*Emily was happy for her sister, but miserable for herself. Kelly and Trent were in full-on planning mode for their wedding as a way to lighten up the gloomy atmosphere around the ranch. While Kelly was going to be a beautiful bride, she also had tinges of Bridezilla. They wanted their wedding to be held on the ranch and Kelly was searching for the perfect setting and background for her engagement pictures. Kelly and Trent’s property would always be a part of the Three Sisters Ranch in all of their hearts—that is, until the rest of the ranch was parceled up and sold.
That was the current plan if things didn’t work out with the wind turbines and the cell tower. It broke her heart, but she wasn’t ready to throw in the towel yet. Janice and Kelly weren’t giving up either, even if their parents had resigned themselves to it.
The feral hogs were becoming more of a problem. All the ranch hands had rifles on their saddles and it wasn’t safe to venture out back in the woods. Emily wanted to see Ghost again, to see if she would bring them luck. But she wouldn’t risk any of the horses and she didn’t know the area back there as well as Donovan did.
It had been a couple of weeks since Sunflower had been shot and she missed Donovan like crazy. Sometimes she wandered around the hunting lodge looking for a trace of him. As she left the lodge today, she ran into her father walking up from the woods, a rifle in his hand.
“Dad,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m trying to track down the sounder that all these hogs are coming from, but they keep splitting off. What are you doing here?”
“I thought I left something here,” she said lamely. “Why are you walking?”
“The ATV broke down on me.”
“Again? We need a new one.”
“We need a lot of new things,” he grumbled, holding his ribs.
“Get inside and sit down,” Emily said, running to help him. “Let me get you some water. You shouldn’t be doing this all alone.”
“Don’t fuss over me, baby girl. I’m fine.”
He didn’t look fine.
“What did you think you left over here?” he asked, accepting the large glass of water she gave him. He drained it in one long swallow and asked for another.
“My heart,” she said under her breath. “Dad, I’ve been thinking,” she said louder when she handed him his refill. “I was wrong about Donovan’s hunting. I still don’t like the idea of killing animals for sport, but I can see all the problems we’ve been having since no one is here to keep them in check. And while I don’t eat meat, a few of the local soup kitchens have been calling because Donovan hasn’t been making any deliveries lately. People are going hungry because of me.”
He shook his head. “It’s not your fault people are hungry.”
“But I can make a difference here. I thought about all the good I was doing in Africa and I miss that. But I want to start in Texas. I want your permission to ask Donovan if he’ll come back to the ranch.”
“Something tells me you’re not doing this for the good of the hungry people out there.”
She smiled. “I love him, Dad. And I think he loves me.”
“He better,” Frank grumbled.
“I know we’ll never see completely eye-to-eye on things, but I think we can compromise. I thought I could handle the hunting tour groups, but I can’t. I told everyone it was fine, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t fair to him. And it wasn’t fair to you guys. I really screwed up and now the ranch is worse off than before. I want to make it right. I know we can save the ranch from foreclosure if we all work together and Donovan is a part of that.”
Her father regarded her thoughtfully. “I know you want to take over for me when I retire. You’ve been putting in the hours, but you have a long way to go.”
“I know. And I’m willing to keep on learning. I’m going to make mistakes, but just because I do, that doesn’t mean I’m not mature enough for the responsibility or that I should be patted on the head and forgiven because I’m the youngest.”
He nodded and sipped his water.
“Just don’t give up on me, Dad. And I won’t give up on you. It’ll be hard work, but the Sullivans will make this happen. We just have to hold out until the wind turbines turn a profit.”
Part of his mouth quirked up in a smile. “If you can get Donovan to come back, it’s all right by me.”
“I’ll not only get him back, I’ll make him stay here, too. No three-year leases this time. Twenty-five-year—minimum.”
Frank shook his head. “He’d be better off marrying you.”
“I’ll accept that as well.”
*
Donovan didn’t know why he hadn’t left Texas yet. It had been almost a month. Maybe because winter in Alaska wasn’t appealing. Of course, that didn’t explain why he wasn’t off to California instead. But then Emily called and asked to meet him at the Mustard Seed. And he realized why he was still hanging around.
He loved her.
He was early, so he fiddled with the radio trying not to relate to every sad love song the station played. After an eternity, she got out of her Uber ride and headed toward the truck. Donovan leapt out and met her halfway.
“How are you feeling?” he asked, bringing her in for a hug and a kiss. And if the kiss lasted longer than was polite in a social setting, he didn’t give a fuck.
“Good as new,” she said breathlessly. And then she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him again. He wasn’t sure they were going to make it to the restaurant. He could spend all day kissing her in the parking lot. But then her stomach growled and they broke away, laughing.
“Your mother hasn’t been feeding you?” he teased.
“Don’t tell her, but the Mustard Seed makes better vegetarian meals. She tries, though.” Emily slipped her hand into his while they walked to the restaurant. It felt like coming home. Maybe he could find a ranch hand job and stay in the area. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t do the work. It was how he’d survived after being emancipated. He could make ends meet by hunting. What Emily didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. He wasn’t ready to give her up just yet.
They sat down and Carrie brought them their menus and beers. Emily wound up ordering half the menu again, and he tried the spaghetti with meatless balls. He didn’t have high hopes for it, but he liked seeing her smile when he ordered something different.
“I have a proposition for you,” she said with a cute little smile.
“You should have told me before we ordered. But it’s been a while, so I bet we can go out to the car and be back before lunch is served.”
“Tempting,” she said. “But I want to take my time with you.”
“Then you should have told me in the parking lot, and I would have brought you back to my place.”
“I was hungry, but we could go there after lunch.”
Heat flooded through him at her shy words and he wanted to start in right there, right now. But he could be patient. He was a hunter after all. But she wasn’t prey. In fact, the way she was looking at him was damned near predatory.
“But that wasn’t the proposition I meant.”
“Okay,” he said. As long as they were going to bed after this, she could propose all she wanted.
“We need to hire a hunter to take care of the feral hogs. Trent won’t let Alissa even play in the yard and the ranch hands are getting anxious. And Kelly is out of her mind. The hogs have been chewing on her gazebo and ruining the landscape for her pictures. Janice is worried about opening her women’s retreat with them wandering around. And my father is taking it upon himself to flush them out so he can shoot them.”
“Okay, okay. I get it. You’re up to your ass in hogs.” He refrained from telling her “I told you so.”
“I’m assistant manager of the ranch and I have full authority from my family to offer to lease you the same property, at the same rate as before. Except there’s one small difference.”
Donovan crushed the flutter of hope in his chest. She was going to ask for something crazy, like he had to shoot to wound the hogs or something like that. “I’m listening,” he said huskily.
“No more hunts.”
“You don’t have to worry about Otto. I wouldn’t work for them ever again.”
“Would you work for me?”
He leaned back in his chair as their food came. Donovan watched her as she dug into her VLT sandwich. “I can’t risk it. Risk you. Sooner or later, I’m going to piss you off and you’re going to put yourself in danger again. Sweetheart, it’s just not worth it.”
“I’m up to my ass in hogs, Donovan.”
He felt his lips twitch and speared a meatless ball and ate it before she charmed him into agreeing to give her everything she wanted. He blinked in surprise. Hot damn, that was a good meatless ball. He took another one and thought about it while he chewed. “What the hell am I going to do with the hunting lodge if there aren’t any more hunts?”
“We’re going to have safari events. I plan on marketing this to schools and local environmentalist groups. Kelly has been taking some pictures—when she can convince Nate or Trent to ride shotgun. I think we could get bird-watchers and all sorts of clubs.”
“You’ve thought this over. And what happens after I get the hogs under control?”
“That’s up to you. I trust you. I should have trusted you more, but I thought I was doing the right thing. My intentions were good, but I guess that’s why the road to hell is paved with them.” She reached over and grabbed his hand. “I’m going to fuck up again. I’m just not going to do it on the wrong end of rifle. Please give me another chance. Give us a chance.”
He was more than willing to do that. And if the safari thing didn’t work out, they’d figure something out. “Anything else I should know about?”
“You don’t get a three-year lease.”
“I need at least a three-year lease to make my money back and still have a profit to live off on when I move on.”
“You get a twenty-five-year lease or the deal is off.”
He blinked at her. “Do I look like a cell company?”
“You look like someone I don’t want to let go. Of course, my father thought of a more cost-effective proposal, if you’d like to hear that.”
“I’m all ears, sweetheart.”
“You could marry me.”
Donovan grinned. “Are you proposing to me?”
“Do I have to get down on one knee?”
He wanted to marry her. To hell with the land. But marrying him came with baggage. “Are you forgetting who might be sauntering up to our property one day?”
“Wouldn’t you rather be there when he did?”
“I’d rather he didn’t show up at all, but yeah. I want to be with you. For more than twenty-five years. For all the time we have. I’ve been miserable these past weeks. I thought you hated everything about me, except for the good parts.” He kissed her knuckles.
“I could never hate you.”
“Even if I may sometimes have to kill animals?”
She sighed. “I don’t like it. But I can live with it, because I don’t want to live without you.”
“Then, yes, Emily Sullivan, I will do the honor of becoming your husband. If you will do the honor of being my bride.”
“That’s it?” Emily teased. “You’re not getting down on one knee?”
“You’re going to have to wait for the ring before I do that.”
“Will I have to wait long?”
“You don’t strike me as the patient type,” he drawled.
“I can be very patient.” She touched his knee under the table. “I’m being very patient right now.”
“Finish your lunch.”
“Why don’t we get it to go?”