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Look after the ranch.
Look after each other.
“Guess we failed,” Chuck sighed. “Whatever. Go get the fucking contract.”
But before Trent had even got up from the table, there was a heavy knock at the front door.
“Well, shit,” Trent said. “He actually turned up.”
“Who?” Duke and Chuck said in unison.
“Our guardian angel.”
He didn’tlooklike a guardian angel. He looked like a bodybuilder. A… Greek bodybuilder?
“Hello, gentlemen,” said the stranger.
Regardless of his unusual looks, this guy meant business. He was offering them double the price that Rosy Pastures had offered for Littlecreek Ranch, and he wanted to keep the brothers on as employees — Trent as the head of animal health, Duke as a riding instructor, and Chuck as the horse breeder and stable master.
It was a lot to process, and Chuck felt his head spinning as he took it all in.
“I had to come by in person,” the stranger — whose name was Takis Karas — explained. “I always like to close business deals in person.” He was a businessman from New York, who Trent had met during his time there as a student. Apparently, he ran a successful chain of fitness clubs. Why he wanted to run a ranch was a mystery at this point.
“Why on earth didn’t you tell us about this, Trent?” Duke asked.
Trent shrugged. “I didn’t want to promise anything. Frankly, I didn’t think Mr. Karas would get state approval for what he’s got planned here.”
“What exactlydoeshe have planned here?“ Chuck asked, his eyebrow hitching up. “You want to turn this place into a dude ranch?”
Chuck didn’t have anything against agritourism, and the idea of people getting away from their city lives to vacation at ranches. He just didn’t want that to be his life.
“No,” Takis said in his heavily accented voice. “Not a dude ranch. This place has a much more serious, important destiny ahead of it.”
“So… a beef ranch?”
“No,” Takis said firmly. “No more sending animals to slaughter here. We’re going to have a different business model.”
“What exactly are we talking about?”
Just then, the door opened. A figure stood there. She had glossy red hair and bright green eyes. Perched on her head was a novelty stetson. She was wearing a loose-fitting plaid shirt and tight denim shorts, with over-the-top cowboy boots.
In her mouth… was an adult-sized pacifier.
She took the pacifier out, and her eyes lit up with excitement. “Daddy!” she squealed, “I love this place so, so, so much!”
Chuck’s eyes widened.
“Changes,” Takis said, still looking at the North brothers. “There will need to be some changes.”
CHAPTER ONE
SIX MONTHS LATER
MillieReynoldswasoutof place.
As she sat at a scuffed table in a spit and sawdust bar somewhere in Southern Montana, nearly five thousand miles from her home in Berkshire, rural England, she tried to remember the last time she’d felt this far out of her depth.
She couldn’t.
