Timber Lake (The Snowy Range Series, #2) by Nya Rawlyns

they could get settled, a green Forest Service truck inched down the sand road, the driver waving his arm out the window for them to follow. Michael said, “That’s George. He wants us to follow him.”
    “Duh. Ya think?” Sonny shifted into drive, white-knuckling the rig past cars parked willy-nilly.
    “Don’t be a smart ass. And watch the turn. There’s low-hanging branches on your left.” Michael saw the hood of a junker sedan in Sonny’s blind spot and yelled, “Not that wide!”
    “Don’t fucking shout at me.” Sonny slammed his hand on the steering wheel. “You want to drive, then drive.”
    With the good Dr. Rydell losing his shit over a minor trailering problem, Michael found himself thoroughly enjoying the afternoon’s festivities. Mumbling, “Insurance will probably cover it,” he followed it up with a zip-lip gesture.
    “Nice.” Sonny tapped the brake. “You could help by getting the hell out and wave semaphores, or something. I can’t see squat on your side.”
    Easing out of the truck and slamming the door shut, Michael knew what was going to happen next. The horses and mule had taken the trip well up to that point, but what they didn’t like was the jerking back and forth as Sonny tried to negotiate around vehicles parked every which way. In his head he counted down, three two one...
    The first impact rocked the trailer side-to-side, the second put a dent in the sidewall. That would be his gelding with his size two shoes and low tolerance for inconvenience. The mule joined in, braying loud enough to wake the dead. In between the honking and the pounding, Sonny shouted, “Oh, for fuck’s sake...”
    Michael grinned. Maybe this trip wasn’t going to be so bad after all.
    ****
    S onny watched the cowboy wearing a shit-eating grin trot up behind the gooseneck trailer, covering ground like he’d been chair-bound for way too long. Up ahead, the ranger named George was hanging out the driver-side window, his face mirroring Michael’s. When he saw Sonny glaring at him, he ducked back inside.
    Obviously satisfied the rig was angled well enough to complete the turn and follow behind, the ranger took off down the sandy track at a good clip.
    That good clip presented a problem. There was a bend up ahead. Once around that, the truck would disappear from view. If Sonny was being honest with himself, he felt on the fragile side of having had quite enough of Brooks and his passive-aggressive teasing. The whole situation begged for action.
    If he thought overlong about maybe, possibly, on a slight chance of catching hell because he was thinking about doing a thing, he probably wouldn’t. That’s how he usually rolled. Stay under the radar, don’t get your boxers in a twist. Good rules to live by. Problem was, he was no longer in good rule territory. He’d walked into a situation with chaos written all over it.
    Lines in sand. Personal boundaries. Keeping safe. Good stuff. For another time and another place.
    Michael had a sidearm strapped to his hip. There was a tranquilizer gun on the rack behind the seat. He wore spurs, real honest-to-God fucking spurs. The man was decked out and gussied up to take on the bad guys at the OK Corral.
    And he looked way too damn hot for his own good...
    Sonny pressed his foot on the accelerator and took off after the ranger’s vehicle, leaving Warden Michael Brooks eating dust. After a sweeping right hand turn, the bulldozed road ran relatively straight across a meadow with Sand Lake to the southwest and a warren of sandy tracks angling off in all directions. The road eventually petered out at a chained gate that the ranger was opening.
    Ranger George sauntered back to their rig, looked inside the cab and asked, “You forget something?”
    Ignoring the barb, Sonny said, “How about showing me where you want us to park. I got us some unhappy critters back there. Sooner we offload them, get them moving around, the better.”
    The ranger pointed to an open area by