Herd That ARC Read online

  She’d changed into a pair of tennis shoes, forgoing the flashy boots she’d been wearing at the sale barn.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked warily, eyes going from me to my brothers and back.

  “I wanted to know if you wanted help unloading Scooby, but I can see you don’t.” I grinned.

  She growled underneath her breath.

  “Apparently my granddad doesn’t like competition,” she said through clenched teeth. “Now I have to go so I can find somewhere for him to stay.”

  “You can use our land… for a fee,” I offered without putting much thought into what I was offering.

  She stopped with one foot lowered onto the bottom step.

  “Really?” she asked, her eyes widening.

  I shrugged.

  “I want to breed him to our heifers. One in particular,” I said. “You can store him at our place for free if you’ll allow us to stud him out.”

  I felt my brothers’ praise beside me, even though it wasn’t spoken aloud.

  “I…” she hesitated. “Okay.”

  Then she grinned, and I realized I’d just royally fucked myself without even realizing it.

  Codie was a beautiful woman.

  She’d been three years behind me in school, but now that we were no longer in school, and age didn’t matter nearly as much, I realized that I had quite a few options lying ahead of me.

  Mainly getting a chance to get Codie in my bed.

  “That’s all you want?” she asked, flipping her long braid over her shoulder.

  I nodded

  “I’ll supply him feed and…” I held my hand up to stop her before she could get too worked up.

  “I’m not going to tell you what to feed him. In fact, we’ll keep him in the pasture that butts up to your fence if you’ll feel more comfortable,” I offered.

  Her eyebrows raised.

  “I just saw you move your cows into the field back here. I can’t ask you to—” I stopped her again.

  “You didn’t ask me to, I offered,” I informed her.

  She pursed her lips.

  “I’d feel more comfortable if you’d put him into one of your smaller ones. I wouldn’t feel right about you…” I sighed as she continued to speak nonsense.

  “My brother-in-law’s giving us access to his land. He’s got just as much as we do, and we’re using his first forty acres that butt up to ours for grazing land as well. It doesn’t take but a couple of hours to get the cattle rounded up and moved. If it makes you feel better, you can keep Scooby in the front pasture that the cows just finished grazing on, and we’ll move him when we move ours next. Acceptable?” I questioned.

  She nodded, biting her lip.

  Her eyes went to my brothers, who’d remained remarkably silent throughout the entire encounter.

  “Hi,” she said to them, picking up her hand and waving slightly.

  The two buttheads smiled and waved back, making me want to kick them.

  Let’s see how cute they are with their front teeth missing.

  Then I chastised myself for having those thoughts about the woman.

  She could smile at whoever she fucking wanted.

  With nothing else to say, I said, “Bring your trailer over. We’ll get him settled.”

  Without waiting for her to comply, I turned my horse around, thankful for some unknown reason that my brothers followed instead of waiting any longer than they had to.

  “What was that all about?” Banks asked the moment we crossed over onto our land.

  “That…” I hesitated. “That was me being a dumbass.”

  Chapter 3

  This heifer don’t take no bull.

  -T-shirt

  Codie

  I saddled up Poppy and threw the reins over her head as I came up to her side, a carrot in one hand and the pommel of the saddle in the other.

  “Be gentle with me,” I told her, offering the carrot to her.

  She lipped it out of my fingers and crunched happily, allowing me to mount her without nary a protest on her part.

  Looking longingly at Jessie’s stall, my horse that I’d realized just a few weeks ago was struggling to carry me during our daily ride, I rode out.

  I’d been riding horses since I was a young girl and had always loved the freeing feeling of having a horse between my legs, and no constraints on the directions I’d wanted to go.

  Then my parents had moved from the country to the city, and I’d lost everything I’d known and held dear.

  My granddad had taken care of Jessie for me over the years, and each time I’d come home, I’d immediately spend hours upon hours on her back, riding and exploring.

  This visit home, though, I realized she wasn’t the young spry horse she used to be.

  At nearly twenty-five years, she was no longer in the prime of her life.

  Although Jessie didn’t hold any grudges, Poppy sure as hell did.

  She hated that I chose other horses over her and made sure to let me know that she didn’t like me very much.

  She was a young girl at a year old, and most assuredly not my favorite of all my granddad’s horses.

  I was an equal opportunity rider, though.

  Since Jessie was now out of commission, I’d given each and every horse a ride since realizing Jessie’s limitations.

  Every horse but Poppy.

  Because if I was being honest, Poppy was a right bitch.

  Not the type of girl to be nervous when it came to a horse, I finally decided to suck it up and give Poppy a try.

  So far so good.

  Pulling the reins slightly to the right, I guided her out of the barn and into the pasture that would lead me to Valentine land.

  It’d been a little over two weeks since Ace Valentine had offered up his land to Scooby, and in those two weeks, I’d realized I’d made a colossal mistake in taking him up on the offer.

  Not because he was bad or anything, but because he was good.

  So very, very good.

  And sexy.

  Today, though, was the worst.

  Before I’d only witnessed jeans and no t-shirt.

  Today… no, today was completely different.

  The moment I came within sight of Ace, I knew I needed to turn around.

  A man like Ace was devastating without chaps.

  With chaps… well, let’s just say the vision was worthy of awards.

  Maybe even Nobel prizes… or the Presidency.

  Both would work just fine, because with one look at Ace in those chaps that spanned across the front of his thighs, down both legs to stop at just the top of his boots, leaving the seat of his ass open, meant I lost any and all ability to make sense of my words.

  Ace was riding a bronco, one he’d purchased at the auction when I’d gotten Scooby.

  I hadn’t realized that the bronco was as crazy and angry as he was, but it was apparent with the way he was trying to buck Ace off that he had plenty of both, and some to spare.

  Ace was holding on with one hand, his other hand up high in the air and keeping his body steady.

  His thick, muscled thighs were twitching and bunching, anticipating the bronco’s movements before he’d even made them.

  Banks and Callum were both leaning against the piped fence, watching their brother work… or whatever it was that he was doing.

  I’d say playing, but I’d heard Ace mention to another man while at the auction that the bronco would be tamed and bred with a couple of his other mares.

  I rode Poppy up to the edge of the fence and stopped her just shy of rubbing my thigh and calf up against the pipe.

  My arrival caught Banks’ and Callum’s attention, causing them both to look over at me.

  My eyes, however, were still on Ace.

  He pulled back on the reins, his body going forward.

  Then the bronco reared back, his eyes going wild as they settled in my general di
rection.

  Ace cursed, his body going forward with no other recourse.

  Poppy shifted her weight to the side, and not expecting it, I fell.

  Right over the fence.

  Directly under the bronco’s upraised hooves.

  “Fuck me,” I heard Ace curse.

  Callum and Banks scaled the fence, and I started to backpedal on my hands and feet like a crab would do.

  Ace bellowed and threw himself from the horse’s back, taking such a firm hold on the reins that the horse was forced down to his front feet.

  I got up and scaled the fence, Callum’s and Banks’ hands on my ass pushing me over.

  I fell to the other side on my back and stared up at the sky in confusion as I made sense of the last twenty seconds.

  “Poppy, you bitch!” I yelled at my horse who was happily eating grass two feet away.

  I heard Ace curse as he jumped, his large booted feet landing on the opposite side of the fence from me.

  My head turned in the dirt, and I stared at him.

  Or his feet, anyway.

  They were nice feet.

  Big. Thick. Long.

  Those feet scaled the fence with angry, precise movements, causing me to roll over and hurry to my feet.

  Before I could get my legs underneath me, though, Ace was there.

  His hands were underneath my arms, hauling me to my feet so fast and hard that I had no other option but to stand straight and stare at him.

  “I’m sorry!” I blurted.

  Ace’s eyes were angry and brutal as he stared at me with barely contained fury.

  “You could’ve gotten killed. You have no business being on a farm if you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing.” Ace stalked forward.

  I went back on instinct, trying to keep as much distance in between the two of us as possible.

  The problem with that idea, though, was that I didn’t factor in Ace’s brothers who were just as angry as I was.

  “I didn’t mean to!” I yelled. “And I damn well know how to handle myself on a horse. It’s just that Poppy’s a fucking whore and doesn’t like me!”

  “Then why’d you ride her?” Callum asked, annoyance tingeing his voice as well.

  “Because she was giving me big whiny eyes,” I replied. “I couldn’t not take her.”

  “Sure, you could have,” Ace said. “You just don’t ride her if you can’t handle her.”

  I glared at him, then pushed out from between the three men, making my way to my bitch of a horse.

  “Jesus, Poppy. Why you always got to make me look bad?” I asked her, coming up to her side and trying to mount her.

  She moved, pushing me off balance.

  I started to fall, but Ace’s harsh hands caught me before I could make an even bigger fool of myself.

  “Maybe I should just walk,” I muttered, grabbing Poppy’s reins and starting in the direction of home.

  “Maybe,” Ace shot back.

  I glared at him over my shoulder, coming to a stop when my reins caught, indicating Poppy had no intention of moving.

  Apparently, she liked the grass better over here.

  And the male companionship if the bronco’s sudden change in demeanor had anything to say about it.

  “Fine. You keep her. She doesn’t like me anyway,” I mumbled, starting off across the pasture I’d just ridden across. “I want my old horse back. Is there any way to erase time?”

  I wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, but the man at my back who was keeping pace with me obviously thought I was speaking to him.

  “No,” he said. “You only get one life. You have to live it. Although you just almost died.”

  I shot him an angry look, trying to ignore how hot he was in the process.

  “Shut up. Nobody’s talking to you,” I muttered.

  “You just did,” Ace retorted.

  I shook my head. “Actually, I was talking to myself.”

  “Like that’s any better,” Ace replied.

  I ignored him. Or tried to.

  It was hard to ignore those thighs encased in those chaps.

  They were quite lovely.

  “Why are you wearing those?” I asked without thinking.

  “Because if I don’t, my legs chafe,” he replied just as quickly. “Where are you going?”

  “Home,” I replied. “Maybe I can start this day over better tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow will be tomorrow, not today,” he said, all philosophical and shit.

  I shrugged.

  “It’s going to take you forty-five minutes to walk home,” he pointed out. “And that’s if you cut through the pasture, which you probably shouldn’t do since you’re not wearing proper boots. The grass isn’t cut down low enough for you to see any snakes.”

  I ignored him.

  I had on boots.

  They probably weren’t the best ones in the world for what I was doing seeing as they were about two days old and stiff as a board, but they weren’t the flashy ones that I’d been wearing at the sale barn.

  I hadn’t missed the eye rolls from Ace or his brothers as I’d made my way over the last two times.

  For that reason, two mornings ago, when I’d gone into town, I’d decided to buy an ugly brown pair that were boring and blah.

  “It is what it is,” I said. “If I die of a rattlesnake bite, I have good life insurance. It’ll serve my fish nicely. I left it all to him.”

  His steps faltered. “What do you mean you left your life insurance to a fish? That’s impossible.”

  “I actually left it to my best friend, who promised me she would buy my fish nice things after I die. Same thing, right?” I jumped over a fallen log and winced when the stiff leather of the boot scraped against my heel. “My best friend is actually watching my fish right now, too. Between you and me, she’s probably going to keep him. She’s already living in my house. She took over my lease.”

  Yep, definitely going to have a freakin’ blister tomorrow.

  Maybe two. On both heels.

  “Your horse is following you,” the man at my side suddenly said.

  I didn’t bother to look over my shoulder. “I don’t want her anymore. She’s no longer one I’m willing to ride, anyway.”

  “I’m sorry, but is she yours to just give away?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “My granddad won’t notice she’s missing. She was one of the few that he rescued from that farm that had about five hundred horses that they couldn’t feed. All except that one. She was the one that the farmer liked best and apparently treated her like the spoiled little asshole that she is.”

  “The Greer farm?” Ace asked curiously.

  I looked over at him and saw he had his hands shoved in his back pockets, accentuating his narrow hips and bulky biceps.

  “Uhh.” I shrugged. “I have no idea. I just got here a month ago. I’m not really sure about the people he got them from. All I know is that I have to muck out all their stalls and I’m not very happy about it.”

  His lips twitched, and he looked down at me.

  “Too much for the city girl?” he teased.

  I shrugged and thought about my city.

  I’d been living in Dallas since I was eighteen, and I loved it there. I did not miss Kilgore at all. Not even a little bit.

  What I did miss was Dallas and the fact that I could walk into a coffee shop and nobody knew my name.

  I liked the faceless, nameless people who didn’t know who I was, or who my mother was. Who didn’t ask how my grandfather was doing, or how work was going.

  “I don’t mind mucking out stalls… once,” I said. “But I don’t find the task very fun to do on a daily basis, and I haven’t had to do it since I moved away at eighteen. Let’s just say I’m spoiled.”

  “Why’d you move away?” he asked as he looked around at the spread of property that we were coming up on—mine and my grandfather’s.

/>   My parents, who’d owned the farm fifty-fifty with my granddad, had deeded me their portion of the ranch and had moved down to Florida two years ago. It wasn’t until Granddad’s heart attack that I had come home myself.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t love it here, because I did. It was just that I didn’t want to do the kind of work that would be required of me.

  I loved my job in Dallas.

  I loved it so much that I didn’t want to move down here and be forced to quit.

  Yet my granddad’s health was more important than my wants and desires, which was why I gave up my dream job and came home.

  “I wanted to go to school in Dallas, away from here,” I answered. “And I did. Got my bachelor’s degree in computer science with a minor in criminal justice. I started a job with the Dallas Police Department as a crime scene analyst and really loved the job.”

  “But then your granddad had his heart attack,” he guessed.

  I nodded. “After I heard about his health, I started to get ready to move. Shut my life in Dallas down, then moved back home.” I paused. “I’m about to use what’s left of my savings…”

  “That you didn’t spend on Scooby?” he teased.

  I ignored him. “…to buy myself an RV so I don’t have to live with my granddad. He’s so freakin’ stubborn and wants me to go find myself a place in town. I’m compromising by living in the RV. At least he can’t say that I’m ‘under his feet’ all the time.”

  And why the hell was I telling this man my woes?

  “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” I got to the wooden fence that separated our property from the Valentine property. “Have a good day. Oh, and remember that the asshole likes oats.”

  With that, I walked through the gate and closed it quietly behind me, wondering who had fixed it since the last time I’d used it earlier in the week.

  I heard Ace sigh long and loud behind me as if he was trying to decide if I was being serious or not—spoiler alert, I was. That goddamn horse could go fuck herself on a cactus for all I cared. A, she almost killed me. And B, she made three grown men want to kill me.

  There was only so much a girl could take.

  ***

  Ace

  “Do you think she’s being serious about this horse?” Banks asked, sounding amused.