Reagan and Diego worked all afternoon cleaning and loading the plane. Diego was her horse handler for this trip. He had worked with her since she started her company, and by now he was a seasoned veteran at prepping the plane—fueled, cleaned, and checked. All that was left was filling it with hay in the morning. During the busy season between August and Christmas, Reagan would usually take two or three handlers with her. This trip wasn’t overly booked, so Diego took it since the others had families they wanted to spend time with before they went a week or more without seeing them during the height of the flying season, plus all the horses on the ride back had grooms accompanying them.

“We’re all set, Reagan,” Diego told her as he checked the portable stalls they’d loaded into the cargo plane she’d bought earlier in the year. The plane was an old cargo plane used by UPS that she’d painted white with a royal blue tail. K AIR was on the tail in white while a royal blue line ran the length of the plane with Keeneston Air written in script along the back half of the plane. She was still paying it off since it had cost well over a million dollars, but it had been worth putting everything on the line to achieve her goal.

Reagan had the only plane solely used for transporting horses. She had started with a small plane that could only fit two horses at a time. She’d flown it by herself until this year when she sold it and upgraded to the larger cargo plane. Now she had specialized loading equipment that guaranteed her horses never touched the ground between the trucks and the plane. Owners or their grooms could now travel with their prized horses as well. Soon movie studios had also taken to reserving the whole plane to move animals for movie shoots. She had a dedicated team of professionals to take care of the horses during the flight and she flew the plane carefully to keep horses calm and safe.

With the larger plane, Reagan had the ability to take up to twenty horses on a single flight. And at five thousand dollars a horse and close to three thousand horses or movie animals flown in the last year, that was enough to look into paying off the cargo plane and buying a second plane to add to the fleet she wanted to grow. She already had looked into hiring a second team of pilots for the potential new plane.

“Thanks, D,” Reagan told the man she’d hired away from Desert Sun Farm. He was a couple years older than she was but had been working with horses since he was eighteen. All of her handlers had extensive experience with horses. They had all worked with horses for at least ten years and even had basic training in emergency veterinary care. “We’ll meet back here tomorrow morning at seven. Daniel will be copiloting with us tomorrow. I think we’ll only have one passenger, Mrs. Bristol, and potentially a second. Her boyfriend mentioned the possibility of tagging along.”

“No problem. I’ll see you in the morning then.”

Diego locked up the cargo ramp and headed to his car as Reagan finished the paperwork she’d be submitting in the morning. It was five o’clock by the time she left the airport. She hadn’t thought about Carter all afternoon, but knowing he was with her dad right now made it hard not to drive straight to Mo’s farm to check on him. Instead, she needed to sink into her bathtub and take a serious look at her future. Love, marriage, family . . . they were all things she thought about any given day, but never in combination with Carter.

---

Carter pulled his pickup truck to a stop in front of the security building on Desert Sun Farm. The building looked like one of the horse barns, but it was made with thick walls and steel doors. There were conference rooms, a kitchen, and a state-of-the-art security center on the first floor to protect the family who owned the farm. Mo and Dani weren’t just the best friends of Carter’s parents. They were also royalty of a small Persian Gulf island nation called Rahmi.

Carter was buzzed into the security center and headed downstairs into the basement. There was a long hallway lined with secure holding rooms in case they needed to detain someone. At the end of the hall were the gym and showers. Carter could already hear the rock music blaring and the sounds of pads being hit and weights dropping to the rubber floor.

The first person he saw was his brother-in-law’s father, Cole Parker. Cole had been FBI before he retired. Ryan had taken over the Lexington office. Speaking of which, “Hey, Cole, have you seen Ryan?”

Cole looked over at Carter from his place on the treadmill with surprise. “Carter, never seen you here before. Ryan’s on a case. He’ll be back tomorrow or so. Is everything okay?”

“I need some information on racketeering.” If Ryan couldn’t answer them, Cole definitely could.

“You can talk later,” Cy called out from the boxing ring. “You’re here to work, not chitchat.”

Cole raised a black eyebrow over his silver gray eyes with surprise. “You’re going to work out with Cy? That’s not exactly your speed, is it?”

Carter felt his jaw tighten. “Why isn’t it?”

“Well, you’re the . . . it’s just that—” Cole began to say as he tried to figure out a way to voice his thought.

“You’re more of the nice guy than the punch-someone guy,” Marshall Davies, one of Cy’s older brothers, called from where he was pulling off his boxing gloves.

Carter ground his teeth together as he pulled himself into the boxing ring and grabbed the gloves from Marshall. “And because I’m a nice guy, I can’t throw a punch? Is that it? Is that what you all think?”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Cole said, trying to placate him.

“Yeah,” Marshall shrugged. “Pierce never works out with us. He’s a nice guy too, and we love him. Even if Tammy will kill him before he can see his fifth child born.” Pierce was the youngest of the Davies crew. Miles was the oldest, then Marshall, Cade, Cy, Paige, and finally Pierce. Pierce and his little sprite of a wife, Tammy, had thought she was done having babies until a surprise pregnancy left them about to welcome another child instead of the grandchild Tammy had wanted.

“In fact, you’re just the kind of guy I would want Greer to marry,” Cole said happily as if he were helping. “Well, when she’s older. At twenty-three, it’s a little soon to be talking about marriage. Thirty-eight sounds like a better age.”

Cy made a sound of agreement through his mouth guard before spitting it into his hand. “You have to earn your way to be with my daughter. You said you want to marry her, well, let’s see if you have the balls to even ask my permission. Matt did,” he challenged.

“Whoa,” Marshall said as he stopped walking out of the gym. Cole stopped the treadmill and joined Marshall as they leaned against the raised floor of the boxing ring. “Did you say marriage?”

Cy made a sound of disgust. “The boy here says that’s the plan, but from where I’m standing it looks like he hasn’t gotten the courage to ask me for permission or even ask my daughter yet.”

Carter flexed his fingers inside the boxing gloves. “Because she needs to resolve her daddy issues first.”

“Daddy issues?” Cy huffed.

“Yeah, as in her dad’s complete inability to let his daughters lead their own lives. You’ve heard of helicopter parents? Well, you’re a drone parent. You hover even closer than a helicopter and drop bombs on their happiness.”

Cy growled, Marshall laughed, Cole sucked in a breath, and Carter slammed his fist into Cy’s snarling face. It felt great. Cy’s head didn’t snap back as far as Carter wanted, but the surprised look was worth it. But then, Cy unleashed a flurry of punches that had Carter backing up and dodging for all he was worth. He blocked, ducked, and dodged, but still took a couple of hits. It felt great. Carter jumped back and put his hands up to guard his face as he smiled. This was fun. He felt the muscles he used on the farm contracting and flexing as he tried his own combination of punches. One thing went to his advantage, he was quicker than Cy.

“What’s the problem, old man? Having trouble keeping up?” Carter taunted and easily bounced on the balls of his feet, ducking another punch.

“Damn,” Marshall cursed to Cole. “I don’t know whether to put twenty dollars on a wedding or a funeral.”

“I’m hedging my bets and putting twenty on each,” Cole told him as Carter blocked a right cross.

Cy was breathing hard, and Carter was still grinning. He had sweat pouring off him, but he felt alive. “I’m going to ask Reagan to marry me. But first you are going to fix this thing between you two,” Carter said before trying a right cross, left jab combination.

“I’ll do no such thing,” Cy growled, punching Carter hard to the stomach.

“You will.” Carter said as he dragged in a deep breath and hopped out of the way of another punch. “And you’ll like it. You’ll happily walk her down the aisle, cry a little tear when she announces she’s pregnant with your grandchild, and you won’t tackle me to the ground like you do Matt because you realize we have sex.”

“Screw it, I’m placing fifty on a funeral,” Marshall muttered as he tapped his bet in the mobile betting book app the Blossom Café had set up. The Rose sisters had long ago begun taking bets based on gossip. Miss Daisy had it all written down on a waitress’s pad, but when they retired, and their much younger cousins several generations removed took over, they updated the betting books to a mobile app. At the end of the year, all of the proceeds went to local charities.

“You’re having sex with my daughter?” Cy’s voice rumbled as his whole body tensed.

“Grow up,” Carter said with a roll of his eyes. That was the mistake. He took his eyes off Cy for one second. The punch came fast and hard. The next thing Carter knew, he was on his back looking up at a very angry Cy.

“You won’t touch my daughter again.”

“I will. I love her, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life with her. I’ll be a good husband, a good father, and Reagan will know she’s loved every day,” Carter said in between heavy breaths as he stared up at Cy. “And you’re going to give me permission to ask Reagan to marry me.”

“And I thought he was the nice one. He’s kind of a badass,” Cole whispered to Marshall.

Cy used his mouth to rip off the boxing glove before taking the other one off. He paced the ring as Carter stood up. His head swam for a moment, but then everything came back into focus. “I don’t like it,” Cy grumbled. “But dammit, I can’t help but respect you. You’re a good kid, Carter. And when given the chance, you can hold your own. But we’ll need to work on your jab.”

Cy stopped pacing and stalked toward Carter. Carter held his breath wondering what was going to happen next, but Cy just grabbed Carter’s glove and pulled off first one and then the other. Cy took a deep breath and held out his hand. Carter looked down at it confused. Was he going to hit him again?

“You have my permission to ask Reagan to marry you,” Cy said softly. Carter looked down at the hand and slowly reached out and shook it. He’d done it. He’d stood up to Cy Davies and gotten permission to marry Reagan.

Carter smiled at his future father-in-law as he dropped his hand. “Can I call you Dad?”

Marshall and Cole choked and Cy snarled.

“Don’t push it. You better be the nice guy we believe you are. If you hurt my baby girl, I will slowly tear you apart regardless of your parents being good friends of mine. You got it, sonny?”

“Sure thing, Dad.” Carter smirked before bouncing out of the ring.

“He’s always been so quiet and polite. I like this side of him.” Marshall laughed as Carter ran from the room. He had a proposal to plan.