“Is that for me or you?” she asked with a nod toward the coffee mug I still held.
“You.” I’d lost track of what I was doing while I considered how things would change with her living on my ranch. She’d want to keep her place and run her business from here, but she, our baby, and her animals would relocate to Thorne Ranch. Including all the horses, which I had plenty of room to stable.
“Put it on the table. I’ll be there in a minute.” She turned off the stove and put eggs and sausages on plates for us. Soon, we were seated at the table across from each other, which felt right to me, like this was how we were meant to be.
“What’s your day look like?” I asked.
“I have a couple visits to ranches this morning. Just routine stuff, and patients at the clinic this afternoon. Then, I’ve got a call with a guy in California about stud fees for Twister.”
“About Twister,” I said, coming to a sudden decision. “I’ve decided to use him to stud my mares if he’s still available to me.” The idea made sense to me now. It really was practically ownership anyway, given that Julia and I were in a relationship, and there was the very real possibility that Twister would be living on my ranch and would belong to my wife.
“Since when?” She shot me a look.
“I’ve been thinking about it, and I gotta admit, all the stallions I’ve seen for sale have been crap when stacked up next to Twister.” That made her smile.
“I could have told you as much, but why now?” she questioned. “I mean, I’d be glad for the business, but I don’t want you to do this because we’re sleeping together or because of the baby.”
“It’s not about us. It’s about what’s best for the ranch,” I said, trying to assure her. “My horse breeding enterprise needs Twister.”
She still didn’t seem convinced. “Using a stallion for stud and not owning him goes against your plan.”
“It does and believe me, I’m a bit shocked about it too. But I’ve had to accept that plans change when you least expect it,” I said. “Look at us. In no way could I have planned for what happened between us.” It was a good reminder that life plotted its own course. “The way I see it, why should I limit myself to what seemed right in the past?”
She bit her lip, and I saw tears well in her eyes. “Julia?” Had I said something wrong? I got up and went to her, kneeling next to her chair and resting my hands on her waist.
“Don’t mind me.” She swiped at a tear that tracked down her cheek. “I’m emotional.”
“Pregnancy hormones?” I remembered how emotional Amy used to get when she was pregnant with Henry.
“Some, I suppose. I’m just happy…about us. A few months ago, I thought you were one of those men who would never bend on anything once you set your mind to something. It would be your way or the highway. I was wrong—and it makes me happy to learn that. I feel like we can have a true partnership where we can talk through things.”
I felt a smidge of guilt since I wasn’t bending about my feelings toward using Twister. I was simply biding my time until we were married. I wasn’t using our relationship to get Twister, but down the road when the horse was in my barn, it only made sense that he would be the primary sire in my breeding program.
But I had the feeling that if I said any of that out loud, I would piss her off. It was too soon to make such blanket declarations.
“Thanks,” she said, kissing me. I almost caved and told her what was in my head for our future, but I held back, knowing the timing wasn’t right. We were somewhere between friends and partners and there was no way I was willing to risk spoiling the growing feelings between us. I’d figure out the right time to tell her. Eventually.
TWENTY-THREE
JULIA
Ipulled the printouts of the boilerplate stud fee contracts I’d downloaded earlier in the day from my bag. My meeting regarding Twister with Jake was being held at his kitchen table. I had always liked the Thornes’ sprawling ranch house. I noticed the kitchen had been updated in the past few years, but other than that, not much had changed.
“What do you have there?” Jake asked, glancing at the contracts. He had a legal pad and a laptop with him.
“I thought we’d start by looking through the terms on these to give us some ideas on what we want included in the stud fee contract. We can include things we like and change or eliminate others.” I was trying very hard to view this as a straightforward business transaction. My tears in the kitchen that morning might have led Jake to think I wasn’t equipped for a negotiation, but I was. Twister’s stud fees were necessary for my own business to survive and flourish.
“All right. What’s first?” he said.
“Will your fee cover breeding for the season regardless of whether or not your mares get pregnant, or is pregnancy necessary for the full fee to be paid?” The answer to that question had a significant impact on the fee I planned to ask for.
He picked up the contracts I’d brought and read through the language in that area. “I don’t know if we want to decide that today. Let’s talk about it later.”
“That’s the starting point, because the fee will be based on the number of breeding opportunities. It makes a big difference,” I said. He was too knowledgeable not to realize the importance of this decision, and I was trying hard not to let my frustration show.
“One option is that I make Twister available to you for a specific length of time, with that being the important deciding element and not pregnancy. Or we can specify that three out of five of your mares become pregnant—or whatever number seems most appropriate.”
He tapped his pen on the legal pad. “I’m not ready to make that decision today. Let’s table it for our next meeting.”
