Page 16 of Cowboy Devil's Embrace

Mrs. O’Hare.

I didn’t even want to think about her right now. Of all the people in my life, I would have never expected Molly O’Hare to just walk out on me.

She didn’t even say goodbye. Just left me a note.

Dear Max,

I’ve known you since birth, and it pains me to say your grandmother is right. It is time you met your full potential. Fix this place. Find your promised. Become the man you were meant to be.

Forever your fan,

Nanny Molly

“NEXT!” I bellowed, angry at the memory.

“Mister, you keep screaming like that and those goats of yours are gonna give you nothing but sour milk for a week,” the next Shifter said as he ambled towards me.

I narrowed my eyes and sniffed.

Great.

The guy was a Wolf. And worse, he had a Texas drawl as big as the Lonestar state itself.

Just what I fucking needed.

“So, you know about goats?” I asked, eyeing the buff, tattooed blond Wolf.

“Yep,” he answered with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“How about cows?”

“Them, too.”

“What do you know about horses?” I asked.

I rubbed the place on my hand where one of the horses that came with the property bit me when I went to toss some hay into his stall last night.

Animals didn’t normally sense my supernatural nature, but some did. And that was going to be a problem, for sure.

“I could fill a book, Mr. Leeds.”

“I bet you charge an arm and a leg,” I said and leaned forward.

“Hardly. But I worked as foreman for one of the most successful ranches in Texas for the last six years.”

“Why’d you leave?”

“Let’s call it personal troubles,” the Wolf answered with a shrug.

“Fine. We’ll call it that. So, what? You looking to be the manager,er, foreman here?”

“I reckon I’d be good at it. But I tell you what. You can reserve that position for when I earn your trust. What I really need is steady work, a place to stay, and four meals a day.”

“Four? Isn’t three customary?”

“Maybe, but I’m a Wolf, not a normal, and I need the meat to keep steady,” he said, and his voice deepened with his animal.

I leaned forward, intrigued. I wasn’t sure if I liked the Wolf. But I was self-aware enough to recognize I knew jack shit about running a place like this.

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