He shuddered. “It just shouldn’t be done. Kind of like you shouldn’t put coconut on cake, either.”
Which she had done as well, and hadn’t told him it was on there.
He’d found out rather quick, but that was beside the point.
“You should stop asking her for test pieces then,” I suggested as I moved forward when he struggled with the last press.
“Yeah.” He blew out a breath and racked the weights. “I…”
“Go, go, go!” we heard the crowd begin to yell.
We looked over just in time to see Desi reach the top of the fifteen-foot rope.
My heart started to race as I saw her reach the metal beam and tap it.
“Damn, look at that ass,” Banks teased.
I slapped him upside the head. “Stop looking at my woman’s ass.”
“I feel like it’s okay,” he said. “I mean, you’re not sharing her physically. You could at least share her visually.”
Desi started to come down the rope, and when she reached the bottom, she turned and collected the high-fives of the women and men that surrounded her.
Codie and her started jumping up and down, and Ace came up just as I said, “Fuck, that’s hot.”
Ace snorted. “Why don’t you just ask her to move in with us already?”
I grimaced. “Because I don’t want to spook her. She just came out of a bad marriage, and it’s only been a month. I want her there…but I also don’t want her to freak out and retreat from the relationship altogether.”
He grunted something. “Codie and I have been together for a little longer than that, yet she’s moved in with us.”
“We’ve been able to hear,” Banks drawled. “Which brings me to my next topic of conversation. We need to see about getting these rooms soundproofed. With the money coming in from the life insurance payout, we can remodel this dump.”
When my parents had died, they’d both had sizeable life insurance policies. Life insurance policies that we hadn’t realized were available to us until just this year.
After Ace had found out, he’d started the process of getting paid. Since the company that the policies had been taken out through had been on the shady side, we’d been playing a legal game ever since.
But, as of just last night, we were awarded the life insurance payout, as well as attorney fees.
Which meant that we were now a million dollars richer. We were able to purchase land that we’d been hoping to acquire, and we could now fix the place up, seeing as we were trying to fit all of us into a four-bedroom mobile home that needed updated yesterday.
Ace rolled his eyes. “I think we should just build a house.”
Now that was an idea I was up to getting on board with.
“That sounds like a good plan,” I admitted. “Can we do that?”
As in, did we have the cash to do that?
We were doing great on money. We were all in the black, and there wasn’t a single loan in sight for any of us.
Though we all drove old ass trucks. Those were going to have to be updated at some point in time if this was to continue.
Plus, it was embarrassing to have to call Desi for a jump when you were getting groceries at Walmart. Something that I’d had to do last week.
“We have roughly three-hundred grand to build a house… if we do some of the work ourselves.” Ace paused. “And though we’re good with our hands, I’ve never built a house before.”
“Candy Ray Sunshine has,” I found myself saying. “Or, at least, her father has. He’s a contractor, remember?”
Banks groaned.
“Don’t do that to me,” Banks pleaded.
We ignored him.
“My father and grandfather know a lot about building houses, too,” Colt interjected for the first time. “I know this isn’t my house or anything, but I’m more than willing to offer my father’s expertise.”
“Let’s just use Colt’s grandfather!” Banks interjected.
Ace rolled his eyes. “Didn’t you say that your grandfather was caring for your grandmother? Not that I wouldn’t accept his help if he were here, but I don’t want to pull him all the way to Texas when he’s needed in Alabama.”
Colt nodded. “I meant more of an advisory capacity, anyway.”
“Shit,” Banks grumbled.
“We’re meeting with Candy today,” I said to the group as a whole. “I’ll talk to her, see whether she’s willing to help.”
“In the meantime,” Ace said, rubbing his forehead. “I…”
One of our two ranch hands that we’d hired for the summer ran in looking a bit dazed.
“Uh, Mr. Valentine?”
All of us turned to look at the kid.
He gulped.
“Star Shine is having her foal,” he stammered under the weight of every Valentine eye. “We called your cell phones, but it was going to voice mail. Had to drive over here to find you, but I left my partner with Star Shine.”
I took my hat off and scratched my head. “Guess that one is for me.”
And it was.
I’d been in charge of the breeding process for the horses on our ranch whereas Banks was in charge of training. Darby was slowly taking over the process of finding buyers. Though, the more our name was circulated, the easier it was getting for him to do his part.
I looked at my watch and knew that I was going to be late.
Firing off a quick text to the woman that was never far from my mind, I headed for the truck.
“If y’all decide on anything else, let me know.”
With that, I headed to the barn.
***
Desi
Four hours later, I was in the Valentine kitchen surfing through Pinterest, looking for ideas for my new shop. Ideas that would help me make my cake business the best business that it could be.
Only there were a lot of opinions.
Even more, there were a lot of bad suggestions as well as good ones.
My phone went off for a second time, and I looked at the display nervously.
Candy had canceled our meeting today about fifteen minutes before she was meant to meet me. Which hadn’t bothered me at all.
What had bothered me was that instead of meeting my potential business partner, I’d had to deal with Mal.
Mal who was once again calling me and looking like he was going to keep calling me.
I ignored the call just in time for Callum to come sauntering into the kitchen.
I perked up at the sight of him.
I’d tried to go talk to him earlier, but he’d looked like he’d had his hands full, and I was unwilling to insinuate myself into a situation that I couldn’t handle.
And a birthing horse that looked like she might not make it wasn’t one of the places that I wanted to be.
Callum stopped short of the counter and looked at me with tired eyes.
He was dirty, sweaty, and looked quite a bit disgruntled.
I stood up from my chair and walked to him, wrapping him up in my arms despite the dust on his chambray shirt.
“Hey,” I said softly, going up on my tiptoes to offer him my lips.
He didn’t disappoint me, dropping his head down and placing his lips on mine.
Our kiss wasn’t heated, and I had a feeling that had a lot to do with the person at the table behind me and not Callum’s obviously shitty mood.
“Hey,” he rumbled, pulling back and removing the hat from his head.
His hair was a sweaty mess as well. Though I was starting to really love the curls that were coming out in his hair the longer he allowed it to grow.
I wasn’t sure what caused this change in him—him letting it grow—but I was happy for it. I also made sure to mention to him every time we were intimate how much I loved his hair.
“You okay?” I asked worriedly.
He wasn’t in the best of moods, that was for sure.
He sigh
ed.
“Nearly lost Star Shine today,” he grumbled. “The foal is out and walking around, but Star Shine is still not out of the woods. I’m not sure that she’s going to make it through the night.”
I felt my stomach drop.
I’d made friends with quite a few of the mares on the ranch, and even a few of the colts.
Star Shine was definitely one of my favorites.
“Do you need to go?” I asked. “You don’t have to be here… I am a big girl. I can talk to my ex-husband alone.”
Even though I’d begun to really rely on Callum over the last couple of weeks.
One day, he came into my life, and the next, I never wanted him to leave again.
It was honestly quite humbling, finding someone that you could completely and utterly rely on for everything. I’d never had that once in my life, and it was a relief.
A relief that I hadn’t realized that I needed.
Even with Malloy, I still wasn’t sure if he was doing it for his son, or for me.
Though he loved me, I knew, I always wondered if he was doing what he was doing because on some level, he was watching out for his son.
“Nah, I’m more than ready to take some time,” he muttered. “I have a ranch hand watching over Star. Plus, when you sent me that text earlier that he’d cornered you at your new shop, I was a little pissed that I didn’t get the chance to set him straight.”
I grinned. “In person, at that.”
He snapped his fingers as if he’d missed a golden opportunity.
“He said he has some really important stuff to bring over here,” I said. “Are you sure you want him bringing it here? I don’t know what it is.”
Callum waved the worry away. “Don’t worry. I’d rather him bring it over here rather than straight over to the cabin. I would rather him not know where you live.”
I agreed. Otherwise he might try to invite himself into my house.
“I talked to Malloy today, too,” I said when the phone once again rang, indicating Mal was getting impatient.
Instead of answering it, I got up to stir the pot of beans that I’d had cooking on the stove since early this morning.
Codie came waltzing in moments after I stood and groaned when she smelled the beans.
“Oh my God. Those smell so. Good.” She groaned. “I gotta go take a shower and wash all this… stuff… off of me. Then I’ll come in and help you with the rest of dinner.” She frowned. “What is the rest of dinner?”
I held up three loaves of bread and a massive stack of cheese.
“Grilled cheese,” I said. “I saw a video today on Facebook that made me want one. I’ve been super good lately, too. So I decided to treat myself. I even got this new country white bread. Oh my God. I can’t wait to taste it.”
Callum groaned. “Can we eat before the dumbass comes over?”
The phone rang again, and I gestured to it. “Hey, Codie. Want to answer that before you go shower?”
Codie grinned, then reached for the phone just like I knew that she would.
“Hey, Mal. You got Codie,” Codie greeted. “How’s life treating you? You and the missus getting along well?”
The false sense of sweetness in her voice had me grinning and Callum chuckling.
“What do you mean you’re already here?” Codie rolled her eyes. “You’ve been knocking for ten minutes?”
So that was what that noise had been.
I’d heard it, of course, but I’d thought that it was one of the guys in the living room playing Call of Duty again.
The walls tended to shake when they turned the volume up super loud.
I’d gotten so used to it lately that it didn’t even affect me anymore. I was able to tune it all out in favor of listening to an audiobook, or reading on my phone while I worked.
Hell, I could even tune out the brothers talking in the kitchen behind me.
I’d gotten so used to the chaos that it almost felt weird to not have it around me.
“Oh, well, why didn’t you just come in with Georgia?” Codie said, turning slightly to reveal that Callum’s sister, Georgia, was walking into the kitchen sans any kids or her husband.
“Because I didn’t want him in my family home,” Georgia said. “I also don’t like his attitude. He watched me struggle to bring this in.”
‘This’ being a rather large baking sheet that looked like it was the size of a twin-size mattress.
Callum took it from her and leaned it against the wall in the corner of the kitchen.
“What the fuck is that?” he asked.
“Okay.” Codie rolled her eyes. “I’ll send Callum that way. Oh, sorry, Callum’s the only one here. Desi is at home.”
I snorted.
“Yeah, she left her phone here. She didn’t mean to,” Codie lied.
Then she hung up and put the phone on the table.
“Swear to God,” Codie grumbled as she started leaving the room. “I don’t know what you ever saw in that man.”
Me, neither.
Not when I had the real-life embodiment of the ‘perfect man’ right in front of me.
“I found it at an estate sale,” she said. “It’s just big enough to fit in our oven at home, so I think it’ll fit into y’all’s just fine, too.”
Okay, so the pan wasn’t quite as big as I’d made it out to be, but it was massive.
I’d never seen a cookie sheet so big before.
Obviously, neither had Georgia or Callum.
“What’s for dinner?” Georgia asked, changing the subject.
Callum sighed and began walking to the front door. “I’ll be right back.”
Georgia turned to me expectantly.
“I’m making grilled cheese and beans. Kind of an odd combination, but I wanted to try it. Are you staying? I think I have enough for you. Not if any of those kids or your husband is going to follow you in, though.”
Georgia’s mouth quirked. “No, not today. Nico took them to go see a movie. I’m all by my lonesome. I was going to go get a foot-long sandwich from Subway and eat it in my car, but yours sounds way better. That, and I get to tease Nico later when I tell him I got to eat your home cooking.”
I frowned. “It’s not that great.”
“Yes, it is,” Darby said as he arrived in a flourish of backpacks, books, and electronics.
He set it all down on the counter and stepped back, looking at me expectantly. “What’s for dinner?”
I repeated the night’s menu items.
“That sounds perfect,” he said. “I have to go change. I still have cow shit on my pants, I think. I had to go to class with cow shit on me. Do you know how annoying that is? I had to smell it all day long. And I accidentally skipped lunch because I wasn’t paying attention to the time. I had barely enough time to get to my next class. Hey, sis. Where are your heathens?” Darby paused in his ramblings.
“My kids are at the movies with their father,” she answered. “And you should just start packing some nuts or something in your bag to snack on. You always forget to eat lunch.”
“Or maybe he should just grow a pair,” Banks muttered darkly as he breezed into the kitchen, grabbed a beer from the fridge, and then plopped down at the table with the rest of them. “What’s for dinner?”
After repeating my menu for the third time in as many minutes, I got to work on dinner.
Conversation flowed around me, and I vaguely tried to pay attention to what was going on as I also tried to cook.
At some point, Colt and a few of the ranch hands had joined us. Remy, another of their friends that lived in the bunkhouse but also came over to eat, took a seat on the counter next to me and handed me spices out of the cabinet that I couldn’t reach.
I was seasoning the food when Callum finally made his way back into the room.
He frowned when he saw me staring.
“What?” I asked.
“He gave me this a
nd then asked me if you could please return the engagement ring.” He rolled his eyes.
I looked at the black velvet box.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Apparently, it’s the engagement ring his father gave his mother, and he doesn’t want to use it. The bitch wants that one.” He pointed at the ring that I’d begun wearing around my neck via a necklace that Callum had purchased me.
I blinked, then blinked again.
“How does he know that I have it?” I asked. “And why did he want to give me that? Why not just give her that?”
“I asked him the same thing,” Callum shrugged. “He didn’t have an answer for me. Only that she saw you at the grocery store the other day with it around your neck and wanted it back.”
I shook my head. “Yeah, no. You can leave that on the counter, though. I’m meeting Malloy for lunch tomorrow. I’ll give it back to him then. From there, he can do what he will with it.”
Callum grinned and set the ring on the counter.
Remy hopped down and went to the table, and Callum took his place, only this time leaning a lean hip against the counter.
“Did he say anything else?” I wondered.
Callum tore off a piece of grilled cheese from the plate and shook his head. “No. Not really. Only that he thinks his dad has a ‘cold’ or something.”
I ground my teeth. “Malloy’s going to have to die before Mal even acknowledges that he’s sick. And Malloy won’t say a word to him because he’s worried that Mal’s gonna lose his shit. And he’s too weak to deal with it right now.”
It was true, too.
In the last two weeks, Malloy had literally gone downhill at the speed of light.
The last time I’d seen him, he’d had to use a walker to get in the damn restaurant.
I was scared shitless of what tomorrow’s lunch might bring.
“Is Mal named after Malloy?” Remy suddenly asked.
I shook my head as I pulled the pot of green beans back over to the stove and started stirring in the butter and seasonings.
“No, his real name is Malden, but he goes by Mal.” I paused and turned. “That’s a bone of contention.”
“Really?” Remy asked. “Why?”
“Malloy had two sons,” Ace answered. “Mal—or Malden—was born first. Mal’s brother, Malloy Junior, was born two years later. Mal hates Malloy Junior. So much so, in fact, that MJ moved when he turned eighteen and didn’t turn back. I think he hates Malloy just as much as he hates Malden. Malloy always condoned Mal’s behavior, trying to explain it away. I think, in the end, MJ just decided that it was easier to let Mal have his way—which was having his father’s undivided attention—and leaving it at that. I’ve seen him all of five times. Each time was at a funeral of some sort.”
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