Page 12 of Fall With Me (Sugarland Creek)

Noah stands in front of me. “Ellie’s a new barrel racing client of mine and Ranger is her quarter horse. I want your thoughts on how they do, so I figured you should meet ’em.”

Go figure she’d con me here so I can’t say no to her face.

“It’s prime breedin’ season,” I remind her. “I’m not gonna have a ton of extra time for that.”

After high school, I became the breeding operations manager and summer is my busiest time. Even if it were off-season, I stay busy taking care of the stallions and booking mares for the following year.

“She’ll be here when she’s not travelin’. She wants to be good enough to qualify for finals and needs all the help we can give her. C’mon, we made a good sister-brother team last year.” She gives me her best puppy dog eyes, and dammit, she knows it works on me. Especially when it comes to something I’m already passionate about.

I’m not as good of a trainer as Noah—hell, no one in the state is—but I have a good eye for recognizing issues and giving ideas on how to improve. Horses respond well to her, which means she’s always booked solid. I’m more of an observer who watches and makes suggestions so she doesn’t have to spend as much time researching and instead have more time working the horse.

“So you’re sayin’youneedme?” I taunt.

“Don’t be arrogant.” She gives me a little shove. “She’s really good, but the competition from the more experienced riders is gonna blow her away, so it’s all hands on deck to help her advance.”

I roll my eyes when she pierces me with a pleading gaze. Leave it to my little sister to add to my already full workload.

“Fine,” I grind out between my teeth. “But only when it works formyschedule.”

“Deal!” She smiles victoriously.

“And you owe me,” I add.

She frowns. “Like what?”

I shrug. “Whatever I want whenever I think of something.”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll see.”

“You meet Ayden’s girlfriend when she was here?” Ruby asks while we wait.

“No.”Didn’t even know he had one.“Who is she?”

“Her name’s Laney. They were high school sweethearts ten years ago and she just randomly showed up and told him he had a nine-year-old daughter,” she informs me.

My jaw drops because that’s the last thing I expected.

Ayden’s the boarding stables manager and only three years older than me. I couldn’t imagine having a child right now or finding out I had one I didn’t even know existed.

Honestly, that’s probably my worst nightmare.

“That’s wild. How’s he handlin’ it?”

“As good as he can, I guess. He’s plannin’ to take a trip to Texas in a few weeks to meet the daughter.”

“So is the ex-girlfriend hot?” I waggle my brows and Trey snorts.

“I wasn’t here last weekend to meet her in person, but I saw photos, and yeah, she’s beautiful,” Ruby says. “Way out of your league, though.”

I scoff, but the conversation dies when a Ford Super Duty towing a horse trailer comes down the gravel driveway toward the barn. I was so wrapped up in Noah asking me for help that I forgot to even ask who this Ellie chick is.

“Here she is. Beprofessional, Landen,” Noah says.

My brows pinch together. “What’s that mean?”

She clears her throat, giving me a side-eye. “Cover up your shirt!”

I don’t know how she expects me to do that without crossing my arms and looking like a beefed-up tool bag. But there’s no time to figure it out before three people exit and Noah greets them with hugs and smiles.

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