Page 79 of Claimed By the Cowboys

I sigh as he takes little Blaire from me. “Yeah. Okay. Easy for you to say.”

Tate is, as always, the one who makes sure that our hearts stay light. His catering company has taken off more than any of us dreamed of, and we actually have products that are packaged and available on supermarket shelves. Tate’s spent the past year being a chef to the stars, especially those on a certain hit TV show that’s been filmed in the area.

When he booked that job, none of us thought it would lead to a brand deal that put his food in the hands of millions of Americans. Then again, no one thought he would become friends with the multi-million-dollar showrunner who immediately wanted Tate to expand in a totally wild way.

I mean, I guess that I knew. It’s hard not to just love Tate as soon as you meet him. So between feeding me homemade chicken soup for the past year when I was too nauseous to even get out of bed, Tate somehow created an empire.

And Dalton figured out a way to sell horses and train them for trail rides. He’s still working on the angle for Hollywood productions, and a certain copper-colored bay mare is somehowstill living under our roof and providing people with all kinds of attitude that they don’t want, but I have faith that he’ll get there.

And the horse has a name now. Hella. Named after the Norwegian goddess of death.

Do I love the name? No. Is it fitting for the mare who still will only let Dalton touch her? Yes.

I shouldn’t say that. Dalton, despite my fretting, has let Hella sniff both babies, and she seems to take kind of a shine to the girls. She didn’t try to bite them but did try to bite some of the horses that came near them, which we took as a sign that she was protective of them.

Who knows. Maybe the twins got some kind of gene from Dalton that will help them to be great with horses. Lord knows I’m not. I’m still a middle-of-the-road horsewoman at best. Sam is still the type of horse I like most. Definitely not going to be contributing to the training of horses anytime soon. But I have Dalton for that.

“Okay. I believe you.” I look at Tate. “I know it’s going to be amazing. Last Harvest Bash was…” I wince. “Good.”

Brent shakes his head. “It was insane, Piper.”

It really was. I was pregnant and fighting through the worst first trimester of my life. I couldn’t get anything the way I wanted it, visually, and I truly couldn’t stomach anything more than just broth and water. The guys were panicked, to say the least.

Then, on top of that, Brent got kicked by Hella again in the thigh. He could barely walk. Dalton had been taking Hella out to do some training with the cows, thinking she might be good at herding them since she really does enjoy biting and kicking so much. Turns out, she only likes to bite humans. And kick Brent.

So Brent was limping, sitting next to me at the booth. Tate, as always, kept chatting with people, leaving Dalton to actually do the selling part with us. And Dalton is a terrible, terrible salesman.

We didn’t meet any of our sales goals for cattle or horses. We sold out of canned goods, of course, but that’s because I didn’t bring hardly any of them. They were mostly cherries that went to a local distillery, though, and that contract kept us alive for the next few months.

Since then, I’ve built an actual canning facility. My farm is where we stage all of our photoshoots and press stuff, and we keep it meticulous. The chickens moved with us over to the guys’ farm. And when I got really pregnant and the nausea faded, I nested.

The guys’ farm is now just as cute as mine. It helped me to feel more ready, just like Blaire was saying. I wanted to make sure that everything was perfect when the twins arrived in the world, and even though it wouldn’t change any of the other chaos, at least their room looked phenomenal.

“It’s going to be better this year, Piper,” Brent assures me. He comes up behind me, his arms circling me. I breathe, taking in the clean scent of hay and Brent that at this point feel so familiar. “It’s all okay, baby.”

I nod. I’ve actually been seeing a therapist for stuff like this. I’ve learned that one thing I’m not very good at is accepting change, because it scares me. As it should, considering that one day I had parents, and the next, I didn’t.

But all this stuff, all the efforts to control other people and control the outcome, I can’t do it. The only thing constant in life is change. And to think that I almost missed out on being here, with my guys, and I almost lost out on this life… All because, for so long, I was afraid to take a risk where I couldn’t control the outcome.

Changing from being friends to lovers wasn’t just a terrifying idea. It was the best idea that I’ve ever had. And if I had listened to myself, if I had let all those instincts that came out of my own childhood take over, I’d never be where I am today.

Brent squeezes me, and I squeeze him back.

“Sometimes I think that it’s too good to be true,” I say.

He rumbles. “I know. But it’s not. It’s real, Piper. This is the life we built, and we’re going to live it.”

I pull back, then address the team. “Okay. We’re all sharing all the babies. We’re all staffing the booth. And none of us are going to freak out about anything. Good?”

Three nods, and two baby squeals, tell me that it is.

The Harvest Bash is finally a success. For us, at least. Others definitely struggled with either their booth setups or their sales, but not us.

The stars of the show, of course, are our beautiful twin baby girls. Neha and Blaire steal every heart. Every sale. Every single scrap of adult attention that could possibly be spared. I mean, as they should, they’re cute babies. They deserve the attention.

This is really their full public debut. Blaire has seen them, of course, since baby Blaire is obviously her namesake, but beyond that, I haven’t been out and about with them much. In our small town? I’m not ready to face the questions.

About halfway through the day, though, the inevitable happens. Dalton, Tate, and Brent are all staffing the booth with me. Dalton is holding Blaire, and Tate is holding Neha.

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