Page 40 of Brazen

I held my hands in the air. “Okay, okay. Message received. Let’s go outside where we can keep an eye on the kids, and I won’t be so tempted to lift that pretty top of yours.”

Some of the tension left her shoulders, and she let me lead her out with a hand on her lower back. I walked her around the pasture to sit on a bench that Roy, one of our pack mates who was a woodworker, had made out of a split and polished log set onto thick, sturdy legs. From here, we could watch the pups without being overheard.

“How many nieces and nephews do you have?”

“Three total. Two nephews, one niece, from two sisters. They all live here in Cooper Valley. I’m the ‘fun uncle’.” I waggled my brows. We stepped out into the sunset, and I dropped my hand from her back.

“I’ll bet you are,” Clio said.

“The kids are over there.” I pointed to the treeline where Remy had been stacking sticks.

“Wanna see something?”

She flicked her gaze toward the kids.

“We’re not going far. You’ll be able to see them.”

“Okay,” she replied, and I took her hand.

It was small and warm in mine, and I liked how it felt as I led her to the edge of the east pasture. It was fenced in and sloped up a hill.

“See that bull?” I raised my chin in the animal’s direction.

“That’s Lucifer. He’s a bucking bull. Half Brahman, half Longhorn. They grow big, can handle the heat, and are real muscular. He’s mine.”

She looked at me, a little confused. “You have a bull?”

“I do. He’s the start of my sire services.”

She snort-laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“Well, you would make a good stud.” She squeezed my biceps. “But, I’m sorry. Tell me about your bull.”

“I sell his semen to ranchers to breed bulls for the rodeo industry. Bucking bulls are worth a lot of money.”

“How, um, do you do that? Do you bring cows here and let him dirty talk them into a little fun?”

He grinned. “It’s not as sexy as all that. I take him to a collection center in Bozeman. The semen’s put into little pipettes and frozen, and that’s what I sell. I’m headed to a rodeo in Missoula soon to work my old connections. Gotta fix my trailer’s axle before I go, but yeah.”

Clio’s gaze shifted to my white trailer that was on the back side of the stable beside Charlie’s big one.

“You can make a living off of one bull?”

I glanced out at Lucifer, happily grazing. “It’s possible if the bull’s got good bloodlines, which Lucifer has. I haven’t been doing much to develop sales, but now… it’s time to pick things up. Make more deals, get another bull. I’ve got some land of my own where I’ll put them. Soon.”

“That’s impressive.”

I heard the kids laughing and turned toward the sound. Clio followed too, and we watched the kids for a moment before heading back.

“It’s a start, but it’s time to make it into something more.”

We got near the fort which was a split in the base of a big cottonwood tree. JT was helping Remy drag a giant branch over to make it bigger or do something with it only seen in a child’s imagination. The size of the branch was big enough that no human child could handle it.

“Oh, God.” Clio tensed again. “He shouldn’t–” She stopped herself from saying more.

Shouldn’t what? Shouldn’t reveal his shifter strength like that?