Page 97 of Inheriting Miss Fortune

“Baby,” he began. “I need you to stand down and let me handle this with Susanna. I don’t want you to do anything to jeopardize your job, okay? Promise me.”

“Dev—”

“No, Tully. Promise me. I need you to take care ofyoubecause I’m not there to do it, okay?”

His words were so fucking sweet. So reassuring. How long had it been since someone wanted to protect me?

“I can’t promise you that.”

I heard the smile in Dev’s voice. “You can, and I’ll tell you why. You love me. And I’m asking you to let me love you right back, Tully Bowman.”

I closed my eyes and tried to keep breathing. “Yeah?” It came out as a croak.

His warm rumble of soft laughter rolled across the line. “Yeah. Now, promise me.”

I sucked in a breath and lied my loving ass off. “I promise, Dev.”

He breathed out a sigh of relief.

As we moved on to talk about how Lellie was doing, how Trigger was faring, and when I could come back to Majestic for another visit, my heart rate calmed.

Every word he shared about life back in Majestic was like twisting the little stick on a pair of cheap window blinds. The sun began to slant in a little bit more until a breathtaking view appeared.

My life, and every single thing I wanted in it, were not here in this vibrant city.

They were there in the sleepy, sage-blown town of Majestic, Wyoming… and I knew I would do anything to make them mine.

Even put my entire career on the line.

TWENTY-SIX

DEV

It took less than two days after Tully’s departure for me to realize my new little family would never be complete without him in it.

I was down in the barn, checking on one of the new foals with Lellie safe in her new favorite carrier on my back, when I saw Indigo stroking Trigger’s nose over the stall door.

“He likes you,” I said, tilting my chin up at him in acknowledgment.

The poor kid had obviously been scared of me ever since the incident with Trigger. Despite everything going on in my life, I owed him an apology.

“Nah. He’s just, like, obsessed with peppermints.” His eyes widened. “But don’t stress, dude. I swear, I only give him one in the morning and one at night. Gotta keep it balanced. Gotta keep his energy aligned.”

Surprisingly, I found this almost intelligible. “I appreciate you, ah… looking out for his energy,” I said soberly.

Lellie squawked in my ear when she saw Trigger, so I headed over that way and let her pet him. Indigo’s face lit up when he saw how happy it made her. “Dudette’s a natural. Got the horse bug for sure. Gonna be a big rider, just like her dad. No doubt.”

“Hope so. But then again, I’ll go gray early. Riding can be dangerous.”

“Dude, say less.” Indigo rolled his eyes. “I was flexing in a polo match once ’cause I had a girl watching, you know? So when I hit a tail shot—epic shot, killed it—you know I had to turn around to see if my girl’d seen it. Ended up twisting myself right off the pony. Total wipeout, bro. Bruised all to h-heck and took a mallet to the face by their number two just for some extra humiliation. Almost got trampled. Polo’s no joke.”

“And yet you got back on the horse.”

“’Course I did,” he said. He added in a fake-snooty accent, “‘A polo handicap is a person’s ticket to the world.’”

I grinned at him. It had been a long time since I’d met a fellow polo-phile. “Winston Churchill.”

“Uh-huh. My first coach called polo the great equalizer,” he said. “No matter your size, you’re all the same on the back of a pony.”

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