The Virgin Next Door (Stud Ranch 3)

Calla got Prissy when the mare was just two years old. Calla was eleven and more often than not in the past fourteen years, Prissy felt like the only true friend Calla had in the world. And now she had to say goodbye.

A loud clapping shook her out of her thoughts. Calla swung around to see Chris standing by the gate. She’d arranged to sell Prissy to him a few weeks ago. Just a few years older than her, Calla knew Chris in the same way she did most people in Hawthorne—he was a friendly acquaintance she’d known forever.

Growing up, she told herself the reason she didn’t have any close friends was just because there’d always been too much work to be done around the ranch. There was no time for socializing when you had to run home after school to see to the calving, or check the irrigation lines, or to help bring in the hay.

Dad started showing symptoms for Huntington’s when she was twelve and she’d had to take on more and more of the physical tasks around the ranch every year as he got worse.

It wasn’t until she got to college that she finally realized the real reason she didn’t get close to people. Every year she watched her dad’s health decline, she knew the same could be in store for her. Would likely be in store for her. She was a dead ringer for her dad—she’d looked at pictures of him when he was her age and they could have been twins.

She couldn’t get the test to find out if she had the mutated gene that brought on the disease until she was eighteen. And by then she’d made such a habit of keeping folks at a distance that it was a way of life.

As for the test? Now twenty-four, she still hadn’t taken it. Because even though she fully expected to test positive for the gene, there was some foolish little part of her that thought, you never know. Maybe you don’t have it. Stupid as it was, she hadn’t

wanted to give up that hope by testing and learning for certain.

“If I wasn’t already sold on her, that run would have convinced me.” Chris looked admiringly at Prissy. “How fast was that? Seventeen seconds? Less?”

Calla swallowed hard, her throat thick. “Don’t know. Just wanted one last run.”

Chris’s expression changed from impressed to sympathetic. Pitying. It was the same look everyone had been flashing her around town since news of the deal with Cunningham had been announced in the local paper.

Calla swung off of Prissy, her back to Chris. She took a moment to compose herself and then turned around to face him again. “She should make for a great training horse.”

“Don’t I know it.” His admiring gaze was on Prissy before he looked back to Calla. “You can come visit her anytime you want.”

Calla controlled her features. It might about kill her to have to go visit her beloved horse and then turn her back over for someone else to stable. She could only handle so goddamned much. “Maybe I will,” she lied.

She turned away to unbuckle the cinch straps that secured the saddle. She ran her hand down Prissy’s flank and gave her one last pat before tying the cinch and sliding the saddle off.

“Let me get that,” Chris said, stepping forward.

Calla wanted to yank back from him. But he was about to own the saddle along with Prissy, so that was stupid. She handed over the heavy tack and he took it without complaint.

“I’ll help you load her up.” Calla made a clicking noise and Prissy fell into step behind her as she led her toward Chris’s trailer.

After she got Prissy trailered, Chris pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and handed her a check. Calla wanted to shove it back at him the second her fingers closed around it.

Prissy let out an anxious, high-pitched neigh and shifted in the trailer, ears flicking back and forth. She knew something was wrong.

Calla’s mouth went dry as she stared down at the check in her hands. Five-thousand dollars. Was she really going to sell her best friend, even for so much money?

After putting away money for Dad’s care, she did have a little bit to live on. Maybe if she really scrimped, she could—

But then she forced her eyes shut as she shoved the check into her pocket. She’d already been over this a thousand times. Even if she didn’t need the money to live on, she couldn’t afford the boarding fees and all the other costs that came along with owning a horse. There was no way to justify spending six to seven hundred dollars a month when it wasn’t an absolute necessity. Not if she wanted Dad to stay in the best nursing home around. It was the same reason she’d sold her truck earlier in the week.

So she squared her shoulders. “Could you drop me in town? I need to deposit this.”

And then go get a stiff drink. Or ten.

She’d gone to the bank, then walked down to Bubba’s where she’d been warming a barstool all night.

Calla stood up straight and swiped at her eyes when she saw Carl pulling up in his Honda Odyssey. Lord, she couldn’t believe she’d let herself stand here in the dark and wallow like a little baby. So she’d had a crap run of luck lately. So what? Plenty folks had it harder.

She was young. Healthy, at least for now. And she had a place to stay and a good job for the foreseeable future.

No more pity parties. She took one more deep breath and jogged over to the back seat of the van.

“Where to?” Carl asked after she pulled open the back door and got inside. He was a bald guy in his late fifties who used to play poker with her dad.