Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 115683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 463(@250wpm)___ 386(@300wpm)
I hear Dad chuckle. “You sound surprised.”
“To be honest? I am surprised, but in the best way. I’ve never been on a ranch before. I know, I know, that makes me a terrible Texan. But now that I’m here, I’m kicking myself for not giving ranch life a chance.”
It’s no big deal to have a visitor on the ranch. People come and go all the time. Maybe it’s a friend of Billie’s? She’s been hanging with some new girlfriends recently. Maybe she added another chick to the mix, one I don’t know.
Maybe it’s a new friend I can make. It’s been so long since I had sex, I’m worried I’ve forgotten how.
Then again, having sex with someone means you trust them to some extent. And I know better than to trust Susie fucking Sunshine here.
Especially when I hear her say the words honored to be considered and majorly exciting shake-up.
Last time I experienced a shake-up, it wasn’t exciting at all.
It destroyed my life.
I open the door and step inside.
My blood burns as my eyes sweep up the length of a long pair of legs, a tight ass, and a head full of chin-length, wavy dark hair.
She—this girl who’s already got me feeling some kind of way—turns her head. Our gazes meet.
More like collide, her big green eyes latching on to mine like she owns them.
Ballsy.
Alarm bells go off inside my head. The woman—girl—definitely doesn’t look like she belongs on a ranch with her glossed-up lips and perfect, milky-white skin.
How old is she? Her clear, confident way of speaking made me think she was older. Maybe thirty or so. But she looks much younger than that.
Why do those jeans gotta hug her curves like it’s a crime to leave an inch of her body to the imagination?
And is she wearing clogs with sky-high heels? Heels have no place on a ranch. They do make her legs look a mile long, though.
Only when Dad speaks up am I aware that anyone else is in the room. “Surprise!”
“Surprise?” I don’t love being the guy who grunts. But grunting gets the point across. It also keeps the wrong people away.
Sometimes it keeps the right people away too. But worth it to stay safe.
Billie, my sister, beams at me. She’s still wearing a brace on her elbow after breaking it during her first barrel race earlier this month. “You’re gonna hate this.”
She’s been awful chipper lately compared to the slump she’s been in over the past year. Gonna have to investigate that whenever I get a spare second, which is never.
“Aw, don’t tell him that,” Dad says to Billie before looking at me. “I’ve been thinking about making some changes for a while, and, well”—he raises his brows as he blows out a breath—“I was finally able to snag the kind of talent we need to do just that.”
I stare at Dad, my stomach spasming. “Changes? What changes? As your foreman”—and your oldest son—“I feel like I should’ve known about this.”
Dad was foreman of Wallace Ranch for the entirety of my childhood, working under his dad. When my grandfather retired, Dad became principal and owner of the ranch, which entails a lot more office work. He passed on the title of foreman—essentially the ranch’s top supervisor—to me.
Now I oversee all operations, making sure things run smoothly across the board. I do a little bit of everything: One day, I’m on-site with our contractor going through the final punch list for the arena. The next, I’m turning out a barnful of our famous quarter horses to pasture alongside my brothers. I fix engines, hire new employees, oversee branding and calving seasons for our cattle operation, and manage relationships with feed vendors, horse traders, neighbors, and more.
Dad has the grace to blush a little. “I don’t mean to ambush you, son. But I knew you wouldn’t be crazy about the idea. You’re—”
“A bit of a curmudgeon?” Billie’s smile turns sly.
I spear her with a glare. “I prefer ‘keeper of the traditions that, er, keep everyone alive,’ thank you very much.”
Billie rolls her eyes. “How eloquent of you.”
“Billie—”
“All right, all right, you two.” Dad holds out his hands. “Lemme introduce Lainey and Colt before y’all scare her off. Lainey, this is my son Colt. He’s our foreman.”
“Director of operations, basically,” Billie explains.
“And, Colt, this is Lainey Brown.” Dad gestures to the woman I can’t stop glowering at. “Our new branding and marketing expert.”
What the actual fuck?
Is this really happening right now? Did Dad blindside me by bringing in a marketing expert to shake things up without saying a damn word about it to me? An “expert” who knows nothing about ranches?
Why didn’t he say anything to me? Makes me think he doesn’t trust me.
That hurts. A lot. Everyone in my family knows how important loyalty is to me.
A brick settles in my stomach. Stability is good. Change is bad. We’ve had a record year on the ranch by every metric: revenues, profits, employee retention. You don’t fix what’s not broken.