The Virgin Next Door (Stud Ranch)

Okay, universe. She was ready to listen. She was going to have sex, and get drunk, and she was going to learn what it meant to party.

If Liam and Mack were being genuine in their interest, well, goddammit, she was going to take one of them up on their offer.

It was time to let it all fly.

“There’s a big party tonight after the mustang assignments are handed out, right?”

Mel looked her way. “Sure. Most ranchers live so isolated that whenever we get together, everybody lets their hair down.”

Calla knew Mel had been speaking metaphorically, but her hand still went to her own hair. She didn’t know what else to do with it other than the awkward ponytail. She looked at Mel, who’s long hair hung in attractive curly waves.

“Do you think you could help me with… Maybe we could go shopping or something before the party? I’m not really good with, you know,” she waved down her body and the overalls that had become her uniform for, well…forever, “being a girl.”

“Sure,” Mel said, looking her way with eyebrows raised in surprise. “But I think you do a fine job at being a girl. From what Xavier says, you singlehandedly held onto your dad’s ranch for years, not to mention you’re a talented horse trainer. If I ever have a daughter, I could only hope she’d be half so dedicated, hard-working, and loyal.”

Calla looked down at her short grubby nails, embarrassed at Mel’s words. “Yeah, well, we lost the ranch. So what does that say about me?”

Mel’s face softened. “That you’re the kind of person who never stops fighting and sticks it out until the end.”

Calla gave a short laugh. She wasn’t sure that fighting her whole life for a losing cause meant much in the scheme of things. They were getting off track anyway. “So you’ll help me get ready tonight?”

Mel gave her a long look but then just nodded before grinning and putting her attention back on the road. “Those boys aren’t gonna know what hit ‘em.”

7

MACK

“You’re gonna lose a few fingers with that one,” Mack said, leaning over the fence and watching Liam try to feed an apple to the mare he’d been assigned.

Liam barely had a second to shoot a glare his way before yanking away when the spirited mare took a snap at him.

“Whoa, girl!” Liam said, managing to dance out of the way just before the giant horse teeth chomped down on his hand.

Mack didn’t hide his laugh. Well, this was going to be more fun than he’d thought.

He’d only signed on in the first place because the day in day out grind of the ranch hadn’t been doing the trick anymore. He thought routine would be good. Like he could just lose himself in his work and not think about shit.

Problem was, the opposite had happened. The more rote daily life on the ranch got, the more space his mind had to linger back in the past. He’d only done an eight-year stretch but sometimes he thought it might as well have been a life sentence. Part of him would always be stuck in that six by eight cell.

The restlessness got worse and worse till he actually thought about moving on. It’d be years before he could do what needed getting done—the fucker who needed dead was still in lock up and would be for four more years.

He thought about going to work on one of those ocean rigs. He’d heard it was grueling work that left a man so spent at the end of the day you’d fall asleep standing up.

Then, before he could decide one way or the other, Xavier mentioned the mustang makeover competition. Said he hoped some of them would go for it.

Liam immediately held up his hand. And Mack thought, what the hell, maybe it was just the distraction he needed. And if he could show up that privileged little Irish prick while doing it, all the better.

They’d gotten into Denver a little after two o’clock and headed straight to the Bureau of Land Management facility.

It had been organized chaos with the trainers from all around the country lining up to see what mustang they’d been assigned. Once given a mustang, the trainer then either loaded them up and headed home if they lived close. If they didn’t, then the horse stayed in the holding pens until the next morning.

Xavier didn’t like them making the six-hour drive there and back home on the same day. It looked like most folks felt the same from all the horses still in the holding pens. The hundred days to train the mustangs started tomorrow.

Mack had been assigned a mid-sized gelding. The horse was jumpy as any wild horse would be, but Mack felt good about him—he was certainly calmer than some of the ones he’d walked past. Including the she-devil Liam had landed.