Herd That ARC Read online

  “Yes,” I said as I walked over to the horse and inspected her.

  She was a good-looking horse, but Codie was right about something. She had some learning to be done. One of which was to take care of her owner, because if she didn’t, her owner wouldn’t want to take care of her.

  “Anyway, do we keep her, or take her back?” Callum asked.

  I looked over at my other brother and grinned. “We’ll keep her. Codie will come to her senses eventually.”

  Right?

  “In the meantime,” Banks said. “How about we talk about our ranch hands and where we’re going to put them when we begin working on our new house and get rid of the trailer and have to kick them out of the loft above the barn?”

  I turned and surveyed the bunkhouse that was barely big enough for three grown men, let alone nine, and shrugged.

  “They’re not all going to be here at once,” I said. “Remy is still active-duty and has no plans to leave the Navy just yet. Jensen is still in Kuwait with the Marines until next month. And Jasper and Hansen are the only two that’ll be here by the end of the month. So, for right now, I think we should just shove a couple into each room of the trailer once we move it and we’ll figure out the rest as the time comes.”

  Jasper, Remy, Jensen, Colt, and Hansen had all grown up with the rest of the Valentine boys—at least the last few years before we’d turned eighteen—in the same foster home—after our parents had died. Each of us had taken our own paths in life, but somehow, we always ended up getting right back together when one or all of us had leave at the same time.

  “Negative,” an amused male voice said from behind me. “I’m getting my own room if I have to rent it at the local motel off the interstate.”

  We all turned to find Jensen standing there looking amused, tired, and dirty.

  He was wearing camo fatigues, had a large duffle over his shoulder, and was looking like he was about to go fuck some people up instead of being home for good.

  “Holy shit!” I took two large, bounding steps in my best friend’s direction, and then tackled him with a bear hug.

  Jensen laughed as he slapped me on the back. “You also forgot about Colt.”

  Colt rolled his eyes, as he always did.

  The quietest of the bunch, Colt did a lot of his ‘talking’ nonverbally. It was only when conversing was a must that words ended up coming out of his mouth—and usually that was only when things were dire.

  I winced.

  I hadn’t forgotten about Colt. I knew exactly where Colt was, and he was already where I needed him.

  “Colt’s at the old shed out on the corner of my land,” I paused. “Keeping an eye on the property there.”

  “Why?” Jensen asked as he stepped back long enough for Callum and Banks to take him into a hug at the same time.

  I grinned at seeing Jensen smile.

  It had been a while.

  Two years, to be exact.

  Colt, Jensen, and I had all been in the military together. But when I’d gotten out due to the fact that my little brother was a prick, Jensen had stayed in with Colt. Colt got out a year later, and then Jensen had stayed in, being deployed for fourteen months. When he got back, he was immediately stationed in Kuwait, and I hadn’t seen him since.

  “Because I have a bead on some land there,” I answered. “I’m sweet-talking the old lady that owns it.”

  “The land that Old Mother Hubbard owns?” Banks teased.

  I snorted. “Yes, her. And… the land that used to be ours.”

  There was silence for a long couple of loaded breaths, and then Banks blew out a breath as he said, “We can afford that?”

  I swallowed hard. “If we all band together? Yes.”

  “How?” he asked.

  I lifted the cowboy hat up off my head and then ran my fingers through my sweat-soaked hair.

  “Do you want the honest answer or the one that’s going to hurt less?” I asked carefully.

  “The truth,” Banks and Callum said instantly.

  I drew in a deep breath and expelled it.

  “Mom had life insurance out on her, Dad, and all of us,” I said. “At the time of the incident, none of us were in any shape to understand or comprehend anything about money or insurance policies. But, I came across some paperwork in Dad’s old desk a few weeks ago, and got to looking.” I swallowed hard. “I have the paperwork at the lawyer’s office right now, but if what I’m reading is correct? We could all have about eighty-thousand dollars coming to us… a piece.”

  Everyone sat there in loaded silence for a few minutes, then Callum blew out a breath. “Holy shit.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s enough to buy the two-thousand acres. It’s also enough to get this place running… and all of us to build if that’s what we want.”

  “So that’s why you wanted us to wait on building an addition.” Callum shook his head. “When will we know for sure?”

  I looked at my watch and checked the time and date.

  “By tomorrow at five o’clock,” I answered. “I called, and they said that it’d take twenty-four hours to contact the benefits department on our behalf asking for the payout. Once they receive the letter, they have two business days to respond… and that happened two days ago.”

  We sat there in silence for a long while.

  “I feel like it’s dirty money,” I found myself saying. “So that’s why I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure what to do with it, or if I did get the money, whether spending it was the right thing to do.”

  “Doesn’t Dad killing himself negate the policy?” Banks asked.

  I shook my head. “No. I had the lawyers go over it with a fine-toothed comb. There were no stipulations on how he had to die. Just that he die. Which he did. Quite spectacularly.”

  Callum snorted.

  “I still fucking hate him,” Banks said. “If he was alive, I’d kill him all over again just to watch him die.”

  My sentiments exactly.

  “I wasn’t going to do anything about this just yet. Just sit on it and wait until I knew more,” I said softly. “But now that y’all know, I might as well tell the others when they call next. That we might need to figure out living situations until we know for sure.”

  Banks grunted. “Remy will know by the end of the day because he’ll text me at some point and I’ll have to tell him or he’s going to use his best friend powers and figure out that something is being kept from him.”

  “Did you tell Darby yet?” Callum asked.

  “No,” I admitted. “I just flat out told you that I wasn’t going to tell any of y’all.”

  “Well, no need on waiting to tell me, seeing as you already told me.” Darby came up and launched himself at Jensen’s back.

  Jensen staggered with his newly added weight and automatically turned and flipped Darby over his shoulder. Instead of Darby hitting the ground, though, he hit the grass landing on his feet and started laughing, obviously having anticipated Jensen’s move.

  “Sorry,” Darby laughed at Jensen’s scowl. “Old habits die hard.”

  Jensen smiled then.

  Since Darby was the baby of us all, it was sometimes hard to reprimand him when he knew better.

  Darby had somehow become the ‘baby brother’ of the whole unit when he’d been going through his rough teenage years. Colt and Jensen treated him like a brother. Which was why Darby never got in trouble for scaring the shit out of all of us, because when he did, it meant that he wasn’t hanging around in his head instead of interacting with the real world.

  “Yeah, yeah.” Jensen shuddered hard. “Just… don’t. Not yet. I’m not all there, and I really don’t want to hurt you.” Then Jensen was walking forward and pulling Darby into his arms.

  My baby brother wasn’t so much of a baby anymore.

  He was a big, full-blown, never-going-to-need-me-again adult. He was well on his way to no longer needing his big brothe
r, and it was a shot to the heart to realize that.

  But it was also nice to have him there, being good, and not out terrorizing cops for fun.

  That, or breaking into the school and decimating the computer lab, or lighting parked cars on fire.

  Yeah, I didn’t miss the old Darby all that much now that I thought about it.

  “What the fuck is that horse doing here?” Darby suddenly asked.

  I looked to see Codie’s horse still standing there, watching over the fence that Codie had disappeared through about twenty minutes before.

  “Codie came over to see us about… something,” I said. “And she got bucked off her horse and nearly got trampled by the bronco I was trying to tame.”

  Darby’s mouth quirked as his eyebrows lifted. “Did you plan on taking the horse back?”

  “No.” I sighed. “Yes. I just have to finish this conversation first.”

  Callum sighed. “I really wouldn’t have minded the horse. She’s a pretty little thing.”

  I looked at the horse more closely. “Pretty little thing or not, she does have an attitude.”

  Callum snorted.

  “What woman worth her muster doesn’t?” he shot back.

  That was the truth. Not that I was looking for a woman. I didn’t have time for a woman.

  Not only was I trying to bring the ranch we were occupying back into the black, but I also had night classes that I taught at the local college.

  I was a basic first aid instructor at the local university and taught advanced level classes only at night.

  During the day, I worked on the ranch and tried to make ends meet.

  “You better get it over there before she jumps the fence,” Callum suggested. “She looks a little heartbroken that she was left.”

  If a horse could, hers did.

  “Whatever.”

  After opening the fence to the Spears property, the horse took off.

  “Be back,” I muttered, hurrying after the horse.

  Chapter 4

  Livin’ the dream, one entry fee at a time.

  -Rodeo Life

  Codie

  I was lying practically naked on the bed, the breeze from the open window wafting over me as I tried to decide what to do.

  My grandfather insisted that he was okay and that I no longer needed to ‘babysit.’ Leaving me with a decision to make. Did I go find a job and hope that it left me time to get other things done around the ranch, or did I ignore my grandfather, live off my savings, and hope that Scooby worked out as I hoped he would?

  I just wasn’t sure what to do at this point. There were so many options lying in front of me, and I was honestly worried that if I did go to work, that Granddad would need me and I wouldn’t be there.

  A whinny had me jolting upright on the bed and staring at my open window… which now had a horse’s head sticking through it.

  I narrowed my eyes at the devil and hissed, “Go away!”

  “I’m fairly sure that talking to a horse won’t get you anywhere,” came from the darkness.

  I narrowed my eyes as the shadows shifted beside Poppy’s left shoulder, and then Ace Valentine appeared.

  I squeaked and reached for the towel that I’d just flung off the top of my head, and crossed it over my body as I said, “I’m naked!”

  “You’re not naked. You’re dressed in a sports bra and underwear. That’s more than the typical bikini covers,” Ace pointed out, pushing Poppy even farther aside to lean against the window frame.

  “True,” I reluctantly agreed. “But that doesn’t make you being at my window late at night appropriate.”

  “It’s eight o’clock,” he pointed out. “And you were over at my house not even twenty-five minutes ago.”

  He had a point.

  “And you brought that with you,” I continued.

  Ace looked up at the horse, then back at me. “I actually followed that.”

  I scoffed. “I swear, sometimes I feel her creeping me out all the way from the barn. You really would do me a favor by keeping her.”

  “I’m not keeping the horse,” he said, then his eyes narrowed. “What is that?”

  I looked over my shoulder at my cat, Moxie.

  “That’s my cat,” I answered.

  He curled a lip up at me.

  “That’s one ugly cat,” he said. “And it’s not something that I’ve ever seen before. Honestly, if I’d seen it in the woods by my house, I might’ve shot it out of principle.”

  I stood up with my towel and turned my back on the man and the horse, walked to my closet and disappeared inside. When I came back out, I had a onesie on and was fully covered from head to toe.

  “That’s cute,” he said. “I should get one just like it and we can be matching twinkies.”

  My lips twitched. “I can order you one and have it shipped here over one-day air. We really can match.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re fucking nuts.”

  I may be.

  But that was neither here nor there.

  “I’m also hungry, so I’m sorry but I’ve gotta go,” I told him, walking toward my door.

  “You want to go get something to eat?” he asked.

  I looked back at him over my shoulder and snorted.

  “You’re asking me on a date?” I laughed. “Whatever.”

  He scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I turned around and leaned my shoulder blades against the bedroom door, staring down my nose at him. “It means that you’re Ace Valentine, and I’m Codie Spears. You’re Kilgore royalty and I’m the trash on the other side of the pasture. Thank you, but no thank you. I’d rather not go out to eat with you and have everyone staring at me wondering what I’m doing with you.”

  His expression darkened. “Sorry, but what?”

  “You heard me loud and clear.”

  With that, I walked away, shutting my bedroom door quietly behind me.

  What I hadn’t expected to do with my words was throw down a gauntlet to the one man who was determined to always get what he wanted.

  And by me turning him down, I’d just cemented my place in his to-conquer list.

  Chapter 5

  You shouldn’t piss off short girls. They’re closer to your dick.

  -Word to the wise

  Codie

  “No,” I said again, final this time.

  My best friend, Desidara, glared at me.

  “You’re doing it, whether you want to do it or not,” Desidara informed me. “Let’s go.”

  “No,” I repeated.

  Desi stopped and turned to me.

  “Listen.” Her voice was pleading. “I need someone. I need you. You’re my best friend, and you’re back for good. I need you or I would’ve never asked you. If you don’t do this with me, I’ll never get to the gym.”

  Desi looked down at her stomach.

  Desi wasn’t ‘fat’ per se, but she also wasn’t skinny. She was plump with a lot of round curves, and an even rounder ass.

  I was all for helping Desi. What I wasn’t for was dying in a Spartan Race that was put on every year in Dallas.

  “Desi.” I looked at my best friend. “I’m not going to lie. I’m five feet tall and have trouble lifting a sixty-pound bag of dog food. I can’t even lift a fucking bale of hay off the ground more than an inch. What makes you think I can participate in some race like that? I’d die, and you’d have to drag my corpse through the obstacle course for me to be considered finished.”

  Then she said the one thing that would ensure that I’d do it.

  “The Valentine brothers are doing it.”

  I closed my eyes.

  “What do I need to do?” I stiffened my spine, looking at her with resolve and determination.

  Desi grinned.

  “You train with me.”

  I tilted my head slightly to the side.

  “When is this race?” I a
sked.

  “In a couple of months,” she answered.

  “And why do you want to do it again?” I pinched the bridge of my nose.

  “Because I want my ex-husband to look at me like he lost something good,” she answered. “I want to fucking wow him with my awesome bod, and then I want to kick him in the balls.”

  I snorted at her words.

  “Where are we working out?” I asked.

  “The gym in town,” she answered. “The one that everyone who’s participating in the race is working out at.”

  I closed my eyes as I tried to come up with a good enough excuse not to do what she was asking of me.

  However, I couldn’t come up with one.

  After Desi’s divorce, I’d have done anything for her if it just got her out of her funk. Her ex-husband had really done a number on her, and if it was within my power to help, I’d do it.

  No matter what.

  “You do realize what you’re asking of me, correct?” I asked, sounding resigned.

  Her smile went bright. “Yes.”

  “And you do realize that the next time I need help with my granddad, you’re up, right?” I continued.

  She rolled her eyes. “I sat with him for two weeks, an hour each day, because you asked me to. Do you honestly think that I wouldn’t have done that anyway?”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “You haven’t seen how he’s been acting lately,” I muttered. “Can we go out for lunch after we work out?”

  Her lips twitched. “I’m not sure you’re going to want to go, but sure. Why not?”

  ***

  “I can’t do this anymore.” I looked across the gym that everyone in the town used to work out in and grimaced.

  “You can and you will,” she said, her eyes going back to the man who was doing bench presses across the room from us.

  My eyes went there, too, and I grimaced.

  “He’s such a showoff,” I muttered.

  “You should go over there and show him how it’s done.” Desi slapped my back.

  I got up and shook out my legs.

  My muscles started to scream in protest the moment I took a step forward.

  “I can’t do anything next to that man. He puts me to shame.” I shook my head.