BAD DECISIONS & BACK ROADS

Gia worked like she had somewhere better to be and resented that my homicidal livestock had delayed her.

She spoke once. “Looks like she tangled with something big. A coyote or mountain lion, perhaps. At least she’s good at violence when it counts. Do you think you can remove sutures from her without me sedating her again?”

I looked at Cody.

He looked at me.

We both looked at the llama, who was unconscious but somehow still looked mean.

“No,” I said.

Gia gave one curt nod. “I’ll bury what sutures I can under the skin and put in dissolvable suture for the rest. I’ll also draw blood since I bet that’s never been done. She’ll need antibiotics in her food for a while. Up to you if you think she needs pain meds.”

She finished fast—antibiotic and pain injections, blood draw, final check—and stepped back as the llama staggered upright like a drunk. The beast blinked, swayed, then cast me a filthy look as if I’d been the one who darted her. She strutted off like she hadn’t spent a half hour face-down in the grass.

The second the llama resumed her day, I turned on Gia. “You can’t waltz back to Vision like nothing happened. I mean, yesterday…” When she didn’t immediately reply but her lips trembled as if she was about to burst into laughter, my blood pressure spiked. “Why are you back? Haven’t you wrecked enough of my life already?” I hadn’t intended to say that out loud.

“Yesterday…I wrecked you?” She gave me a look I remembered. Her green eyes flared. I was about to lose this fight in a way I’d never recover from.

She slowly unzipped her coveralls. My brain immediately abandoned ship. Not helped by the fact that traitorous memory chose this exact moment to replay yesterday’s rainstorm in vivid detail.

Meanwhile, in real time, she peeled the coveralls down and somehow stepped out of them while keeping her socks from touching the ground—a feat of female sorcery I could neither explain nor stop watching.

Underneath was a tight white shirt that clung in ways that should probably require a warning label, a permit, and possibly a pastor on standby.

My eyes briefly closed. Opened. She was still there.

Beside me, Cody made a small choking noise.

I cut him a glare.

He didn’t even have the decency to look ashamed.

Then—because she enjoyed cruelty—she lifted both arms and twisted her hair into a messy bun. Which did things. Terrible, magnificent things to her chest.

Her mouth curved like she knew exactly what she’d done. She pulled a scrub top out of the duffle and pulled it down over the tight shirt. Without a word, she packed the supplies into her duffel, casually picked up the dart rifle from the ground, and started walking up the hill like she hadn’t just detonated every functioning brain cell in a fifty-yard radius.

Then she tossed over her shoulder—

“I’m back, Timothy Hurst. End of story.” A few steps later she said, “You’re welcome…for dealing with your dangerous llama.”

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