Page 19 of Seducing the Sheriff
Cash’s eyebrows shot up. “Take care of your hands? Yes, Greg. You do.”
Truth be told, I’d probably do whatever Sheriff Cash Lawson told me to do.
Chapter Six
Cash
I hated cows.
Not in a ‘they ruined my picnic’ kind of way. No, I hated cows in the ‘they led a conga line down the highway while being chased by sirens and sad little cones’ kind of way.
Cow: 1. Stupid humans: 0.
Dex said cows were intelligent creatures. Dex also once got kicked in the head by a goat and thanked it for the ‘spiritual realignment,’ so forgive me if I didn’t take his bovine wisdom too seriously.
That was a joke. Seriously, could you imagine Dex saying anything like that? No, that was from Meyer. He came out with some weird shit at our dinners. I swear Dex was ready to throttle him by the end of our evenings. But about cows, Dex was so wrong. If they were so smart, why was this one twerking into traffic with a state trooper yelling “STOP RESISTING!” behind it?
Did the cow listen? Hell no.
Dex also said their eyes are windows to their souls. I looked into this cow’s eyes and saw nothing but nihilism and the faint glint of murder. That cow had plans.
Meanwhile, I was out here, instead of taking care of Greg—who was probably being interrogated by Rosie right this moment about his past, his future, and whether there were more bodies stashed in his house, as she cleaned his hands—but no. I had sweat trickling down my back as I hauled ass after a literal slab of future brisket in ninety-degree heat while it moonwalked across lanes as if it owned the road.
Okay, okay, it did own the road, and we were being unkind trying to save its miserable existence.
And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse—BAM—the cow kicked one of the troopers. Full-on Chuck Norris hoof to the thigh. I swear I heard a sound like a snapping glow stick.
The trooper went down as if he were poleaxed. Why the heck had he gotten so close to the beast in the first place? There were a chorus of snickers and mutters of “Rookie,” from the cruisers which didn’t help matters. But they did leap out to protect him from the cow. That trooper was never going to live this down. If he walked again.
I let the troopers focus on their fallen rookie while I glanced warily at the cow who swung around and looked straight at me as if to say, “Wanna take me on?”
No, I don’t. I would rather drink an iced tea on my porch with a certain new man in town beside me. I was sweating as if I were a sinner in a confessional and seriously considering my life choices. Maybe I could become a barista in Destiny’s coffeeshop.
“What do you want us to do?” my deputy, Diego Sanchez, said as he joined me.
I was thinking BBQ, but I’ve learned that no one wants their boss to make a crack like that. We weren’t allowed a sense of humor.
“Have we found out what ranch it belongs to?” I asked, eyeing the cow warily.
“She.”
“Huh?”
“She. It’s a cow, not a bull.”
I kinda guessed it wasn’t a bull. Too much sass.
“Have we found out which farm she belongs to?”
“The old MacKay farm, wherever that is. I spoke to Tobias Crane. His family have just moved in. I guess no one checked the fences. They’re on their way.”
I squinted at him. “Really? That’s miles away. Was the cow trying to jog back to its old home?”
“They said the old b—” — he coughed —“uh…the old cow always was ornery. They weren’t surprised it was Buttercup causing trouble.”
“Buttercup? That’s it’s…her name? I thought it’d be Elvira or something.”
Sanchez laughed. “Nope. Buttercup. And she’s a family favorite, even if she is a nightmare.”
