Chapter 20
KATIE
“If we’re staying at your place, we gotta get a bigger bed, Kitten,” Bray said as we drove away from his second shoeing job.
He’d gotten up with me at dawn and helped with the morning chores.
From growing up on his family ranch and then picking a career as a farrier which specialized solely in horses, he knew his way around a stable.
He made feeding, brushing and mucking stalls look hot.
And the tasks were done in half the time.
I put the horses out in the pasture for the day to graze, ensuring the water trough was full. Then Bray had insisted I go with him on his scheduled jobs–plus the ones he delayed the day before, not wanting me to stay home alone.
I didn’t know much about making and fitting shoes, but I made a decent assistant, helping him keep the more skittish horses calm.
While I knew what to look for when a horse was lame or had issues with their hooves, Bray’d also showed me how to clean and trim hooves under his supervision.
Like Lainey said, I had a way with the animals, so I enjoyed it.
“Bigger bed?” This morning, I woke up sprawled half on top of Bray, my head tucked under his chin, my leg thrown over his waist. I’d never slept with anyone before and I’d been embarrassed I’d pretty much accosted him in my sleep.
Did people sleep like we had or did they take up their own room on their own side? Had I smothered the man? Was he complaining because he needed his space from me?
“How long have you had that mattress?” he asked.
I took a moment to think about it. “Since I moved in.”
He grunted. His hands were casually on the steering wheel, his gaze darting to me on occasion.
“How old were you when they ran off?”
He meant my parents, who left me with my grandparents and never came back for me. I didn’t hear pity in his tone, so I didn’t have a problem answering.
“Six.” I picked at a hangnail on my thumb.
“Definitely time for a bed that doesn’t fit a child.”
I’d add it to the list of things I needed to get, but it was well below my broken window.
“Heard from them recently?”
I shook my head. The windows were down on his truck and it blew loose hairs in my face, even though I had it pulled back in a ponytail. “They came for my grandfather’s funeral. Sent flowers for Gran’s. Last I heard, they were in California.”
“They joined a cult, right?”
“Religious retreat,” I corrected, giving him the side eye and a smirk.
He huffed. “So, a cult?”
He was right and I just didn’t want to say it.
I shrugged. “Pretty much. I’m just thankful my grandparents took me in.
” My mother had met my father at the county fair.
He’d been a carnival worker. She fell hard and fast and left town with him, only to return a few years later with me in tow.
When I was six, they’d been “called up” to join Heaven’s Gate and having a kid was a burden, especially one who needed to go to school.
When I was old enough to question why my parents abandoned me, I looked up the group online.
I learned that while their quack doctrine was based in faith, the foundation of it was a plural lifestyle, and children were married off young. Like, illegally young.
“I should probably thank them for abandoning me instead of growing up in a cult only to be married off at sixteen to a man with two other wives,” I muttered. It sounded ridiculous, but in a place like that, it was probably inevitable.
Sometimes it was hard to not hate them. My grandparents were more mother and father to me than the ones who made me. Gran and Grandad had been in their late sixties when I moved in and probably hadn’t anticipated raising another child.
“I’d definitely thank them,” Bray muttered. “Then punch them in their noses for giving you up. But I’m the lucky one, because now you’re mine.”
He grabbed my hand again and brought it to his lips.
“Back to the new mattress,” he continued as the truck jostled over the washboard pattern of the dirt road. “If you haven’t already figured it out, I’m a big boy and need room to spread out. Even though I do like you sleeping on top of me.”
He turned to me and winked.
That answered that.
“Or we can stay at my place,” he added.
“You live with Hayes,” I countered.
They’d all grown up together in the main Wilder Ranch house. I’d always loved going there to play with Lainey. The noise and insanity in that place was incredible after being an only child with two elderly grandparents.
With Zeb still in college, he was the only one who lived at home when he wasn’t at school. They all had their own places except Bray and Hayes lived together. I doubted Hayes would be thrilled with a surprise woman around.
“That’s true. No way can he hear your screams when I fuck you.”
I gasped. “I do not scream,” I replied, mortified.
He grinned and offered me another wicked glance. “Sorry, kitten, but you’re a screamer. Don’t be embarrassed. I love it.”
I was embarrassed, but I tamped it down because he didn’t once make me feel like any way I reacted to his touch was wrong.
“Then your place it is,” he said, as if the decision was final. “With a new mattress.”
“Isn’t my ranch out of the way for your work? I mean, the rest of your jobs today are on the north side of town. Closer to your place than mine. You’ll have to be up and out earlier than you probably want if you stay with me.”
“I’ll be up earlier because I liked how we started off this morning. I plan to do it every day.”
I flushed hotly. How he’d woken up was with me on top of him, then he rolled us over and went down on me until I… yup, screamed.
“Don’t worry about a longer drive. It’s all good.”
“You can drop me back at my place on the way to the MacKenzie ranch because I have to do the afternoon chores, then take a shower,” I directed when he took a turn onto the road that cut south from town. “I have to work tonight.”
“At The Roadside?”
“Yes. I start at seven.”
“You quit.”
I blinked. What? “No, I didn’t.”
“I did it for you the other night.”
“What do you mean, you did it for me?”
“When I went in for your purse and keys, I told Kyle you were done.”
I turned in my seat to face him and yell at him directly. “For the night!”
“For good.”
“I need that job!”
“No, you don’t.”
“Bray. You don’t understand. I have–”
“Bills to pay. I know. You can use Trout’s money that Ellie’s gonna give you. We’ll go over them later and pay them off.”
“I can’t use that money for things that Trout didn’t do. Like fix my car or repair the spigot behind the stables.”
“What’s wrong with the spigot?”
I waved his question off to stay on topic.
“I need the job to pay for other things,” I yelled, tossing up my hands.
“We’ll pay off the other things with our money.”
“Our?” I blinked. “Our? What are you talking about?”
“You might be carrying my baby, Katie Camden. I bet your panties are soaked now from all my cum dripping from you. I take care of what’s mine. That means you.”
Oh my God, he was right. About all of it. We hadn’t used condoms. I wasn’t on birth control. And my panties were soaked with his cum. That didn’t mean he’d use his hard earned money on me. “By paying for my legal bills and having Andy come by to measure for a new window?”
I hadn’t even known Bray had messaged the Feed and Seed owner until he told me he took care of it.
While it supplied the ranches in town with everything from farm equipment to chicks in the spring, they also had a reasonable hardware selection as well.
It was the closest place without heading to Missoula.
“For starters. Hayes and I are gonna have a little chat with Conrad Trout, too.” He smiled with what looked like evil glee. “That’s gonna be fun.”
“What if he wasn’t involved in the window being broken?”
“He’s got plenty of other bullshit to answer for and you know it.”
“What if Beau’s idea was right about the window and they’re mad at Lainey?”
His face went grim and his knuckles went white on the steering wheel. “No one fucks with a woman who’s got eight brothers and gets away with it.”
“Plus Beau,” I added. “I saw the way he was looking at Lainey.”
“How’s that?” he asked. By the way he was gritting his teeth, he’d seen it, too, but didn’t want to admit it.
“Like you look at me,” I admitted.
“Exactly. Which is why I’m helping you out.”
“Bray,” I sighed. The idea of him and his family taking these problems from me, like dealing with Conrad Trout, sounded like heaven. My load was so heavy, the idea of him carrying it with me made me blink back tears.
But it was too good to be true. Why would he want to do all of this? Just because we had sex?
He slowed the car and pulled it over to the side of the road. He turned, took my hand in his. “You love me, Katie?”
His blue eyes were earnest. Intense. I couldn’t look away.
“Yes.” I’d already admitted it to him. Any other answer and we’d both know it was a lie.
“Then you need to be thinking about how we can add a farrier shop onto the stable for me.”
My mouth fell open. His gaze dropped to it. “Don’t give me ideas for that mouth.”
I snapped it closed. “What are you talking about? Add a shop? Why?”
“Everyone in the county knows the quality of your stables,” he began. “You want to grow it?”
I shrugged. “I’m stretched thin enough as it is. I can’t personally handle the workload of more horses.”
“You need a helper? You got me. With Ellie’s, I mean Trout’s, money, your legal bills will be wiped away. The back fence will be fixed and your second mortgage paid off. Hell, maybe even the first. I’ll set up an area to do my work. Clients can bring their horses to me.”
“Not all can do that,” I said, my mind spinning at what he was proposing. It would be amazing to not have all those bills weighing me down. I’d be able to make a profit again and pay for things again.
He shrugged. “Then I’ll still make house calls. I’ve been wanting an assistant for a while now and there isn’t one better than you. We’re the perfect team. You did a great job earlier on those hooves and I’m pretty good at shoveling shit.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“We’ll make Camden Stables the best in the area.”
My eyes widened. “But… you want it in my name?”
He leaned in, kissed me. His lips were soft, but the kiss was firm. “Camden Stables is the perfect name for what we’re going to build together as long as you become Katie Wilder sooner than later.”
Katie Wilder.
He wanted to grow the stables. He wanted to get us a bigger bed. He wanted me to take his name. He wanted it all with me.
I wanted that, too. So, so much.
“Yes, Bray. Yes, to everything.”