Page 59 of Parading the Cowboy Billionaire (Bluegrass Ranch 4)

“She’s changed the will,” Drake said. His voice carried equal parts awe and shock. “Ginny. What are you going to do?”

“What am I going to do?” She gently took the folder from Drake and handed it back to Harvey. “Nothing. I’m not going to do anything. My boyfriend is coming over tonight, and I’m going to talk to him. His brother’s vow renewal is on Saturday, and I’m going to attend.”

She couldn’t believe how calmly she spoke, so her brothers’ shocked looks weren’t hard to understand. “I’m in love with him,” she said quietly. “I’m going to choose him over Sweet Rose.”

Her throat scratched then, and her chest constricted painfully.

“Ginny,” Elliot said, and that was all.

She heard the unspoken words.Good for you. You deserve to have someone you love.

“She’s not going to choose for me again,” Ginny said, his voice deadly now. “I’ve let her run my life for so long, and I just—” She exhaled, a sense of mania moving through her. “I just don’t care.

“I want you to be happy,” Harvey said. “If he makes you happy, that’s good enough for me.”

She nodded at him, tears stinging her eyes.

“Mother won’t live forever,” Drake said.

“Could be another decade though,” Ginny said, the thought of being without Sweet Rose for that long horrifying to her. She painted a smile on her face anyway. “Good thing Cayden’s a billionaire too.”

That somehow broke the tension, and the four of them laughed together.

Ginny’s chin started to wobble, and while she’d cried more in the past four months since she’d gotten back together with Cayden than she ever had, she didn’t try to tame the tears. “I love you guys,” she said. “I’m sorry about the salary blocking last year. We should’ve gathered to this table and done this. Talked it all out.”

“We all have plenty to apologize for,” Elliot said, glancing at Harvey. “It’s not necessary. We’re family, and we forgive each other.”

Ginny nodded with the others and when the waitress arrived, she ordered the goat cheese beet salad and a plate of fried calamari. “I have something else to tell y’all,” she said, her emotions already rearing their ugly heads. “It’s personal.”

Drake flipped his phone over and looked at her, and Harvey and Elliot hadn’t stopped looking at her.

“I guess it’s more of a request,” she said, her tears already flying down her face. “I can’t have kids of my own, and I’m hoping you’ll let me take yours to do everything in Lexington and Dreamsville in the near future.” She wiped her face clean. “The far future too. All the futures.”

A few seconds of silence descended on the table, and then Harvey said, “I will pay you fifty grand to take Sullivan for a weekend. I’m not even kidding. He’s driving usnuts.”

Ginny burst out laughing, though her tears still spilled from her eyes. Drake lifted his arm much the same way Cayden had and drew her into his chest. “I’m so sorry, Ginny,” he said, and the other two nodded and murmured their assent.

Elliot was right; they were family, and they did forgive each other. More than that, though, they loved one another. That was the kind of family she wanted too, and when she closed her eyes, that family was with Cayden.

Now she just needed a plan to deal with Mother.

* * *

“How did she find out?”Cayden asked later that night.

“I don’t know,” Ginny said, her eyes closed as she laid on her couch, her head and shoulders in Cayden’s lap. “Harvey didn’t say. All he knows is the lawyer sent him a copy of the new will; that Mother requested the changes on Monday.”

His fingers slid through her hair again. Then again. “What do you want to do?”

“This,” she whispered.

Cayden’s unrest carried like a scent on the air. He’d give her a few minutes, but then he’d want to know what she was really going to do.

“I spoke to Gloria today,” she said. “She said we can pick up the cakes either tomorrow night about eight, or Saturday morning at seven-thirty. They’re going to freeze them either way, and even if we pick them up in the morning, they’ll thaw by the time brunch and the renewal is over.”

“You’re still going to come?”

“Of course,” Ginny said, sighing. She sat up, glad when Minnie and Uncle Joe came padding over and curled into her side. They were warm and comforting, and she did love her little dogs.

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