Which she had done as well, and hadn’t told him it was on there.

He’d found out rather quick, but that was beside the point.

“You should stop asking her for test pieces then,” I suggested as I moved forward when he struggled with the last press.

“Yeah.” He blew out a breath and racked the weights. “I…”

“Go, go, go!” we heard the crowd begin to yell.

We looked over just in time to see Desi reach the top of the fifteen-foot rope.

My heart started to race as I saw her reach the metal beam and tap it.

“Damn, look at that ass,” Banks teased.

I slapped him upside the head. “Stop looking at my woman’s ass.”

“I feel like it’s okay,” he said. “I mean, you’re not sharing her physically. You could at least share her visually.”

Desi started to come down the rope, and when she reached the bottom, she turned and collected the high-fives of the women and men that surrounded her.

Codie and her started jumping up and down, and Ace came up just as I said, “Fuck, that’s hot.”

Ace snorted. “Why don’t you just ask her to move in with us already?”

I grimaced. “Because I don’t want to spook her. She just came out of a bad marriage, and it’s only been a month. I want her there…but I also don’t want her to freak out and retreat from the relationship altogether.”

He grunted something. “Codie and I have been together for a little longer than that, yet she’s moved in with us.”

“We’ve been able to hear,” Banks drawled. “Which brings me to my next topic of conversation. We need to see about getting these rooms soundproofed. With the money coming in from the life insurance payout, we can remodel this dump.”

When my parents had died, they’d both had sizeable life insurance policies. Life insurance policies that we hadn’t realized were available to us until just this year.

After Ace had found out, he’d started the process of getting paid. Since the company that the policies had been taken out through had been on the shady side, we’d been playing a legal game ever since.

But, as of just last night, we were awarded the life insurance payout, as well as attorney fees.

Which meant that we were now a million dollars richer. We were able to purchase land that we’d been hoping to acquire, and we could now fix the place up, seeing as we were trying to fit all of us into a four-bedroom mobile home that needed updated yesterday.

Ace rolled his eyes. “I think we should just build a house.”

Now that was an idea I was up to getting on board with.

“That sounds like a good plan,” I admitted. “Can we do that?”

As in, did we have the cash to do that?

We were doing great on money. We were all in the black, and there wasn’t a single loan in sight for any of us.

Though we all drove old ass trucks. Those were going to have to be updated at some point in time if this was to continue.

Plus, it was embarrassing to have to call Desi for a jump when you were getting groceries at Walmart. Something that I’d had to do last week.

“We have roughly three-hundred grand to build a house… if we do some of the work ourselves.” Ace paused. “And though we’re good with our hands, I’ve never built a house before.”

“Candy Ray Sunshine has,” I found myself saying. “Or, at least, her father has. He’s a contractor, remember?”

Banks groaned.

“Don’t do that to me,” Banks pleaded.

We ignored him.

“My father and grandfather know a lot about building houses, too,” Colt interjected for the first time. “I know this isn’t my house or anything, but I’m more than willing to offer my father’s expertise.”

“Let’s just use Colt’s grandfather!” Banks interjected.

Ace rolled his eyes. “Didn’t you say that your grandfather was caring for your grandmother? Not that I wouldn’t accept his help if he were here, but I don’t want to pull him all the way to Texas when he’s needed in Alabama.”

Colt nodded. “I meant more of an advisory capacity, anyway.”

“Shit,” Banks grumbled.

“We’re meeting with Candy today,” I said to the group as a whole. “I’ll talk to her, see whether she’s willing to help.”

“In the meantime,” Ace said, rubbing his forehead. “I…”

One of our two ranch hands that we’d hired for the summer ran in looking a bit dazed.

“Uh, Mr. Valentine?”

All of us turned to look at the kid.

He gulped.

“Star Shine is having her foal,” he stammered under the weight of every Valentine eye. “We called your cell phones, but it was going to voice mail. Had to drive over here to find you, but I left my partner with Star Shine.”

I took my hat off and scratched my head. “Guess that one is for me.”

And it was.

I’d been in charge of the breeding process for the horses on our ranch whereas Banks was in charge of training. Darby was slowly taking over the process of finding buyers. Though, the more our name was circulated, the easier it was getting for him to do his part.

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