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I climb out of the truck.

Dad doesn't even wait for me to get within talking distance before he shouts, "Nice of you to show up."

"I said I was coming."

"Said it two hours ago."

"That's an exaggeration," I mutter.

He turns his glare back on the fence. "We got eleven heads loose somewhere between here and the Slaters' property. From what we know, they've been gone since sometime before midnight."

My stomach drops. "Eleven?"

Sebastian answers before Dad can, arms crossed, jaw tight. "Found the fence like this around five. Alexander and I thought it was contained last night but they must have gone through the fence then come out down here. We've been trying to round up what we can see, but half of 'em could be halfway to the highway by now."

Since five.

Shit.

Alexander points across the field. "Hole we mended last night is over there."

It's hard to see with the light, but it looks as if twenty feet was opened up and mended across the pasture.

I walk the line and run a hand along one of the broken posts. The wood splintered, not rotted, which means it was hit hard. "Who did this?"

Dad gruffly answers, "Don't know but it had to be a truck. Somebody clipped it in the dark, crossed the pasture, and kept going down this fence line. Found tire tracks and a piece of a bumper caught in the wire. You're lucky you don't have dead cattle. Well, as far as we know."

It changes everything I thought I was walking into. I assumed part of the fence finally gave out after years of me meaning to replace it and never getting around to it.

Guilt flares inside me. It's my pasture gifted to me in my parents' trust. These are my cattle I bought and I shouldn't have left this up to my brothers to fix.

Fuck the cattle. I spent the night with Lainey.

Alexander pipes in, "Two of your breeding bulls are missing."

My throat turns dry. I clench my hands in a fist. Each bull is over ten grand, and some asshole did this and didn't bother to stop and tell us the fence was down?

Anger hits me. I ask, "You call the sheriff?"

"Called him an hour ago. He's sending somebody out once it's light enough to actually see." Dad finally turns and looks at me, and under the rage, there's more age and exhaustion than I want to admit. "Would've been nice to have you out here for the last two hours instead of showing up after I threatened you."

"I didn't know it was this bad," I argue, but it sounds weak.

"Wouldn't have mattered if you'd known. You still would've shown up two hours late, because you had better things going on." He says it plain, no heat behind it, which somehow makes it land harder than if he'd shouted. Then he scolds, "This ranch doesn't stop needing you just because you found somebody to spend the night with."

I don't have a good answer for that, mostly because he's not entirely wrong. Nothing would have pulled me away from Lainey last night. But standing out here in the cold with eleven heads of cattle missing, two of my most expensive bulls, and a piece of somebody's bumper tangled in our wire, it's hard to argue I had my priorities straight.

Yet I'm just as stubborn as any Cartwright, so I won't let the accusation sit unanswered either. "I'm here now. Tell me where you need me."

Dad studies me a second longer, like he's deciding whether that's good enough, then jerks his chin toward the tree line east of us. "Take the ATV, head that direction. Hendricks called a half hour ago, said he's got two of ours grazing near his barn. Bring 'em back. The ranch hands are looking for the rest. Then get your ass back here and help us string the temporary wire till we can get proper posts out here."

I nod and don't waste time arguing, because the sooner I get moving, the sooner I get back to town to see Lainey.

The next six hours disappear into the kind of work that doesn't leave room for thinking about anything else. I chase down two head of cattle half a mile onto Hendricks' land, haul them back through a gap in what's left of the fence, then spend two hours in the cold stringing temporary wire with Mason while our ranch hands search the tree line for the other nine. They find six of them bunched up, nervous near the creek bed, spooked but unhurt. The last three turn up an hour after that, wandering along the shoulder of the county road.

By the time the sheriff's deputy finally shows up to take a report and photograph the tire tracks, the sun's fully up, my hands are raw from wire and cold. I check my phone hoping for a message from Lainey, but there isn't one.

Why didn't I give her mine?