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Finally, my brother and sister wave goodbye, and they crawl into the front. I take the back of Logan’s car, with my Border Collie, happy to be out of the bite of the wind.
But Logan takes another kind of bite. “Molly is just a slice of apple pie, isn’t she?”
I run my hand along the back of my pup.
Jolie narrows her eyes at Logan. “I hope you mean that in thesweet askind of way.”
He smirks. “As opposed to what?”
“You know what I mean,” she deadpans.
“Just saying I like her, that’s all. She seems really determined.” Logan glances in the rearview mirror back at me. “You need that around here. The resort has such insane potential. She has vision. New businesses need vision.”
I have vision, too, I just know my family thinks it’s tunneled. It probably is. I like what I know and know what I like. I also know what I don’t like, and I don’t like apple pie and Molly being in the same sentence coming out of my famous, good-looking, playboy brother’s mouth. It gets worse.
“We’ll have a good time tonight,” he says.
Jolie turns around to face me. “Oh, we’re going to Sly’s to celebrate Molly’s new job, but I figured you wouldn’t want to go. Do you? It’s us, Molly, Georgie, and Ashton.”
Fuck. Only went and added another shit-hot single famous man into the mix. Drunk hockey cowboys are already magnets for women. Add drinks all over that, and it’s a done deal. I imagine Molly all dolled up, cleavage tumbling out of a low-cut top, and tight jeans firm around her curves. On display. A protective urge digs my nails into my palm. “You figured right. Not interested, but thanks for the invite.”
I decline but have never had more interest in going to Sly’s than I do right now. But I have self-control. Molly is a grown woman, and if she can’t handle herself, I’m sure Jolie will unleash her Wonder Woman rage on them.
Still, horny cowboys and hockey players with their arms around Molly is all I can think about.
Thankfully, Jolie quickly changes the subject, and I listen in on her new conversation with Logan.
“I can’t believe you and Ashton are already starting up the season again. The off-season felt short.”
“I don’t know, always feels long to me.”
Logan loves hockey, and he’s made a comment here and there that makes me worried he thinks it’s coming to an end before he gets a chance to win a Cup.
“I wonder if Ashton will ever actually move back here. Can’t believe he kept commuting back to Los Angeles last season.” She sounds salty.
“He’s moving back. His divorce is final now. He’s done what he had to do.”
“He should have never married that gold-digger in the first place.”
Logan doesn’t correct her. Ashton’s divorce was front-page news. His ex took him to the cleaners.
Jolie simmers. “Like she even needed the money. I have no idea what she had over him. They don’t have kids or anything. And she owes her entire B-rated acting career to him anyway. She never would have made connections if he wasn’t invited to Hollywood parties.”
Logan lets Jolie riff. She can go on and on when it comes to defending our brother’s best friend. My opinion of him has always been solid, but when it publicly released that he conceded so much of his fortune in the divorce, I did think to myself there’s no smoke without fire. I couldn’t help but wonder why she had him over a barrel.
When we finally pull under the laser-cut metal sign readingMoon Ridge Ranch, I’m hardly listening anymore. Unlike my brother and sister, I have been up for hours by this point and could use more than a piece of toast in my stomach. But getting these horses sorted sooner rather than later is the only way to secure any income from the purchase when the snow arrives.
I remember this idea from Molly’s proposal and stewed on it because even though I didn’t want to hire her, I was keen to put it in action. I know the resort accounting has been running on a knife’s edge since the minute I urged everyone to agree to it being changed from a cattle ranch several years ago. I never told them exactly why I couldn’t cope with ranching anymore, I just made the case that it would be more lucrative, and since the ranch and how it makes money is my responsibility to the family, they all followed my twenty-six-year-old lead, trusting I’d figure it out. But truth be known, I still question every day if I can lead us out of the red. My heart conflicts with my head far too much when it comes to making business moves.
Colt is more optimistic about the finances than I am, but I’m not sure this place touches him quite so deeply. I love the ranch so much I live in fear of losing it.
Logan switches off the ignition, and when we step out, tall-ass Ashton and his tiny mom, Monica, are already waiting for us by their big barn. Logan immediately fist bumps his hockey teammate. Jolie walks over, hugs Monica, shoves her hands in her back pockets, and goes quiet. It’s the first time I haven’t seen her give Ashton a hug, too, and even though nobody else notices, to me, it’s highly suspicious.
Monica rubs her hands together. “Well, here we are. Another Hunter-Dane deal to be struck?” She hitches a thumb in the direction of the barn. “Follow me.”
The Danes don’t have as much land as we do, but their facilities are fantastic. We enter an enormous industrial arena with grandstands and everything. They’re at the center of this town’s livestock and horse showing, rodeo, you name it. They even gave my best friend, the great Mateo Domingo, roots. Looking around, it’s a not so humble beginning if I think about it.
Monica and Ashton already lined up nine horses—eight Belgians and one glorious, giant Clydesdale that has to be eighteen or even nineteen hands.
