Page 10 of July’s Cowboy Dallas

The door was still propped open, and the folders we'd spread across the desk were exactly where we'd left them.

But the shelf on the wall, the one with the intake boxes and spare forms, looked different.

Sadie stopped in the doorway.

“There was a box there,” she said. “And I’d bet my family’s ranch that it was the one we’re looking for.”

I shook my head. Who moved that fast unless they had something to lose?

She stepped inside, moving to the shelf like she could will the box back into existence, but it wasn't there. Someone had already come for it. Which meant we weren't the only ones who knew it mattered.

Sadie turned, her face pale, her fingers curled tight around the edge of the folders she still carried. “Dallas.”

“I know.”

Her gaze met mine, steady and unflinching. “Someone's covering this up,” she said. “And they're doing it fast.”

I nodded. She was right. Whoever had taken that box knew we were close.

CHAPTER 4

SADIE

By sunrise, the whole town would know I'd started pulling Hollister stock. By the time I finished pouring my first cup of coffee, my family would have already decided what version of the story they wanted me to tell.

I hadn't slept much. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that empty shelf where that cardboard box used to be. I didn't have proof it was the same box Cody mentioned that had Cedar Draw scrawled across the side, but I knew it in my gut.

Cedar Draw. The name wouldn't stop circling in my head, patient and hungry, like it already knew something I didn't.

And when the name finally let go of me, sometime around two in the morning, my traitor brain had replaced it with Dallas. The way he'd lifted his hand toward my cheek and stopped. The way I'd wanted him not to stop, which was a thought I had no business having about a man who’d never been anything but a friend.

I knew how Mustang Mountain worked. Word traveled faster than wildfire during a drought, and people had long memories when it came to the Hollisters. Before I'd finished my morning rounds at the veterinary clinic, my phone had buzzed twice with texts from people I barely talked to, both asking if everything was okay with the rodeo stock.

Everything was fine, I'd typed back. Just routine checks.

Lies came easy for a girl who'd been raised to protect the family name.

I got into my truck and stared at the steering wheel. The smart thing for me to do would be to let this go. I could pull the bad stock, file incident reports, and walk away. Someone else could chase down forged paperwork and missing boxes.

But I kept seeing that steer's leg. Kept thinking about the dun mare whose age had been falsified by three years. Kept wondering how many other animals had been pushed through certification when they shouldn't have been cleared.

I grabbed my phone and pulled up Dallas's number. My thumb hovered over the call button.

This was Hollister business. Family business. The kind that needed to be handled quietly, behind closed doors, with people who understood what was at stake.

Dallas wasn't family.

But he'd been there when the box went missing. He knew the stock. He'd backed me when Holt tried to shut me down.

And some part of me—the part I didn't want to examine too closely—didn't want to face Holt alone.

Since when did I need backup to talk to my own uncle?

And since when did backup mean one specific man with steady hands and a voice like gravel that rubbed my nerve endings raw in the best possible way?

I hit call anyway.

Dallas picked up on the second ring. “Morning.”