“Colt…”
“Hmm?”
My faces falls. “It’ll tank your stock. I mean yeah, maybe you won’t be legally responsible, but...”
“Tansy—”
“Colt,” I whisper sadly, shaking my head. “I can’t let you—”
“I don’t give a shit about the money, baby girl,” he growls quietly. My heart skips. “I never did. All I ever wanted, ever, through hard times, through being in hell over in the Middle East…” his jaw clenches as he moves to his knees on the floor in front of me and takes my hands.
“All I ever wanted was this place. Up until the day I met you, and realized I’d been wrong.”
I blink, my heart beating faster and faster. “Colt…”
His eyes stay right on mine. His hand slides back behind him. When it comes back, and I see what he’s holding, my heart actually stops for a second.
“Colt—”
“Tansy MacInyre,” he growls as he opens the box. The ring glitters like the sun inside, and my hand flies to my mouth.
“Oh my God…”
“I’d take you as you my fake fiancée any day of the week and call myself a lucky man. But all I really want—so much more than money, or even this damn place—is you, as my real, actual wife.”
He looks up into my eyes, and I tremble as the smile spreads across my face.
“Colt…”
“Marry me, Tansy. Marry me for real, because goddamn do I love you for real.”
My heart wrenches as I fall into his arms. I moan as my lips crush to his, kissing him again and again as I sob tears of joy.
“I love you, too,” I whisper into his mouth.
He scoops me into his arms. But our lips never pull apart as he carries me into the bedroom and closes the door.
And when his lips do finally leave mine? Well, they find even better places to land.
Epilogue Colt
One Year Later:
In case there was literally any question whatsoever about it, Tansy and I got married. I mean of course we did, because I’m not a fucking idiot. Well, at least not when it comes to spotting the best thing to ever happen to me, and not letting go of her.
We did end up making the information about the chemical changes in Mare-Mate public—as an “anonymous whistleblower” so as to not get Tansy in Satan’s crosshairs. I mean, there was never any question if we would, really. It wasn’t even about sticking it to Lorne and Deirdre. The decision was about all the other Chance’s out there getting harmed by this thing I’d created.
The fallout was damn near nuclear though. Mare-Mate filed for bankruptcy almost immediately in the face of an avalanche of lawsuits. In a lot of cases like this, where a company acts like assholes and people get hurt, the dickheads at the top get to walk. They’re protected by layers of corporate bullshit, non-liability crap, and, well, money.
Not so with Satan and Shrimpy-Dick. The emails were the real incriminating evidence that led to criminal negligence charges. Not to mention personal liability for what they’d done.
But as an added bonus, with all of that shit going on for them? Trying to steal my goddamn ranch became the last thing on their to-do list.
I wasn’t untouched by the implosion though, either. All that stock I had in one of the biggest agriculture companies in the world? Yeah, that shit went to zero. Gone. It’s not like I was going to be broke. But my net worth had been somewhere slightly north of a hundred million before the news got out.
But like I said, I didn’t really give a shit. All I’d ever wanted was that little slice of earth at the ranch. And when I found Tansy? Well, she’s all I really ever need.
At first, my name got dragged through the mud pretty hard. I mean I was the founder of Mare-Mate; I created the damn product for fuck’s sake. And my product was out there chemically castrating horses.
Except sometimes, though rare, fate serves up a win to the good guys. Eventually, the real details of the whole thing seeped into the public. The newspapers that trashed me as a negligent prick started issuing apologies once it was shown that the product had been altered after I was forced out of my own company.
And from there, things got even more interesting. When people started to really dig into Lorne and Deirdre, a lot more shady shit came up. Like Lorne paying off the judge in me and Satan’s divorce settlement to give her the company, for instance.
When that bomb dropped, it was all over for those two. But for me? Well, I got my company back.
We immediately went back to the old formula, recalled every single bag of Mare-Mate out there, and even hired a small army of horse vets to travel the whole damn world helping to bring harmed stallions back to healthy levels. That just about emptied the last dime from the corporate bank accounts. But it was worth it. People need to trust who they do business with. And sometimes, you need to earn that trust back the hard way.
Beside me in the barn, Harley starts to pant happily and wag his tail. I roll my eyes. The little dick has a sixth sense for his real true love. And sure enough, when I look up, there’s her truck coming down the driveway.
Harley looks up at me and whimpers pathetically.
“Oh, like you even give a shit about asking permission first,” I chuckle. “Go on, get her.”
He barks excitedly and takes off running towards her. The truck stops, and she laughs as she steps out and bends down to rub his tummy. I swear, there are times where I’m the third wheel in this goddamn house.
But when she looks
