Page 59 of Wrangling Hearts
“I don’t know,” Colt said, “he seems to hate Sterling and Preston as much as we do.”
“Aren’t Levi and Preston brothers, though?” Delilah asked, painting her toes. “Sounds sketchy if you ask me.”
“Half,” Anna clarified. “They share a dad, but different moms.”
“I think he can be trusted,” Beau said. “We could at least give him a chance to prove he’s not like the rest of his family.” That was all I needed to get on board. If Beau trusted him, I did too.
“I don’t like this,” Weston said.
My eyes narrowed. It wasn’t like him to have such strong negative opinions. At least, not the version of him I knew when we were younger. “Why?”
“Because it’s highly sensitive stuff about the ranches. Ranches that his brother just tried to poach from the two of you, if I’m not mistaken. You don’t think that’s sketchy? And then to throw”—he swallowed, hesitated—“to throw Savannah into the mix so he knows her every move? Hell no.”
“I kind of have to agree with him on this one,” Emmett said, which was out of character for him not to just go with the flow. “We don’t know this dude. I mean, how often do you guys even see him?”
“I see him sometimes at the station or city hall. He’s one of those lawyers for things like divorces and custody agreements,” Colt said. “But outside of that, we don’t really keep up with him.”
“See? Can’t be trusted,” Weston said. “And he doesn’t even do the kind of law we need.” I arched a brow at the camera. He sure did have a lot to say for someone who barely knew the guy.
Beau let out a long sigh. “Well, we can worry about that later. It’s not like this is happening right now. There are still hoops we need to jump through.”
“So we’re doing this?” I asked one more time just to be sure. Because once this ball was rolling, there’d be no stopping it.
The chorus of yeses was music to my ears.
“We’re gonna go now, then.” Beau’s hand slid down my back and into my pocket, cupping my ass. “We’ve got celebratin’ to do,” he said with a wink that made me blush and everyone gag. “Talk to y’all later.”
Everyone said bye, their little icons vanishing one by one until my face reflected back at me. I spun on my heel, a buzzing, warm feeling burning in my chest. I brought my hands to my face. “Was that real? Is this real? Pinch me so I know it’s real.”
Beau reached forward, pinching my cheeks gently, and I only smiled harder. “It’s real, baby. We’re doin’ it.”
I let out a squeal and jumped into his arms, my face hurting from my smile. His laugh rang out through the kitchen as he spun me around and showered me with kisses all over.
He set me on the counter next to the dusty bottle of wine. “Now wehaveto open this.”
Except when he tried, the cork snapped in half. It had dried out from sitting for so long. But once he finally got it free, he poured me a glass. I took a sip and immediately spat it out back into the glass. “Do not drink that. It’s disgusting.”
Beau looked down at his glass for a beat and then drank what little was in it. My mouth dropped with a gasp.
He grimaced and then shivered. “That’s fuckin’foul.”
“What did you do that?!”
He rinsed his mouth in the kitchen sink, then turned and said, “We’re in this together. You drink shitty wine, I drink shitty wine. You wanna merge our ranches, I wanna merge our ranches. You want to start racing again, I’ll be at every rodeo.”
My breath caught at the sentiment. He came between my legs and cradled my face in his hands. “You’re done doin’ things alone, Claire. I’m gonna be here every step of the way to take care of you, to support you, to show up for you.”
My heart could’ve exploded with how much I adored him. “I love you,” I whispered, leaning forward.
“I love you, too,” he replied, his voice nothing more than a breathy rasp, and pressed his lips to mine.
18
Beau
“So it’s true, you and Claire are mergin’ the ranches,” Mount said on the other end of the phone. I hadn’t talked to him since last week when I kicked him out, but Anna had told him as soon as we had decided. I was honestly surprised it hadn’t ended up in theWhispersyet.
It’d been three days since then, and we were already getting things going. Cavendish was all for it, just as Joseph predicted. Now, all we had to worry about was the legal aspects. Savannah had warned that it could be tricky getting the property lines changed, but was confident she could get it dealt with.
