Ali Olson - The Bull Rider's Twin Trouble

Brock nodded. “But the fence can wait, if you aren’t planning on keeping animals out here, in which case we could just fix the paddock and barn.”

Cassie gazed across the land covered in tall grass the color of gold. What would she do with the crops? She had just wanted a ranch with some horses, but it was becoming more and more obvious that she didn’t know the first thing about ranching...

Maybe her mother was right: she was getting in way over her head. She was just a city girl playing rancher, and she didn’t know the game.

“Everything okay?” Brock asked, pulling her out of her reverie.

She started to nod but couldn’t bring herself to pretend. “There’s just so much I need to figure out,” she answered, looking at him.

The sympathy in his dark blue eyes made her heart thump heavily, and she had difficulty keeping control of herself.

He looked out over her ranch and she took the chance to catch her breath. After a few moments, he nodded. “It’ll be a lot of work, but it’s a good piece of land. Do you have a buyer for the hay you won’t use?”

She shook her head, feeling stupid. She didn’t even have any idea how to turn the grass waving in front of her into hay bales, let alone what to do with it. “I don’t—”

Cassie stopped talking, her voice catching in her throat. She had been told that the farm was growing grass to turn into hay, but she hadn’t thought about what to do with it until she’d actually gotten here and seen it.

The enormity of the tasks before her threatened to overwhelm her. She could only imagine what Brock must think about her, purchasing this whole place without knowing how to do a single thing.

“This is my lucky day,” Brock replied.

Cassie looked at Brock, surprised at the enthusiasm in his voice. Was he being sarcastic?

Brock hitched his thumb back toward his parents’ ranch. “Pop could use a good chunk for their horses, and my brothers would be happy to buy the rest, I’m sure. And they’ll pay to get the baling machine out here, too, if you don’t already have one lined up. It’s my lucky day because this means almost my entire family will owe me, which can be useful in the McNeal house.”

Cassie laughed, more out of astonishment than anything. “Do you really think your brothers would do all that?” she asked, trying not to get her hopes up too high, but unable to suppress the grin that came to her lips.

Brock nodded, smiling back. “They just started a business working with rodeo stock, and I’m sure they could use it. They’ll give you a fair price.”

A weight lifted off Cassie, and she felt some of the tension in her shoulders ease. She would be able to sell the hay. If she could do that, start seeing patients, mend the fence and make the barn livable for her horses, maybe everything would be all right. It was a big if, but it was something.

“You’ll want to keep a bit of it for your own horses, right? I know the Wilsons had a couple.”

She nodded, picturing Rosalind and Diamond, the two mares that had come with the property. “If I can get the barn and fencing in shape enough to keep them here, yes. For now, they’re being kept at a place a few miles away.”

“Well, we can figure out what lumber you need for the fence and paddock, but mend the paddock first. That way, you can move the horses here sooner. They don’t need a perfect barn in this weather, so those little fixes can wait.”

She didn’t say anything about the boarding costs, yet another worry on her plate. Cassie suddenly felt embarrassed, as if every shortcoming and difficulty of hers was being laid bare in front of this man she’d known less than twenty-four hours.

Despite how much she appreciated his help, she also felt slightly uncomfortable with how much she needed it. She’d always been self-sufficient, smart and able to do whatever she put her mind to. This whole thing wasn’t great for her ego, that was for sure.

Still, she’d gotten herself into this mess, and right now she just needed to worry about surviving it with as much of her dignity intact as she could manage. As long as nothing else landed on her plate, she would be able to handle it.

She hoped.

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