She picked up her phone and tabbed over to the app she’d already installed. Her grandparents would kill her if they knew she was filling out a profile, but this was her life. Her grandparents loved her and just wanted the best for her, but she was tired of living under their wing. She had to find her own way and be her own woman.
Boo grumbled in the corner as if he could sense River moving into unknown territory. Her heart slammed in her chest as she opened up the questionnaire and began to fill it out. The questions were strange, and she couldn’t quite figure out how they could possibly match her with her fated mate. But she tried to answer as well as she could.
When she was done with the questionnaire, she had to fill out a profile. She chose the name Shepherdess and said she was a fox shifter but didn’t include any more personal information. After everything that had happened to her, River had become leery of sharing too much about herself on the Internet.
A lot of people were sympathetic to what had happened to her and the other women. But because River had been the daughter of a high-ranking hyena, there were people who blamed her for his actions. She could never be too careful.
After she was done filling out her profile as sparsely as possible, she clicked Enter, and her matches began to load. Her heart was in her throat as she watched the loading screen. When the matches came up, she was so overwhelmed that she almost didn’t look.
She scrolled down through the less-than-one-hundred-percent matches, noticing how handsome all of the shifter men were. And as she was coming to the bottom of the screen, her heart leapt. A one hundred percent match! She scrolled just a bit more and found a second one hundred percent match…
The entire app froze up, and an error message came up on her screen. She closed the app and restarted it, her heart pounding in her chest. The matches she’d found had been two of the most handsome men she’d ever seen in her life. One of them was named Cal, and the other was named Cash. They looked exactly the same, but they had different names. She didn’t know what was going on. How can I have two matches? Why won’t the website work for me anymore? She tried again and again, but all she got were error messages.
Finally, she gave up. Her grandparents would not be pleased if they knew she had joined Mate.com, and it was probably better that the site had glitched out. She took it as a sign. River sighed heavily and got ready for bed. She still had a long way to drive to make it to Wilde Ranch the next day.
3
Cal and Cash greeted the new arrivals to the ranch at the front door of Heath’s old house. The first to arrive was an eighteen-year-old named Bobby from a local family farm. He would inherit the land and wanted to learn about new ranching practices. Cal greeted him with a big grin while his brother showed him into the house.
“This is the kitchen,” Cash said, opening the cabinets and refrigerator. “This is the living room… Over here is the laundry room…”
Bobby seemed impressed with of the accommodations they’d put together for the interns. Cal was glad to see someone appreciating all the hard work they’d put in.
“Upstairs is your bedroom,” Cal said, leading him up the stairs to the second floor.
They walked into the one of the men’s bunk rooms. There were two bunk beds, which could accommodate up to four people total. Since it was a three-bedroom house, they could have as many as twelve interns at one time. But Austin had only booked two per room so far. Six new people on the ranch were enough to deal with as far as Cal was concerned. Even if it was going to mean less work for the brothers in the long run, having all those people to train was going to be a pain in the neck in the short term.
“This is a nice house,” Bobby said.
“You’ll be sharing with one other guy when he gets here. His name is Tim Reynolds. From Wyoming.” Cal felt a ping on his cell phone and took it out of his pocket. “Speak of the devil. It looks like Tim is going to be here in just a few minutes.”
A farm truck came bumping down the road, and Cal waved at the young man in the driver’s seat. He was from an old ranching family in Wyoming. He wanted to learn new practices to make the land work more productively for them.
Tim parked the truck and got out with a big smile. He shook Cal’s hand. “You must be Cal.”
“That’s me. My brother Cash is upstairs, showing our other new intern, Bobby, around. You two will be bunking with each other.”
Cash and Bobby came walking down the stairs, and Cal introduced them before showing Tim around.
“Mark and Meredith will be arriving soon,” Cal said, looking at his phone. The young couple from Oregon wanted to start their own farm and were interested in the most sustainable practices.
They arrived in their SUV and parked outside. Cal and Cash made all the introductions. The only one not to arrive yet was a young woman named River who was bringing her herding dog with her. The brothers had never had a herding dog on the ranch. It would be an interesting addition for all of them. River texted Cal her location, saying she would be there by the next morning. He texted her back, letting her know they were looking forward to her arrival.
The whole intern thing had been Austin and Heath’s idea. Since Shane was writing his novels and Gunner was having his quarter-life crisis, Cal and Cash had been left to pick up the slack. And now they had to babysit the interns. It didn’t seem quite fair to Cal, but he wasn’t going to complain. As long as he and Cash could still go down to Squad Goals for a drink and some music, he would deal with a little bit of extra work and irritation from these strangers. After Mark and Meredith got settled in, he found Cash on the first floor, checking the cabinets to make sure there was enough coffee and cereal for everyone.
“Are you ready to get out of here?” he asked.
“I am beyond ready,” Cash said.
Cal slapped his brother on the back, and they started for the door. Just when they were about to make their escape, Heath pulled up in his truck. Cal cringed, knowing that Heath was just going to give them more work to do. Wherever Heath went, work seemed to follow.
“Where are you two going?” Heath asked.
“Everyone’s here and settled in. We were just about to go get a beer down at Squad Goals.”
“You need to take the interns with you if you’re going out.”
“Why?” Cal asked.
“You can’t just dump these people and go off to have a good time. Show some hospitality and invite them to come with you.”
Cal looked at Cash, who raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips.
“I don’t think it’s too much to ask that you two show some good manners,” Heath continued.
“We’ve already taken on tons of responsibility for this project,” Cal said under his breath.
But then Mark and Meredith walked out of the house and greeted Heath with enthusiasm. Cal didn’t want to embarrass himself by admitting that he wanted to ditch them. Heath introduced himself to the newcomers.
“My brothers were just telling me how they were going to invite you all out to one of our favorite local restaurants for some food and drinks as a welcome.”
“That sounds amazing,” Mark said. “Just what we need after a long day on the road.”
Cal clenched his teeth and gave a fake smile. When he and his brother went down to Squad Goals, they usually cut loose and had a good time. With the interns in tow, they’d have to be on their best behavior. It was going to completely ruin their night.