Page 41 of Claimed By the Cowboys

“I’ve lived with Dalton since we were knee-high to a grasshopper. That man does not look like that.” I wave the spatula at the tablet.

Dalton’s eyes are serious as he stares at the horse, and the intensity on his face radiates outward. Shit, I’d buy anything with that picture plastered on it. He looks like what everyone’s idea of a cowboy is. Except, he’s Dalton.

Piper leans back, her eyes searching the picture. “You know, I think that there’s something we could do to showcase the farm.”

“What do you mean?”

“At the end of summer, right before September, the farmers market does an end-of-summer bash. A lot of the vendors use itas their close-out for the year. Montana growing season is pretty short, so a lot of the seasonal produce is over with. It’s kind of an all-day thing, and at night, there’s usually a local band that plays, and there’s dancing and stuff. They call it the Harvest Bash. We could make our own booth. Take some samples of your stuff, some cuts of meat from Brent’s cattle. Show off some videos of Dalton’s horses.”

“That could be a really good place for people to interact with us, if they’re just watching our socials.”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Piper says softly. “It might just be locals, but I know that some of the rich people from Bozeman or Butte are always showing up at that type of stuff.”

It’s true. Even though a lot of Montana is slowly being sold to rich CEOs and Hollywood-type folks, they tend to stay in their little areas. However, events like these are drawing more and more of them out of the woodwork.

“I like it,” I say. “It gives us a goal to work toward.”

“Yeah.” Piper looks pensive. “That would pretty much give us a goal and a timeline that we could look to.”

I tilt my head. “Penny for your thoughts, Pipes?”

Sighing, Piper sets the tablet down. “Oh, I don’t know. I was kind of wondering if that… if this… Things might just be different by then, I guess.”

My eyes drop meaningfully to her stomach, then back up to meet her gaze.

“I kind of hope they are,” I say with a smile.

Hell. I hope that by then, things are very different.

If we can walk out of that Harvest Bash a family, a real family, then this whole summer might just have worked out after all.

CHAPTER 11

Brent

To distract myself from the intense nerves that I’m having around having my day with Piper, I decide to tackle one of my hardest tasks.

There’s a fence that I need to repair. It’s about a million miles away, at the very edge of our property. I could take an ATV or a truck there, but it’s longer if I ride on horseback. So horseback it is.

I wake up before dawn to get out there. The fencing supplies are bundled up on Sam’s saddle, and I get the fuck out of the house before Tate wakes up, and just as Dalton is stirring.

Piper’s been sleeping at her own house. I can’t quite make heads or tails of that fact. Part of me is glad that she hasn’t been doing something outside of the norm. She doesn’t really ever spend the night at our house, even though we’d be happy to have her. Occasionally, if we’ve all had too much to drink or she’s drop-dead exhausted, she will, but mostly, she wants to be in her own space. Checking on the damn chickens, filming her content in the morning light, all that good stuff. So it feels okay that we’re doing something pretty normal, I guess.

What feels shitty is watching her leave each night and come back the next day. All while knowing that both Tate and Dalton have had a chance to fuck her, and I haven’t.

I’m really not complaining that much. I saw the schedule, and I heard Dalton when he changed it. I wasn’t about to let my instincts grab a hold of me, despite the fact that I wanted to knock him the fuck out when he did it.

No matter what, Piper is not really ours. She wants us to help her have a baby, and that’s it. We’re all still friends. Friends, apparently, who have sex sometimes.

I can pretend all I want, but the reality is that Piper has been very clear with us. She’s very clear that this relationship is still the same.

I’m too chicken to ask Tate and Dalton about their days. When I came back from working the cows yesterday, Tate looked like a goddamn cat that had eaten a fucking canary. And there was a cake that was fucking amazing, along with suspicious smears of flour in places that flour isn’t normally when Tate is baking. I didn’t ask.

Dalton, as per usual, didn’t say shit. He just gave Tate a glare, then went upstairs to his room. Clearly, we aren’t going to talk about it, which is another reason why I’m thinking this will never fucking work.

If we’re going to be more than friends with Piper, it’s all of us. Not just one, or two of us. All of us. And that’s a whole different fucking conversation than the one we’re already not having.

The sun’s nearly overhead by the time I find the fence spot. The cows aren’t even in this particular corner of pasture and won’t be likely until late summer. The priority that this chore should have in my head is fucking zero.

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