Page 16 of Steers and Stowaways
After a short pause, she gave a huff of protest and took it from him. “Are you gonna punish me the whole trip with the talk and smell of brisket?”
He didn’t answer. After texting the snapshot to Gage at Lonestar Security, he became fully engrossed in using his side-view mirrors to maneuver the cattle trailer out of the parking lot. Though he’d driven rigs of all sizes while on the job, his background was in investigative work. Pulling a cattle trailer wasn’t something he did every day.
Mallory lasted about ten seconds before sneaking her first bite of his sandwich.
He was relieved to see her eating. “I’m gonna dock that bite from your pay.”
“Whatever.” She took another bite, talking with food in her mouth. “This is the real reason I came back.”
He raised his eyebrows at her. “To steal my sandwich?”
“Nah.” She shot him a look full of mischief. “I knew you’d be lost without me.”
What?He swallowed a laugh. “And folks wonder why I call you Brat!”
“It’s true,” Mallory bragged to the two cowboys in the backseat, who’d gone silent. “Despite his constant bellyaching, he’d be lost without me.”
Tucker coughed to avoid laughing out loud. “If you can name one way I’d be lost, I might let you keep your job until tomorrow.”
“That’s easy.” She lowered the sandwich to her knee. “If shoveling muck were a love language, I’d be fluent in it. What kind of livestock hauler wouldn’t want that kind of talent around?”
Snickers rose from the backseat.
Tucker shook his head at her, refusing to so much as smile. “Yeah, yeah. And you’ll be sniffling in your sweet tea this evening over the un-glamorous side of ranching, just like you always do.”
“Does this sound like sniffling to you?” She took a third bite of his sandwich, chewing noisily.
If she was trying to annoy him by being disgusting, it wasn’t working. He was too charmed by her shenanigans to find it off-putting. Her lack of a filter suited him just fine, and she wasn’t exactly hard to look at with no makeup and the unfettered display of emotions playing across her features.
His stomach let out a growl of protest over giving up the rest of his sandwich. It was for a good cause, though, so he didn’t mind.
Mallory lowered the sandwich from her mouth. At first, he thought—and hoped—she was about to hand it back. Instead, she waved it at the line of orange cones on the highway ahead of them. “What’s that?”
He frowned and tapped his brakes as they drew closer.Seconds later, the cones forced him and the pair of trucks in front of him down to one lane. A few miles later, they reached a detour sign that hadn’t been on Tucker’s route map.
A stirring of unease settled in his gut as he approached the sign. Unfortunately, there didn’t appear to be any other option than following the detour. Or maybe there was… He slowed to a crawl to watch the two trucks in front of him make U-turns across the median and head back in the direction they’d come from.
“We should keep going,” Cruz piped up from the backseat. “I remember Dex complaining about this stretch. Said it cut right back to the highway a few miles later.”
Finding out that the detour met with Cruz’s approval didn’t make Tucker feel any better about venturing off into the middle of nowhere. “There’s no sign indicating what the detour is even for.”
“Yeah, well, TDOT ain’t big on explaining themselves.” Cruz gave another snicker. “That’s why everyone hates ‘em.”
Referring to the Texas Department of Transportation as TDOT gave way to a whole new round of merriment in the vehicle.
“Wanna know how cowgirls are like traffic cones?” Chip snickered.
“No,” Tucker said flatly. He had no interest in a conversation with the potential of deteriorating into off-color jokes.
Chip was silent for a moment before offering in a sullen voice. “I was just gonna say that they make us slow down and pay attention.”
“Sweet!” Mallory’s voice was bright, though the look she sent across the cab at Tucker was withering.
“Careful, sugar,” Cruz crooned at her from the backseat, making Tucker’s blood boil. “If you keep looking at him like that, we’re gonna have to put up aMen at Worksign, since he’ll be working overtime to?—”
“One more word,” Tucker growled, “and I’m kicking all three of you out of the truck.”
Mallory’s lips parted on a gasp of outrage, but he raised a hand to shut her up. “Go on and tell ‘em, Brat. You know better than anyone else how little sleep I’ll lose over the thought of y’all walking the rest of the way to El Paso.”
