Tycoon's Tryst (Culpepper Cowboys Book 10) (11 page)

Bev screamed in outrage and scooped up two handfuls of mud to throw. They splattered across Rachel’s chin and forehead, missing her eyes. “He was my dad too, and he loved me more!”

Rachel shouted wordlessly and dove at Bev, wrestling her into the mud. She stopped just short of dunking her, but managed to submerge most of Bev’s hair in the mud. But before she could do anything that would really hurt her sister, that little voice in the back of her head stopped her.

With a jerk, Rachel let go of Bev and pulled back. She plopped to her backside in the mud. The pit was only a foot deep, but at that moment it could have been bottomless and she wouldn’t have noticed.

“You’re right,” she whispered.

Bev was crying and flailing to sit straight, smearing more mud in her face as she tried to slick it out of her hair. Rachel hardly gave her a second thought.

“You’re right,” she repeated, blinking. “Dad did love you more. He always did. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it is.” And all these years, she’d been clinging crazily to the company he’d started just to prove to him that she was worthy. She’d been working her tail off for Korpanty Enterprises to earn her dad’s love, even though he’d been gone for years.

The burst of realization was like the world’s biggest weight lifting from her shoulders. She stood, struggling and slipping. Just as she was about to plop back into the mud, Sly’s strong, steady arm reached out to hold her up. He’d waded into the mud pit himself to support her—literally. Rachel smiled at him, tears coming to her eyes that were worlds different from the bitter ones Bev was crying. For the first time in her life, she knew what it was to be loved, and she knew what to do with it.

“I don’t want it,” she told Bev, her voice strangely calm.

“What?” Bev wailed, still trying to struggle to her feet. In the end, she had to crawl to the side of the pit and sit on the edge.

“I don’t want Korpanty Enterprises,” Rachel went on. “It’s yours to do whatever you want with it. I’m going to start over.”

“But…what?” Bev was barely paying attention as she tried to brush mud off of herself.

“Someone bring her a hose,” Rachel called out.

The crowd shuffled, and the same handsome stranger who Elvie had been flirting with earlier dragged the same hose he’d used to fill the mud pit over. “Sorry about this, ma’am. It might be a little cold, but it’s clean,” he said, then turned the nozzle on.

At first, Bev screamed and squealed as the man drenched her, but as soon as she saw the mud washing away, she stifled her moans and treated the hose like a shower.

Satisfied Bev would be okay, Rachel repeated, “Korpanty Enterprises is yours, Bev. You win.”

“Um, sweetheart?” Sly murmured by her side, tugging on her muddy sleeve.

Rachel turned to him with a smile full of all the love she just discovered she had inside of her. “We don’t need it,” she said. “We’re an unstoppable team. We can start our own business or build up Culpepper Holdings even more. We’re a team now, Sly, you and I, and…and I love you.”

The urgency in Sly’s eyes burst into sparkling joy. In spite of the fact that Rachel was as nasty and muddy as Bev was, he scooped her into his arms and kissed her hard. That was all the victory she needed. Love was the only contest she cared about winning and the only thing worth the best of her effort.

Sly broke their kiss with a throaty chuckle. “I love you too. But before you hand over the keys to Korpanty Enterprises, take a look at this.” He held up her cell phone.

Rachel frowned and blinked as she studied the screen. It had been smeared with mud during their kiss, but she was able to wipe it away. What she saw only confused her more. “The website is down?”

“Crashed.” Sly beamed from ear-to-ear.

She still didn’t understand. “This is a disaster.”

Sly shook his head. “No, it isn’t. The website crashed because it’s gotten so much traffic in the last half hour that the servers couldn’t handle it.”

“What?” She was glad that he still had one arm around her, because her knees threatened to give way.

“Yeah, your assistant, Greg, called while you were mud-wrestling with Bev. The server crashed because so many orders came in as soon as the videos went viral that they couldn’t handle it.”

“It worked?” She gaped at him. Sly’s plan had been a long-shot, but it seemed like that shot hit its mark. “Those videos went viral?”

“All three of them.” Sly beamed. “And who knows how that will translate into the coverage all of the L.A. stations and more will have tonight. I hope you don’t mind.” He lowered his head just a bit, managing to look damn sexy instead of apologetic.

“Mind? Sly, this is wonderful!”

“No,” he corrected her before she could throw her arms around his shoulders and kiss him. “I hope you don’t mind that I told Greg to contact some of my team for help with the servers. I have a feeling you’re going to need as many of them up and running as possible by tonight.”

“I…I don’t mind at all!”

Now she did throw her arms around him and kiss him to boot. He dove into their kiss with abandon, even though Chastity was now filming it and making some sort of inappropriate commentary.

“So this means that you don’t have to give your company to Bev,” Sly went on, a little breathlessly, dipping in to steal one more kiss. “I mean, we won the competition, but I didn’t trust her to hold to her end of the bargain if we won.”

“Neither did I,” Rachel confessed.

“But with this boost of sales, I bet it’ll push you over the edge to make a profit and fulfill the terms of your father’s will.”

A rush of excitement filled Rachel. At the same time, she shook her head and brushed it away. “Even if it doesn’t work out—”

“It will.”

“Even if it doesn’t, I don’t care. The company is just a company. I worked hard on it, and if I needed to, I could work hard and start another one. And besides, now I’ve got you.”

“You definitely do have me,” Sly said, brushing a piece of her muddy hair back from her face. No gesture had ever felt so wonderful, so perfect, so complete. “And together, we’re unstoppable.”

* * *

T
here’s more
Culpepper Cowboys to come! Look for
Bartender’s Beauty
, by Kirsten Osbourne, coming in three weeks! And if you’re curious about whether Rachel and Sly were able to save Korpanty Enterprises, whether the publicity stunt worked to bring women into Culpepper, and who that mysterious stranger Elvie was talking to at the rodeo was, keep your eyes peeled for
Drifter’s Darling
, by Merry Farmer, and more Culpeppers down the road!

I
hope
you have enjoyed
Tycoon’s Tryst
. If you’d like to be the first to learn about when new books in the series come out and more, please sign up for my newsletter here:
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And remember, Read it, Review it, Share it! For a complete list of works by Merry Farmer with links, please visit
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.

Merry Farmer is an award-winning novelist who lives in suburban Philadelphia with her two cats, Butterfly and Torpedo. She has been writing since she was ten years old and realized one day that she didn't have to wait for the teacher to assign a creative writing project to write something. It was the best day of her life. She then went on to earn not one but two degrees in History so that she would always have something to write about. Her books have topped the Amazon and iBooks charts and have been named finalists in the prestigious RONE and Rom Com Reader’s Crown awards.

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W
riting
a series in tandem with another writer can be a huge challenge, but Kirsten Osbourne and I were born for it. The two of us get up to all sorts of shenanigans on paper and on those rare occasions when we can get together in real life. But I owe a huge debt of gratitude to her for coming up with this crazy idea. We’ve had so much fun checking in with each other and giggling over the hijinks these characters have gotten into! Thanks also to my excellent beta-readers, Carly Cole and Jolene Stewart. And a big, big thanks to my editor, Cissie Patterson, for doing an outstanding job, as always, and for leaving hilarious comments throughout the manuscript. Also, a big round of applause for my marketing and promo mistress, Sara Benedict.

A
nd a special thank
you to the Pioneer Hearts group! Do you love Western Historical Romance? Wanna come play with us? Become a member at
https://www.facebook.com/groups/pioneerhearts/