Page 37 of Cowboy Devil's Embrace

Only, I thought it was. A big deal, I mean. From what I could tell, my sweet little Sugarplum was a normal and before I could reveal exactly what I was to her, I needed to help her see the truth, that she was mine.

All mine. Only mine.

Easy there,I told my inner Devil. That dark part of me had been riding me hard, pissed off and mad as hell that I hadn’t claimed the woman the second I saw her.

It wasn’t the last quarter moon yet, so I had time. A few days, anyway, to convince my palatable Penelope that I was the only man for her.

I can do that. I plan to.

“Okay, moving on,” Emmet continued, and I turned my attention to my foreman and Beta.

“The cornfields are overgrown, and we have some sections that spoiled due to not being picked at the right time. But I got Dante seeing to that. Kian moved the milk cows to the second pasture this morning, and Jed was asking for some improvements to the milking parlor. Also, he wants to build a second parlor for the goats. With the new animals we’re getting, the stands we have in place won’t be enough,” he said.

“I’m sorry what is a parlor?” I asked.

“It’s where he milks the fucking animals, Boss,” he explained with a snarl.

I shrugged it off. Hell. Life was certainly different from what it looked like a couple of weeks ago.

I wasn’t the kind of man to be embarrassed by my lack of knowledge.

How was I supposed to know what the fuck he was talking about unless he explained it?

I’d never done anything like this before. Besides, experience was the best teacher, and I was learning hands on how to run a ranch/farm/thing.

“Moving on again. Where were we? Yeah, so we’re gonna need more goats. More building supplies. Oh, and the guys have decided on their housing.”

“What housing? Aren’t you all staying in one spot?” I asked, remembering something about a bunkhouse on the property.

“Hell no. That old bunkhouse stinks of goat shit. Seems like old Jed had some of the old ones living inside with him. Man’s too softhearted to put them down,” Emmet told me with a shake of his head.

“So, where have you been staying?”

“Cabins. We’re all big, dominant animals, Boss. And we ain’t getting along too well,” he murmured.

“No? How come?” I asked, perplexed.

“You surprised? We’re the fucking rejects, man. No Pack or Clan will have us.”

I knew that much already. And it shouldn’t surprise me that they were having a hard time. I rarely saw the men myself.

The way we had our schedules set up, everyone worked on different parts of the ranch simultaneously with little crossover. For humans, it wouldn’t be possible, but we were not human.

Our workload was probably five times that of the average farmer or rancher, but I was only guessing.

Still, was it healthy? All this separation.

“Look, you got six spare cabins on the property and well, this is me asking you for permission to fix up the ones we took.”

“I see,” I said, looking at the map of my land.

The cabins weren’t being used, and yes, they were spread out strategically so each of my new Crew could watch over a different section of the land.

“Looks fine to me, but?—”

“Fantastic. But we do need to make some repairs. Sign this purchase order,” Emmet said, handing me his phone for an e-signature.

Now that I could do. I was good at spending money. And there was nothing in the rules that said I couldn’t.

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