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“I always wear protection. There’s no doubt about that.”
Riley shrugs. “If you know for a fact you wore protection, then I wouldn’t worry about it until she comes knocking on your door with a kid in tow. You know? If she’d have sex with you after one night, then you probably weren’t the only person she slept with at the time she got pregnant. You weren’t exclusive or anything. Hell, you didn’t even exchange numbers.”
“Right,” I agree, tucking the letter back in my pocket.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Riley encourages. I push the thoughts away and refuse to give it any more of my attention.
“How’s the dad life so far?” I ask with a grin, changing the subject.
“Feels like a dream,” he admits. “I can’t believe I have a son. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
“I’m happy for you, man. And envious as fuck,” I say, wishing I had what he has.
“You’ll find someone. She might be an idiot for gettin’ with ya, though,” he teases.
“Shut the hell up. That’s no way to talk about your sister,” I add and then hightail my ass out of his house before he beats the shit outta me. I tell him goodbye and ask him to give Zoey and Zach my love before I hop on the four-wheeler and head to the east side of the land where my ranch hands are hard at work.
By the time I make it to where the guys are working, my stomach has settled. The food I ate and coffee I drank made me feel like a million bucks.
After parking, I walk toward them and look over what they’ve accomplished so far. The area where we need to dig is marked with spray paint, and they’re spaced out in twenty-foot sections with shovels. Working with them makes my life easy because I don’t have to micromanage anything they do, and they’re self-sufficient.
“Make sure y’all are drinkin’ plenty of water. Don’t need anyone gettin’ heatstroke out here,” I tell them.
I look at Grayson, who’s wiping sweat from his brow. “I’m gonna drive around to the other side of the property and check on the cattle we moved last week. If you need anything, call me.”
He nods before going back to digging, and I make my way across the pasture on the four-wheeler. Though I run the cattle operation, we have to do backbreaking tasks at times so the cows will survive the intense heat waves. Making sure they get water is the number one priority in the hotter months.
It takes me nearly thirty minutes to drive to the far pasture. I go down a large hill and start counting the herd to make sure none are lost. There’s a lot of land fenced off, so it takes me a while, but each one is accounted for. It’s easy for them to get lost, and I’ve heard rumors of thieves cutting barbed wire and stealing entire herds at dark. It’s one reason we spend weeks branding in the summer. If I ever catch anyone stealing from the Bishops, my fists would have a long conversation with their face.
By the time I make it back, it’s well after lunch. They took a break to eat, but since I ate a large breakfast, I decided to skip. For the rest of the afternoon, I help lay the pipe and am sweaty and starving by the time our shift is over. Grayson and I decide to stop at the B&B to see what Maize cooked for dinner before going to get my truck from the bar.
As soon as I walk up the steps to the porch, Rowan, Maize, and Kenzie walk out dressed in short skirts that leave absolutely nothing to the imagination. My jaw hits the floor as my eyes trail up Rowan’s long legs until I meet her gaze.
“Take a picture, why dontcha?” she barks, and her cousins laugh.
“Where the hell are you goin’? I ask. “Especially looking like that.”
“We’re going out,” Maize says.
“For Rowan’s birthday,” Kenzie adds. The two of them look at me before walking down the steps in their high heels, but Rowan lingers for just a moment, and I notice she’s wearing cowboy boots with her skirt.
“Damn. You look really nice,” I tell her, smiling.
“Thanks, Adam. That was the goal,” she gloats.
If she only knew what I really want to say to her right now, but instead, I keep my feelings for her tucked deep inside. I suck in a deep breath. “Stay out of trouble tonight. You need a real man to save you, call me.”
She laughs. “Trouble’s my middle name, and I’m more than capable of taking care of myself, thank you very much.”
And I don’t doubt her one bit. All I want to do right now is pull her into my arms and kiss the fire out of her, but the way she’s looking at me tells me I’d only get burned.
