The Virgin Next Door (Stud Ranch 3)

Mack felt his blood rise at even hearing the name. “Turns out he’s so ashamed of having a lying, cheating, whore of a daughter, he’s selling out and moving to California.”

“I heard that after the sheriff arrested B— Betty? Bailey? Whatever her name is. Anyway, after she got arrested and everyone learned what she did, some folks who Cunningham was in debt to called in their markers. So he had no choice but to sell.”

“Six months in jail and a four-thousand-dollar fine is a fucking injustice,” Mack muttered. Stunt like that—using a buzzer on a recent broke mustang— Mack’s teeth ground together. The bitch had meant for Calla to get thrown. And plenty of the best horsewomen and men got seriously injured every year. Just last year Mack had seen a guy on a spooked horse get thrown and then dragged a quarter of a mile when his foot got tied up in the stirrup. Even thinking of how easily Calla could have lost the baby made sweat break out on Mack’s forehead.

But apparently, Daddy Cunningham still had enough money for a slick lawyer. He’d gotten his daughter’s charge pled down to assault causing bodily harm.

Then again, Mack himself had finally enjoyed the benefit of a good lawyer for once. Of course it had helped that Liam claimed he’d been the one to shoot Bone. Said the gun was his too.

Mack had never in his life had someone go to the mat like that for him. Seemed like the bastard meant it when he said he loved him. Wonders would never fucking cease.

“I don’t care about Bethany,” Calla waved a hand. “Can we get back to the part where you bought my family’s ranch?” She bounced up and down on her toes, looking around.

A neigh sounded in the distance and Calla froze. Again, her mouth dropped open. “You didn’t,” she whispered.

“We did.” Another grin lit Liam’s face.

Calla took off sprinting around the side of the house toward the barn and horse paddock. Her shrill scream of excitement carried clear across the yard. “Prissy!”

She was over the gate and hugging her horse’s neck by the time Mack and Liam got there. When she looked back at them, tears shone in her eyes. “I can never repay you.”

She ran over, climbed the wooden fence of the paddock, and dragged both Liam and Mack close.

Christ but it was the best feeling in the world. Their two bodies, warm and alive against them. Family. It was Calla who first said it and every day Mack woke up with Calla and Liam in bed beside him, he could still barely believe it.

He ran his hand down her side

to her stomach. A month after the Horse Makeover competition and their little one was growing strong.

“No repayment necessary,” Mack said, clearing his throat when the words came out rough. “That’s the point of family, right?”

Calla beamed up at him and she went up on her tiptoes to kiss first him, then Liam.

While she was kissing Liam, Liam gestured behind her back at Mack.

Oh. Right. The other thing.

He dropped on one knee and as soon as Calla broke away from Liam, he did the same.

“What are you—?” If Mack thought Calla’s eyes were wide before, it was nothing to the saucers they became now.

Liam pulled the ring box out of his pocket. “Calla Carter, will you marry us?”

Calla’s hand went to her mouth and more tears glistened in her eyes.

“Mack won the coin toss,” Liam went on, “so it’ll be his name that goes on the official papers, but it’s between all of us.”

Calla just kept standing there, staring down at them.

“Shit,” Mack said, starting to get up. This was too soon. She hadn’t even got used to the—

“Yes!” Calla shouted, dropping down and hugging them both close. “Yes. A million times yes!”

She sounded happy but she was crying. Her back heaved up and down she was crying so hard.

“Darlin,” Mack held her closer, “don’t cry.”

Calla pulled back. “They’re happy tears.”