Page 7

“Those stop meaning the same thing when an outsider owns the evidence.”

I leave before I tell him that may be exactly why Calvin chose her.

Tessa is still at the north alley when I get back, kneeling outside the rail to photograph the empty tag hole from another angle. The spot keeps her clear of the gate but puts her in the narrow point between the water pen and the next alley.

I’m halfway across the ring floor when metal cracks behind the heifers.

Every head in the pen comes up.

The lead animal bolts from the sound. The others pile into her, and the whole group surges toward Tessa’s section of rail. She sees it and shifts back, but the alley behind her is blocked by a rolling gate, and I’m already running.

I get there before the first heifer hits the pipe.

One hand goes to the rail above her shoulder. The other wraps her waist and turns her into the space between my body and the post. Steel shudders against my forearm. Her back is flush against my chest, warm and rigid and much smaller than her voice, while a ton of frightened cattle scrapes past on the other side.

“Stay still,” I say against her ear.

“I understand pressure.”

“Then stop trying to turn around.”

Her breath leaves her in a controlled line. I can feel her heart through her back, going fast. Mine isn’t any better. My crew opens the far side of the pen, the lead heifer finds space, and the group follows her away.

I make myself step back. I make myself take my hands off her.

It’s harder than it should be. For three seconds she was the only thing in the barn I could protect with my own body, and every nerve I have liked it far too much. My palm still holds the shape of her waist. I close it into a fist at my side so it’ll stop.

She turns. Her face is composed, but color sits high on her cheekbones, and her eyes go to my arm. “You took the rail.”

The pipe left a red welt below my cuff. “It’ll improve.”

“Most accurate thing a McCall has said to me today.”

I almost smile. Then she looks past me to the rear gate, and all the dry humor leaves her face.

“Nobody should have been behind that pen,” she says.

Cole is already checking. “Clear.”

“Something hit the rail hard enough to spook them. Don’t walk through there yet.”

I don’t take orders on my own property. I hold my men back anyway.

In the gravel beside the post lies a black plastic tie, one end square from the factory, the other cut clean on an angle. Beside it, a boot print with a missing block at the outside heel.

“This held the service gate,” Tessa says. “It didn’t break. It was cut. If they’d cleared this pen, they’d have mixed with the commercial group, and nobody could swear which heifer came in under Lot 118.”

“Ruining your count.”

“Ruining their history.”

I look up at the camera under the eave. Its light is dark.

Cole makes the call. His face changes before he lowers the phone.

“That camera went offline at 5:03,” he says. “Nine minutes before her truck came through the gate.”

Chapter 3