The Virgin Next Door (Stud Ranch)

Calla blinked some more. “What do you—”

“We bought the place,” Mack said.

Calla’s mouth dropped open and her eyes went wide. “But how—”

“Turns out there was a reason Mack got a full ride to Harvard. He’s a right smart bastard.”

Calla looked to Mack. He put a hand on the back of his neck. “I just happened to see there was a future in cryptocurrencies. So I made a small investment.”

Calla started smiling but Mack could see she was still confused. Apparently, Liam could see it too.

“Fecking Bitcoin,” Liam said, shaking his head. “Mack bought five-hundred dollars of it in 2011, and now it’s worth fifteen million. Can you fecking believe that?”

“Holy shit,” Calla breathed out. She grabbed Mack’s arm. Her eyes ping-ponged back and forth between them before settling on Mack’s. “Is he serious?”

Mack nodded. He’d worked his ass off at the mechanics shop in town all through high school and had a few grand saved up by the time he went to college… and then prison.

Pres occasionally got a cell phone smuggled in and Mack had used the fifteen minutes of internet Pres granted him to try to do something with the little money he had. Otherwise he knew he’d be fucked when he got out. He’d first heard about cryptocurrencies at Harvard and had read up on it, so that’s where he put five hundred bucks. He’d tried a couple other investments but that was the only one that took off so fucking insanely.

“Can you believe it?” Liam asked. “Now I’m broke but this lanky bastard is our sugar daddy.”

Mack looked at Liam. “Never. Call. Me. That. Again.”

Liam laughed and clapped him on the back. Mack did have to say, though, Liam was taking the whole not-having-a-penny-to-his-name thing surprisingly well. His dad was ‘cutting him off until he came to his senses.’ Liam had responded to that text with a selfie of himself kissing Mack while simultaneously squeezing Calla’s ass. Really, it was quite impressive he’d fit them all in a single camera frame.

“So you bought back my old house?”

“And the ranch,” Liam said. “And an additional five hundred acres on either side of it.”

Calla stumbled a little and Mack grabbed her arm to steady her. “Holy shit,” she whispered again.

“Know you dreamed about setting up a horse training and boarding place, so there’s money in the budget for that.”

Calla just shook her head. “But how? That’s Ned Cunningham’s land and he’d nev—”

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.