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I kiss his stubbly chin, and his green eyes brighten. “The horses are waiting, anyway.”
“Don’t be an elitist,” Connor scolds him, and Eli punches him on the naked forearm as Hudson scouts the floor for his pants, lost in the throes of our lovemaking last night.
“I adopted cats,” Eli reminds him, and Connor rolls his eyes.
“Barn cats don’t count, Lord Eli. And you only got them to control the mouse problem.”
I stop dressing to shake my head in denial. “Not true! I’ve walked into the barn and seen him snuggling them.”
“Aww! How sweet!” Hudson and Connor taunt him, and I scowl at them, but Eli is unflappable.
“I’m taking a shower,” I tell the boys, dancing backward. “And no—you may not join me this morning. Gran is coming, remember?”
“Oh, shit,” Hudson curses. “I totally forgot.”
All four of us pause for a moment and look at one another. She hasn’t been here since Christmas, and a lot has changed since then, including her plan to come back in the spring and summer months. It turns out that Gran loves Florida so much, she wants to stay there year round and only come to Montana when “the mood strikes.”
Secretly, I wonder if she’s concerned about our lifestyle, if the way we’ve been living has somehow reached her ears, and I’ve run her off her own beloved land. I intend to have a heart-to-heart with her about it during this visit.
It’s Eli who is the voice of reason, as always.
“She’s going to love what we’ve done here,” he reassures us, and I swallow my worries, nodding.
“And if she doesn’t, that’s too bad,” Hudson chortles. “Because she can’t do anything about it.”
“Hud!” I scold him, and he slaps my naked butt as I retreat toward the ensuite bathroom.
The main bedroom and bathroom were our first priority in the house now that the rest of the ranch is up and running. We wanted it to be our sanctuary, and that’s precisely what we made it.
The dude ranch isn’t rolling in it yet, but since we merged Connor’s and Hudson’s ranches while extending the property lines to create a massive resort amongst the four of us, I’m living more comfortably than I ever have in my life. The house is no longer being fixed at a snail’s pace, the cottage quarters for the visitors installed and my marketing budget expanding.
Eli maintains his thriving hay farm, supplying all the local ranches, and with all of us pooling together, I’ve bought myself a Ford F-150 to match Eli’s.
But the luxuries we installed are for all of us to enjoy. Like this amazing steam shower with its multiple waterfall showerheads. The cowboys and I have spent many hours in this unit already, enjoying it from every angle.
The problem, of course, is that I never want to get out of it.
Sighing, I force myself to turn off the taps and head into the sprawling main suite. We’ve knocked down a wall to extend the room, creating a walk-in closet and sitting space. The closet mostly contains my belongings, but each of the boys has their own space and drawers, just as I have mine in their respective houses. Yet as time passes, I can’t help but notice how much more stuff accumulates here.
I dress in a simple t-shirt and flannel with jeans, slipping on my wide-brimmed hat, and meet Hudson out by his truck.
“All the horses checked?” I ask, mostly by rote.
He chuckles. “Yes, Boss Lady.”
“Has Connor checked on the visitors?”
“Of course. That’s his favorite part of the day.”
My eyes trail toward the property line, and I exhale a breath I don’t realize I’ve been holding.
“Jeez,” I mumble, my memory flashing back to last spring. “Is this really the same place? Did we do this?”
“You did this,” Connor replies, joining us at the car, pulling off his gloves. One of the newly hired ranch hands wanders by, and we all call out a greeting to him before he disappears into the stables.
Eli emerges from the barn with a kitten in his hands, and I laugh, pointing. “See? He loves the kittens!”
He sets the baby cat down and dusts his hands off on his jeans, heading across the yard, between the flock of pecking chickens and around the training pen.
