Page 45 of The Guy Who Stole My Ranch

However, I wasn’t ready to give up. It was possible that she’d purposely made this difficult for me. She’d accused me of never doing a day of hard work in my life, so perhaps she was trying to prove her theory. We’d have to see what tomorrow held.

I sent a quick text to Patrick asking him to come pick me up.

Patrick:On my way.

Robert glanced over at me as he turned toward his house. “Do you still want to own a ranch?”

I nodded. “Yes.” Brooke was correct in her accusation that other people would be doing most of the dirty work, as she called it, on the property, but even knowing how much effort was going to be needed to keep the place running, I wasn’t dissuaded.

“Good for you.” Robert nodded. “It’s not an easy life, but I figure you’ll have people to do all the day-to-day things.”

“That’s my plan,” I admitted.

“Speaking of people, I wanted to introduce you to our two ranch hands.”

I looked out the window and found a duo of men waiting for us, along with a pair of Australian Shepherds that started jumping around as the truck pulled into the driveway.

Robert parked the truck and opened the door. “I’ll just be a minute.” Without further ado, he headed inside.

Leaving me alone with the dogs and the men.

I opened my door and got out of the truck. The two dogs rushed to me.

I’d taken Frank and myself to a world-renowned dog trainer, so I knew what to do. I held my hand out so they could sniff it, I waited for their reaction, and when each of them moved closer, I petted their heads.

They seemed to appreciate it.

Once the dogs were finished assessing me, the two men approached.

One stood as tall as me but with broad shoulders, heavily-muscled arms, and curly blond hair that needed a trim. If I recalled correctly, this was Christopher.

The other man’s dark skin and short black hair struck a stark contrast to Christopher, but the two men wore similar jeans, cowboy boots, and button-down shirts that I now noticed had several tears in them.

Just like mine.

Of course they probably hadn’t become queasy when they’d gotten cut. I was more embarrassed about that than anything else that had happened to me in the past few years. I’d vowed to keep that under control from now on.

The tall blond approached first with his hand out. “Christopher Ellis.”

I shook and wondered if everyone in Texas had the ability to grind my knuckle bones to dust. “William Harris.”

“Nice to finally meet you.”

“Agreed.”

The other man did the same. “Brandon Gibson.” I found his grip even tighter than Christopher’s. My little finger started to ache in protest.

The guys at the gym who used the hand strengthening tools had nothing on these two.

Not to mention Brooke, who was almost as strong. Ever since grabbing her upper arm to keep her from tripping, I’d been marveling over the muscles hidden there.

“How was your day?” Brandon asked in a deep voice.

“Busy,” I said with a small smile.

The dogs wandered to the house, and someone let them in.

Christopher adjusted the brim of his baseball hat. “I think Brooke gave you all the nasty chores first.”

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