Then it was the horses. Backdoor deals were not how the McAllisters did business. No, we bought, sold, and trained only the best. Everything above board and on the books. At least that’s the way our grandaddy had run things and had taught us since the day we could sit on a horse. By the time Pa got the last set of horses, they were already broken, and not in a good way. The animals had been mistreated, malnourished, and needed a lot of time, TLC, and money we didn’t have to put into them before any of them would make back even close to what he’d paid to purchase them in the first place.
Which was why I was here.
When I overheard what Dakota was going to do to help save our family’s land, I reached out to the company she’d mentioned in her calls. Did my own research and sent in my picture and profile. I was shocked to get a call directly from Madam Alana herself. She’d wanted to be certain that I was ready for such a drastic decision, including leaving behind my schooling, family, friends, and possibly the state and even country I’d been born in.
See, every candidate had to go where their husband/wife wanted them to go. Had to be ready at a moment’s notice to travel. And from what Madam Alana had told me, a lot of the bidders lived outside of the US. It would hurt to have to leave my family and friends, but not as much as it would hurt to lose our legacy. And those dirty rotten Goodalls had been sniffing around our acreage for generations. The feud between the McAllisters and the Goodalls was almost as well-known as the Hatfields and McCoys they taught children about in grammar school.
The hate between Duke Goodall the first and my grandaddy Earl McAllister was the stuff of legend. It started over a woman and continued for three generations over land. Now the Goodalls were trying to buy us out and obliterate our legacy forever. Their land bordered our 125,000 acres, half the size of theirs, which was close to 250,000 acres. They knew our land had stellar resources for the 3,000 cattle that roamed our property as well as the horse breeding program I planned to take over once I finished my veterinary degree. I’d completed three years of the four-year program since I graduated high school a year early. I only had one year left of my academic studies. After finishing my degree, I planned to work my practical hours under a skilled equine vet in my hometown of Sandee, Montana—population just over 2,000.
Because of all my pa’s bad deals, I had to do something to help save the land. My sister, who our father had treated horribly ever since she was a teen, couldn’t be the only one in the family stepping up. That land was a part of me. One I wasn’t willing to lose anytime soon.
Determined to face my elder sister head on, I turned my chair around, and her gaze met mine.
“What the fuck! No! Hell, no!” She roared and cursed in a way I’d never heard before. It was so loud my eardrums ached.
I stood and held my hands in a calming gesture as fear skittered down my spine in a wave of icicles. “Dakota, let me explain.” I barely got the words out before her fury filled the air, choking my words off at the quick.
She made a move to take hold of me and likely drag my behind right out the door. Before she could, the good-looking, soft-spoken man I’d since learned was named Memphis Taylor stopped my sister in her tracks.
“Move,” Dakota said on a snarl, not at all concerned that the man blocking her was the size of a linebacker.
Memphis shook his head. “Calm down, and I will.” He pointed a finger to an empty seat at the conference table.
“You’re outta here. Now!” Dakota hollered, sounding more like an angry barking dog than my normally leveled-headed yet stubborn big sister and best friend in the entire world .
“Whatever you make tomorrow night won’t be enough, sis.” Tears filled my eyes and fell down my cheeks in a gush of emotion I could no longer contain. We were both stuck doing something that would horrify our grandfather as much as the intention behind it would give him pride. “You know it won’t. We need more,” I croaked. “I’m doing this, Dakota.” I sniffled as the pretty brunette named Faith came and wrapped her arms around me in a supportive hug. I pulled myself together and took a breath, the fire building in my chest at the hypocritical anger she was spewing my way. “Nothing you say can stop me! Nothing!” I reiterated.
“Wanna bet?” she hissed.
“Regardless of what you think, Dakota, you are not the boss of me. I make my own decisions, and I’m doing this for our family, our granddaddy—may he rest in peace! And for our own legacy!” I pushed out of Faith’s arms and stood in front of Memphis, who stayed close, lest I needed him. Such a gentleman. My sister would never physically hurt me. We’d had some knock-down, drag-out catfights when we were younger, but not in the past several years.