Page 7 of Claimed By the Cowboys

“Yeah.” I look over at where the sun is just barely at the horizon. “Tate good?”

“Dinner’s about to be ready.”

Sighing, I heft the axe and walk over. “Guess I’ll shower.”

“Guess so.”

We both look at the pit in the yard, and Dalton sighs. “Hog roast?”

“That’s Tate for you.”

“How much did it cost?” he asks.

Trust Dalton to get right to the point. “More than his nonexistent catering company is making.”

Dalton’s lips tighten in a grimace. “We gotta make this work, Brent.”

Yeah. Don’t I fucking know it.

I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to fix a mistake that I made. Asking Piper for help sucks, but she’ll definitely give it. It will bring us one step closer to the life we’ve dreamed up.

Well. Except for one crucial thing.

If I thought that Piper was off-limits before, she’s going to be even more so if we ask for her help. Blurring the lines between friends and lovers is not going to happen.

CHAPTER 3

Piper

Ipull up to the guys’ house right as the last bits of sunlight are fading over the horizon. I’m a little later than I meant to be. Susana, the egg-bound chicken, ended up putting up more of a fight than I thought she would when it came to getting her to sit in the Epsom bath. After some research (and a lot of cutting), I managed to make a plastic tub into a little spa for her. She would be contained, with just space to poke her head out, while I soaked her lower half in the salt.

I will say. I take pictures and make posts that show a lifestyle around chickens that is not exactly true. The way I show it to my followers, having chickens is fun. Cute. Charming, even.

In reality, half the time it’s me fighting with a chicken for something that will literally save their lives. And the other half? Shoveling poop.

I’m used to it, but that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant. Blaire and I had chickens in Colorado growing up, and they were much meaner than the pretty Dominique breed that I raise on my little farm.

As I shut the truck off, my phone buzzes. Speak of the devil.

“Hey, B,” I say, picking the phone up.

“There’s no way you got that chicken into that contraption,” my sister starts.

I laugh. “Are you stalking me again?”

“You know I have post alerts turned on for you, Piper,” Blaire says lovingly.

My sister is a hard-ass. She’s the best reporter I know, and the toughest person to boot. She also raised me, in a way that’s just as meaningful as our grandparents caring for us.

It’s been a challenge, as adults, to get her to see that I don’t need her to look out for me anymore. But, since we had a discussion around some boundaries that I needed to be in place in order to feel a little better about our relationship, we’ve been a lot happier.

Monitoring my social media is totally a Blaire move, and I don’t love it, but it’s better than her constantly bending over backward to make sure I’m okay. It’s also not personal. She probably also has media alerts for like… news and stuff, too. I think.

“Well, to answer your question, yes. I did, in fact, get Susana into the plastic tub with the hole cut out of the top to force her to sit in the bath.”

Blaire whistles. “How? Sorcery?”

“I talked to her nicely,” I say primly. It’s not true. I had to wrestle her and then practically wrap myself around her to keep her from escaping, but I’m not going to admit that to Blaire.

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