Texas Wedding makes finalists list for Prism Book Alliance, 2015

Padmes Library – 5/5
– “….This book had me in tears, both from laughing and tenderness,
had me fanning myself from hotness, simply put Texas Wedding had me in a
jumble of emotion.  I don’t really know what to say about Jack and
Reily that I haven’t already said throughout the series….

….Texas
will always be my absolute favorite series in the M/M genre, not only
because it was the first I read but because it is superbly written with
characters that are interesting, intriguing, and real.  RJ Scott has
given us a true gem when she created the world of Jack and Reily
Campbell-Hayes….”

Excerpt – Adult content

Chapter One

Jack
slid his arms around Riley from behind and pressed his cheek to the
space between broad shoulders. He couldn’t stop himself from moving his
hands under the soft T-shirt material and caressing the warm skin.
Touching Riley was an addiction.

“You all done?” he asked.

Riley turned in Jack’s hold, the laundry in his hands crushing between them.

“It’s
like these tiny T-shirts multiply,” Riley groused. “I turn my back for
one minute and suddenly there’s another ten of the damn things.”

Jack
smiled up at his husband, at the narrowing of his beautiful hazel eyes
and the stubborn set of his mouth. Then he released his hold of his
waist and instead cradled his face.

“It was your idea to sort out the twins’ old clothes,” he reminded Riley.

“I wanted to box it away….”

“We can do it together at the weekend.”

“I want to do it today—”

“It’s a Tuesday.” Jack interrupted Riley’s reasons why. “I thought you said you had that report to read from Tom?”

Riley huffed a little. “I can’t concentrate.”

“So, you’re sorting clothes?”

“Is that a bad thing?” Riley sounded so defensive.

Jack sighed. “What are you avoiding?”

Riley
raised an eyebrow, and Jack couldn’t help but press a kiss to his lips.
After all this time together, he had learned these weird domestic
chores Riley undertook were usually a way of avoiding things he didn’t
want to do. Whether it was Riley’s way of thinking about things, or pure
procrastination, Jack didn’t know.

“I have a shareholder meeting the first week of February.” Riley finally said.

“I
know. I got the same letter, but I wasn’t planning on going. Why will
this be different from any other meeting?” Jack was confused. Hayes Oil
meetings were dry and boring, and he’d survived the only two he’d
attended by slouching back in a chair directly opposite Riley. He would
eat as many of the complimentary mints as he could manage and gently
disrupt the meeting by rustling the wrappers. This never failed to make
Riley smile. Mostly Jack conned Josh into going, or gave Riley his
proxy. Still, when he did go, he loved nothing better than insolently
lazing around and being all cowboy in the room full of suits.
Inevitably, this led to hot sex with Riley, who couldn’t keep his eyes
off Jack throughout the entire meeting.

“I have
something to admit,” Riley said with a sigh. He eased himself away from
Jack and leaned back against the cabinet. “Dad has appointed this new
manager to the team, and we have a history.”

Jack huffed a laugh. “Riley, you have a history with so many people, I lost count.”

Riley
looked affronted for a second, but that emotion didn’t slip into a
ready smile, so Jack realized this was serious. Jack stood next to Riley
and waited for the man he loved, to admit what the hell was going on.
In fact, Riley had been weird for a few days: less quick to smile, less
easy to poke at, in a hurry to go find a quiet space away from everyone.

“Not like that,” Riley said. “The woman’s name is Charlotte Harrold, and her dad is Josiah.”

Jack
nodded. He and Josiah had their own kind of history, one where Josiah
had tried courting Donna and failed, where Josiah looked down at Jack,
and where Jack refused to give a rat’s ass. The fucker had blocked Hayes
Oil on several occasions and didn’t have a high opinion of Riley, nor
of Riley and Jack. Add to that, Tom, Riley’s right-hand man at work, had
unfortunately had a run-in with Josiah Jr., Charlotte’s brother. Too
much history between the Hayes and Harrold families.

“Why
would Jim hire her, then?” Jack paused to think about what he knew
concerning Charlotte. “I remember her being a bitch with daddy issues.”

Riley
shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, I asked him, and he said she’s good at
what she does, and that she’s changed, whatever that means. Oh, and I
should give her as much of a chance as people gave me.”

“Cryptic. So you think she’s going to cause trouble.”

Riley looked at Jack sharply. “Hell no. I know her work, and she’ll be an asset. It’s only….”

Jack tensed. “You slept with her.”

“Jesus,
Jack,” Riley said instantly. “No way. She was Jeff’s. I mean she and
Jeff were having an affair. He called her Charlie, and I damn well
walked in on them once. The wedding photos were still wet at the
printer’s, and there he was, fucking around on Lisa.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,
oh. And we’re going to be in the same room as her. All I can remember
is that Jeff was balls-deep in Charlie, and he had his hands—” Riley
demonstrated with his hands in front of him in a ring. “—around her
neck.”

Jack immediately realized what the problem was.
The joined families, whether Campbell or Hayes, had quietly consigned
Jeff and everything he had done to something never to be talked about.
Riley never shared cute childhood stories where he, Eden, and Jeff were
friends; no tales of brotherly misadventures. To Jack’s mind, Jeff had
been born a sadistic bastard, and likely there were a lot of stories
Riley hadn’t told him about the kind of things Jeff had done to both
Riley and Eden.

“Seeing her makes you face what he
did,” Jack said. He reached over and held Riley’s hand, lacing their
fingers together and squeezing. This was what he did best. He was there
for Riley, supporting him, holding him up, knowing as much as he needed
to know, and still being there for the man who was his other half.

Riley sighed and bumped shoulders with Jack. “Yeah,” he whispered.

“So your dad doesn’t know that Jeff and Charlie were…?”

“No. I’m sure I’m the only one.”

“Lisa didn’t know?”

Riley squeezed back. “She always knew he was unfaithful, but with Charlie, no, I don’t think so.”

For
a second, Jack allowed the words to settle. Lisa was damaged by much
more than physical pain. She had a world of hurt where her dead husband
was concerned, not least of which was the end result of what he did to
her. The secret she carried with her was too awful for Jack to
contemplate knowing how she lived with it.

“We don’t see enough of Lisa and the kids,” he said.

That
was true. Lisa hadn’t visited in a while. Although to be fair, whenever
Jack and Riley organized a family gathering of any sort, they always
invited her. She’d moved to San Antonio with her fiancé, Ed, and was
building a place for herself and the kids well away from the life she’d
had here. Luke was sixteen, Annabelle coming up for nineteen. They
weren’t at the ranch as often as Josh’s kids. They had lives of their
own, but still, Jack was all about family.

“We’ll get
them over, or maybe we’ll go visit them,” Jack said. He wasn’t going to
let Riley focus on this one thing to distract himself from the central
issue. “Back to the meeting. When you sit there, it will be all
business, and if she comes over to talk to you, you smile, nod, and put
on the best goddamn Riley act you can.”

“You’re not planning on being there.”

“I
hate them,” Jack said, then he felt guilty. Riley was clearly concerned
about the meeting, and he should make the effort. “I can try.”

“Don’t
say that.” Riley smiled at Jack. “As much as I like it when you do that
‘I don’t care, I’m a hot, dusty cowboy’ thing, I seriously think you
should stay away.”

“Yeah?”

Riley looked at him again. This time, the shadows had disappeared from his eyes. “It’s like torture for you.”

“Tell me more about how you like the cowboy thing,” Jack growled.

Riley
grinned. “When you push the chair back and you kind of sprawl there,
with your thumbs in your belt. You smile and nod when you need to and
all I want to do is crawl over the table and ride you right there in the
meeting.”

Jack’s cock swelled and pressed against his jeans. Riley’s voice was husky and low and sent every molecule of blood south.

“Jesus, Riley.”

“Sometimes you unwrap those stupid little mints, and you press one to your lips, and then you suck it in.”

“I like the mints.”

“All I can imagine is my cock in your mouth, and I’m so freaking hard I can’t concentrate on the numbers.”

Jack
wriggled to get comfortable, and he had to press his free hand to his
zip to ease some of the pressure. “Like it’s easy for me,” he muttered.
“You in your suit, and those ties you wear, and all I can imagine is
ripping it all off, tying you down and fucking you into tomorrow. That’s
the only reason I go.”

Riley moved so quickly Jack didn’t have time to draw breath. He straddled Jack and pushed him back on the bed.

“Carol.”
Jack mentioned their nanny’s name with the last remaining moments of
having the presence of mind. “People…,” he added as a warning, as Riley
stole his words with the deepest, dirtiest, messiest kiss he’d had since
the last time they’d been in the barn.

Riley pulled back enough so Jack could look into his eyes. “Barn,” Riley said. “Now.”

Riley scrambled up and away, unbuttoning his jeans and adjusting himself. “Now,” he repeated.

With
determination, they made it out of the house. Hayley was at school, Max
out with Robbie and the horses, the twins were happy with Carol, so
they had nothing to stop them. It didn’t matter it was ten in the
morning, this was happening.

“Hey, boss,” Robbie called as Jack stepped outside.

Jack
stopped so suddenly that Riley had to do some nifty footwork to try not
to walk into the back of him. He didn’t quite manage it, and instead
they met in a slam of limbs.

“Fuck,” Riley muttered.

“Hi,
Robbie,” Jack said. He needed to cover the fact that he was hard and
thanked the heavens that Riley had tugged out his shirt.

“Starting
on the porch today,” Robbie said. He was carrying a box full of tools.
“Lumber got delivered at the ass crack of dawn.” He gestured toward Jack
and Riley’s barn, at the wood piled in front of the door.

Fuck. Whose idea was it to get a porch added to the main house?

Yours, you idiot.

Liam
was next to him, a saw in one hand and a bucket of nails in the other.
Liam didn’t seem to want to stand still, restlessly moving his weight
from one foot to the other. Liam still wasn’t entirely comfortable
talking to Jack one-on-one, but Jack didn’t have time to think about
that now. He’d forgotten that today the lumber was arriving. Jesus.
Fuck.

“Good. Riley and I are… inspecting… stuff.” Way to go with the lack of the English language.

“Stuff,” Riley repeated.

Robbie
tilted his head a little and damn it if there wasn’t a slight smile on
his face. “Okay, boss,” he said, then he and Liam carried on to the old
barn and the woodpile.

Jack thought for a moment, then
grabbed Riley’s hand, and in the space of a few minutes, they were
leaving the ranch house and heading out on horseback. People were
around; people were here: visitors to the riding center, people working.
Along with kids, nannies, moms, dads, siblings. Hoping to find peace,
Jack deliberately turned Solo to the east and into the parts of the
ranch he knew Riley hadn’t seen, the rougher parts of the acreage that
were fenced off.

Riley followed. Alex was a little
skittish this morning until they were in a smooth canter and heading up
into the thick, lush grassland to the east of the ranch. Ten minutes of
riding, with no talking, and they reached a stand of trees. A small
tributary from the main water supply to the Double D house carved
through the coppice. It was a typically cool, fresh January day.

Jack
dismounted and tied Solo off, grabbing Riley’s hand as soon as Riley
had secured Alex. He tugged Riley into the trees, to the one place that
Jack knew they would get privacy. In his pocket, his tight pocket, he
had lube. He was stripping before they stopped walking, and by the time
they reached the smooth grassed area in the shade, he was naked and a
trail of clothes lay behind them. Jack hoped to hell there were no
armadillos in hiding or snakes waiting to pounce.

Jack
attempted to lay out the blanket he’d grabbed as he saddled Solo, but a
naked Riley jumped him and tackled him to the ground, and he knew this
wasn’t going to be gentle lovemaking. This was going to be raw, and Jack
needed the connection like he needed his next breath. He always did.

Riley
covered him, pressing him into the grass and the rucked-up blanket, and
kissed him. The kisses were more of the same—hot, messy, deep, with no
words. This was heat and fire, and Jack rolled so he was on top. He
needed something; he wanted Riley in the worst way.

“I want you to fuck me,” Riley demanded.

Jack nearly lost it there and then. Riley asking him to push inside and—

Jack
kissed and bit Riley’s nipples, laving them as they pebbled, sucking
marks of possession into Riley’s tan skin. In answer, Riley arched up
into Jack and, with his nails, dug biting crescents into Jack’s back.
They were nothing but sensation, and Jack wanted to claw his way inside
Riley.

He swallowed Riley’s cock with no finesse, no
gentle licks, nothing soft and slow. Only when Riley slapped at him with
a protest that he was close did Jack release the sucking. Without
hesitation, he pressed his lubed finger against Riley.

“Tight,” he ordered.

Riley
clenched, then released. They’d worked this out—that clenching the
muscle was enough for it to loosen. They knew each other that well. Jack
pushed in the first finger, letting Riley adjust, waiting until Riley
rocked against it, and he never moved it once. More lube, a second
finger, a third, and Riley was begging now. Jack swallowed his cock
again, as deep as he could, pinning Riley to his fingers and scraping
his teeth gently against Riley’s soft skin. Riley pushed him up, forced
him away, and curled his spine. Jack went to his knees, using his thighs
to position Riley, then pushed inside his lover. The sight of Riley
near slamming his head back on the grass and wool, exposing his neck
with a groan of pain and need leaving his mouth, was almost too much.

“Riley,
fuck,” Jack gasped. He thrust inside, walking a little closer on his
knees, stones pressing into his skin. He didn’t care. He was the other
part of Riley; they fit like they were meant to be. He didn’t move again
but let Riley press, move and writhe and Jack stole kisses all the
time. “I love you, I fucking love you. Riley… shit….”

Riley
reached up above his head and grasped at tussocks of grass, holding his
upper half still, forcing himself down on Jack’s cock his eyes open and
intensely focused. “Touch me,” Riley begged when it was obvious he was
close.

Jack balanced himself on one arm, reaching for
Riley’s cock. The tightening of Riley’s muscles, the ebb and flow of
pressure, and Jack was fucking into Riley’s heaving body with a shout of
completion. He stilled as Riley groaned, cursed and shot white stripes
over his chest.

“I love you, Jack,” Riley forced past his kiss-bitten lips. “Love you.”

They
stayed joined, kissing and exchanging heated words of love, until Jack
softened enough to pull free. He used his discarded boxers to wipe at
the come, knowing that Riley would need more than that after Jack had
come inside him. Riley wouldn’t be comfortable, but it didn’t look like
he cared for now. He was blissed-out, flat on the ground, half on the
twisted blanket and half on the grass.

“I needed
that,” Jack murmured. He flopped to lie next to Riley, tugging at the
blanket so they were at least both on it. He held Riley’s hand, “You
think it will ever stop?”

“What? This?” Riley gestured with his free hand. “Making love under the blue sky in the middle of the morning?”

“No,” Jack said thoughtfully.

Riley turned his head to look at him. “Then what?”

“The burning. To be with you, to want you, to look at you. Think we’ll ever stop?”

Riley smiled, and the smile reached his eyes, which were more green than brown today. “It burns in me as well.”

“Always?”

“Yeah. All the time. It isn’t only making love. It’s sleeping next to you, looking at you, seeing our kids. It’s everything.”

Jack squeezed Riley’s hand. “Hetboy, you’re my everything.”

“Back at ya, cowboy.”

Chapter Two

They
lay there for maybe thirty minutes, then laughed and joked as they
collected the trail of clothes. It was only as they got dressed that
Jack recalled something he’d meant to do before. They could do that
something, seeing as they were this side of the ranch.

“Can I show you something?”

Riley twisted his hands around Jack’s neck and locked them in place. “You already did,” he smirked. “Wanna go again?”

“I’m not sixteen anymore,” Jack said, but he kissed Riley and enjoyed the feeling of holding and kissing.

“So what did you want to show me?” Riley finally asked.

Jack
climbed onto Solo’s back, and Riley followed suit onto Alex. Together
the two men left their little haven of loud sex, and Jack joined a trail
up and over to the acres beyond. They came to the stone building quite
suddenly. Over a rise in the ground, nestled in a grassy hollow, was the
house Jack had called the Ghost House when he was young. He’d done that
to freak out Beth, and only because Josh had done the same thing to
him, but the Ghost House was what it remained.

“What is it?” Riley looked left and right. “This is still DD land, right?”

Jack tied off Solo. “Yep, all ours.” He waited for Riley to dismount. “Let’s go look.”

The
house looked as solid as Jack remembered. “It has its own access road
of sorts,” Jack explained with a wave to an overgrown area to the front
of the house. “It was the original ranch, or so we think. I’m pulling
the records to find out for sure, but it would be way back before the
land belonged to my family. Me ’n’ Josh called it the Ghost House.”

“Does it have a resident ghost, then?” Riley teased. “A grizzly old cowboy with chewing tobacco and a six-shooter?”

“We only did it to tease Beth. Didn’t want her up in all our boy’s business when she was little.”

Riley
huffed a laugh. “Seriously? Poor Beth.” He stepped closer to the
nearest wall and examined the stones. “Seems to me this would be exactly
the right place for a ghost.” He looked through the space where there
had been a window. “It’s kind of spooky.” He wiggled his fingers at Jack
and let out a ghostly wooh, edged with laughter. Jack couldn’t help
himself, he immediately pulled Riley close and held him tight. When
Riley laughed and teased, Jack fell more in love with his husband.

Riley
got with the plan, closing his arms around Jack and holding tight. They
stood that way in the place for the longest time until Riley released
his tight grip and kissed Jack deeply. They kissed and hugged, and Jack
relaxed into Riley’s embrace.

“You okay?” Riley murmured.

Jack
nodded. “Just an awful lot of memories in this place, y’know. Sometimes
Dad would come out to find us, back when we were real tiny, and he’d
play cowboys with us. I remember those days as happy.”

“Before he….”

“Yeah,”
Jack finished. “Before the Hayes shit got inside his head and wouldn’t
leave him.” Riley stiffened next to him and Jack immediately regretted
his words. “I didn’t mean to say that.”

“Yeah,” Riley began softly. “You did, and it’s true. I wish there could be a way I could rewind everything and make it right.”

Jack frowned. What he and Riley had? That was making it right. All of it.

“Riley, we made it right the minute you said you loved me.”

Riley said nothing for the longest time, but when he finally spoke, his words were filled with emotion.

“If there had never been a Hayes-Campbell feud, we wouldn’t be together.”

They
kissed again, and this time Jack pushed Riley back against the solid
wall and made the kiss mean way more than I love you. He pressed his
weight against Riley and felt the exhalation of Riley’s satisfied sigh
against his lips. When they finally separated, Jack was so hard, it was
like they hadn’t just made love under the trees. He wanted more, and it
seemed like Riley did too, judging by how hard he was.

“I can never get enough of you,” Jack said.

Riley cradled Jack’s face. “And I can’t get enough of you.” He looked down at the ground around them. “We could….”

Jack grimaced. “I like the idea of a mattress this time.”

Riley snorted a laugh. “Thank fuck. I was wondering how my knees would survive.”

Jack kissed the laughter from Riley’s lips, then with reluctance he pulled back.

“So tell me about the place,” Riley asked.

“Don’t
think it had a dramatic past. Nothing more than it got too small for
the family, or they decided they wanted the flatland by where the ranch
house is now.”

Riley pressed a hand to the stone. “But it’s old?”

“Yeah.
But built to last.” They stepped farther inside, and Jack could see the
sky where the roof had long since disintegrated into piles of kindling
on the floor. “A new roof, utilities—we could make something of this.”

Riley
leaned against an internal doorjamb where once there would have been a
door hanging. “Make something of it? You mean us moving here?”

Riley sounded intrigued rather than concerned.

“Not exactly.”

“Tell me what’s on your mind.”

Jack
worried at his lip. He’d been having thoughts about this building for a
long time. Niggling thoughts that wouldn’t leave him alone. “It’s
difficult to explain. Well, not difficult, but it would need investment,
maybe more than the riding school, even.”

Riley didn’t appear worried by that. “Go on.”

“You remember when I was in Laredo for the court case?”

“Yeah, of course.” Riley looked puzzled as well he should. Jack was starting this story a long way back.

“I
met three men there. Actually one was still a boy. They were the
witnesses that were in the dock with Liam in the case against Hank
Castille. I put some finances in place, started myself down the road for
helping them. Only, it didn’t happen.” This was the difficult part. How
would Riley react to what he said next? Jack had dropped the ball
because he’d been so wrapped up in Riley and the kidnapping; so much so
that everything had gone cold and he’d lost contact with two of the
boys.

“Because you had me to worry about.” Riley’s
insight into what had happened meant Jack didn’t need to explain. Riley
didn’t sound pissed or guilty or any one of a million emotions Jack had
considered. He should have had faith in his husband, known that Riley
would be above all that now.

“Some,” Jack said.

“I get that. So what do you want to do now?”

“I
can’t stop thinking about them. About why, when they were thrown out of
their own homes, did they end up at the Triple K? Why had they been
drawn to a ranch, then put in such a vulnerable position with Hank
Castille, when they were just kids?” He took off his Stetson and ran his
hands through his hair. It needed a cut; it was long and ever so
slightly irritating. “Clearly they wanted to work on a ranch, and okay,
it may have been because ranches have casual help, I get that. But,
those three men and Liam, they loved the ranch. So I’m not saying I can
fix the whole damn world, but I thought we could offer them a place
here.”

Actually that was what he’d been thinking for a
long time. Sitting in that courtroom had scarred him. Hank’s abuse of
those young men had left a legacy in each of them that had to be so
hard. Thankfully Hank had been found guilty and was serving his time.
Jack never once hoped that Hank had it easy in prison because he’d grown
fond of Liam, the fourth boy he knew had been hurt by Hank. Liam was
working on the ranch now, and surely the other three could have work
here if they wanted.

“The three men from the trial? There’s always room for more at the D,” Riley said.

Jack nodded. Sometimes he felt like Riley could read his thoughts.

“Maybe those three,” Jack said. “Maybe others. I haven’t thought this through as much as I should have.”

“You mean you want somewhere for kids who have nowhere else to go. A place like the one Steve works at.”

Jack
glanced at Riley, saw the thoughtful expression in his hazel eyes. He
could do this without Riley because he felt that strongly, but having
him backing this play would make Jack’s life a lot easier. No, that
wasn’t right. Having Riley love him and support him was what Jack
craved.

“I thought we could maybe work with Steve,
offer places. I know we give money, but that’s easy for us. I want to do
something more proactive and concrete.”

Jack stopped.
He thought that maybe he sounded like a bit of an idiot, as if voicing
the proactive stuff made it seem like what he could do would make a
difference? Kinda arrogant, actually. Doubt crept into his thoughts, and
Riley would pick up on that. So he forged ahead positively.

“I
got the impression from their testimony that all three wanted to work
on the ranch, that’s why it was so easy for Hank to take advantage. They
thought they’d landed on their feet, and look at them all now, scarred
by what happened to them.” Jack could remember the three witnesses. The
oldest, with the ill-fitting clothes, who’d had to be helped from the
stand; the middle guy in a designer suit; and the kid who left with
Family Services, his expression bleak.

“I don’t know how they survived,” Riley began.

“I’m
not sure any of them have. The oldest, Kyle, is working minimum wage,
living in this tiny pay-for-the-night room. He won’t take any money, and
he won’t talk to me. The other two have disappeared entirely. I only
have an address for Kyle.” He shrugged. Gabriel was evading all
searches, and Danny went off the grid as soon as he turned eighteen a
couple of weeks back.

“Okay, I’m not going to pretend I
don’t worry. Have you thought about talking to Steve at the shelter?
Maybe get him to use his contacts?”

“Already done. I
asked for his help tracing the three of them, and he gave me the name of
a couple of PIs, and also put feelers out. They have so many resources
already in place.”

“What did Steve think of your ideas?”

Riley
still sounded wary. “He calmed me down a lot, talked me out of an
all-singing, all-dancing place with answers for everyone. He said to
start small and keep him in the loop.”

“So that takes some of the pressure off you?”

“Yes.
Off me and off us as a family, but I can’t promise it won’t swallow
some of my time.” Jack had to be brutally honest. Otherwise, he’d be
trapping Riley into an agreement on something he didn’t really want.

“Okay,”
Riley began, “we start by finding the first of your victims.” He
frowned as he said that, clearly uncomfortable with the word. “Then we
talk to planners and get this place sorted? Or maybe we should do that
first?”

Relief filled Jack. Riley was using the we word, and that was good. In fact, Riley was making it sound easy.

“There is one thing, though,” Riley warned. “Not thing, exactly… more person, or people.”

“Liam and Darren,” Jack said.

“Yeah,
you need to talk to them about this. They’re part of the ranch now.
Liam was another victim, and this is connected to Darren’s fucker of a
brother, and Darren’s the first person to want to take the blame on
himself….”

Riley knew what it was like to have a
bastard for a brother. Unspoken was that Liam was important to them, and
Liam was happy with Marcus and would probably want the past left where
it was.

“I’ll talk to Liam and Darren,” Jack said. “But just between us here, you’re okay with this?”

Riley looked at him, puzzled. “You sound like you’re asking my permission?” He sounded as confused as he looked.

Jack couldn’t look Riley in the eye. “We already have the kids, and the horses, and the riding school.”

Riley crossed to Jack and held him close.

“I
don’t think this will be easy at all. But you have such a big heart,
and there’s room for so much more. We’ll manage to juggle it all,
somehow.”

Jack hugged him back. “Really?”

“Hell, yeah. So where do we start?”

With that, Riley made everything right.