangled from his thumb. “Sully asked me to prepare some of the feed for later. Not that it’s any of your business.”

“Sully’s at an auction with Wilder,” I corrected. “So, there’s no way he told you that.”

He rolled his eyes. “You think you know everything. He asked me before he left.”

I narrowed my eyes.

Bullshit.

None of this was adding up.

He tossed the scoop back on top of the feed. “Whatever. You know what? I’ll tell him you volunteered to do it yourself. Since you’re so eager to get involved in everyone’s business the second you come back from your little vacay.”

I said nothing as he stormed past me, knocking his shoulder against mine in an effort to send me stumbling back. I locked my knees and kept my balance, refusing to give him even an ounce of satisfaction for being petty.

I tracked him with my eyes all the way until he was past the entrance into the stables. Only when he was fully out of sight did I drop my arms back to my sides, flexing my fingers around the lead still draped over my shoulder.

Moving into the alcove, the barrel of feed he’d been messing with looked normal enough. There were no weird signs of discoloration, no obvious odor coming from the individual pellets when I scooped a bunch into my hand to sniff.

Lifting the lid on the other two barrels, they also looked the same. Nothing wrong or out of the ordinary.

If I hadn’t caught Carter over here, I never would’ve thought twice about rationing this out to the horses at dinner. The thought sent an uneasy shiver up my spine.

Bending down, I reached for the weed killer, lifting it off the ground. While there was no cap on it, it felt full.

So, if he hasn’t been pouring it into the feed, then what the hell was he doing?

Unless I’d caught him at the right moment...

Rotating the bottle, my eyes caught the bold DO NOT CONSUME warning.

What were the chances that this wasn’t the first time Carter had been messing with the feed?

Weeks ago, Pelly and a few other horses had gotten mysteriously ill with no obvious explanation.

Had Carter messed with the feed back then, too?

Dread pooled in my stomach.

I didn’t want to believe someone working on a ranch would do something so heinous.

What would be the point when the entire reason we all had jobs was in order to take care of the livestock?

What purpose would it serve to make our horses sick?