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Maybe he could tell the wedding planner they didn’t have any money. That every last cent was tied up in the ranch and any checks written to her would inevitably bounce. Stall this nonsense.

He walked passed MacGregor with the bags of dirt on his shoulder. The horse eyed him.

“Don’t judge me,” Shane muttered. Sometimes the ends justified the slightly sketchy means.

He’d given up swaying Grandma to his side, and he knew telling his siblings they needed to interfere would only ensure they thought otherwise. They never cared for his telling them what to do.

A Tyler family trait, which made it a good thing they ran their own ranch. None of them could probably stay gainfully employed somewhere else without thumbing their noses at the boss.

Well, except Boone. But since his job was trying to stay a few seconds on an angry bull, Shane didn’t count that much for listening to a boss.

Shane unloaded all the bags of dirt, then arranged it around Mom’s garden plot in a way that it would be easy for her to put the dirt where it needed to go. On an oath, he pulled his Swiss army knife out of his pocket.

He knew exactly where Mom would want all the dirt, and it’d take him less time to do it. So, he went about cutting bags open and dumping the extra dirt in the newly turned plot she’d start planting in soon.

Once that was done, he figured he might as well go ahead and get some fertilizer from the stables while he was at it. It would give Mom the time to plant rather than fiddle with the hefting and hauling part of the garden.

He headed back for the garage. Better ride over to Gavin and tell him he was fooling with the garden at Mom’s request so Gavin could get on with things with the cattle.

He grabbed his hat, but before he could walk over to MacGregor, a female voice interrupted him.

“Oh, hi. Excuse me?”

When he turned, the wedding planner was making a beeline for him. Shane scowled, but manners had been drummed into him too hard for that to last. It wasn’therfault his mother was falling for a lying piece of trash. He forced himself to smile. Well, not scowl anyway.

“Hello, again,” she greeted, peering up at him. “May I have a moment? Real quick. I promise.” She smiled broadly. What had she said her name was? Cora?

“Sure,” he muttered, slightly taken off guard by the way the sun glinted off her hair, showing off every possible shade from golden blond to reddish brown. He’d never seen a hair color like it.

“I do hope you’ll be cooperative,” she began as he chastised himself for thinking about someone’shair color. “Your mother is hoping you’ll walk her down the aisle, and she thinks you’ll refuse and—”

“Damn right I’ll refuse,” he interrupted. He was not giving his mother away to a lying son of a bitch. Not even to spare her feelings.

“But surely . . .” She opened her mouth, then closed it. There was some kind of calculation going on in that head of hers.

“Nice to meet you and all, but I’ve got work to do.” He took a step toward his horse, but she jumped in front of him, blocking his way. He didn’t worry about manners now. He glared down at her.

“You love your mother, don’t you?” she asked, clearly unaffected by his glare.

“You think I don’t approve because Idon’t? That woman raised three boys, two girls, and ran a ranch with only my grandma for help for the past twenty years. She deserves all the happiness in the world, and I’d be jumping up and down for joy and offering tocarryher down the aisle in a . . . whatever those things are they carried Cleopatra around in. I’d do anything for her.”

Cora blinked up at him, dark blue eyes wide. She had the lightest freckles dusted across her nose, and her pretty pink mouth twisted in confusion. She wasn’t short by any means, but something about her gave off an aura of smallness. Not frail exactly, but not exactlyhardy.He was used to hardy.

“I disapprove,” he continued, because what did it matter what this woman looked like? “Because that sleazeball she’s marrying is after this ranch and this ranch alone, and I won’t let her be swindled out of this spread because she’s blinded by lust.”

“Lust,” Cora echoed, a faint pink blotching across her cheeks.

“He’sforty-two. My mother isfifty-two. You’ll have to pardon my skepticism.”

Cora blinked, then smiled at him, much the way his mother smiled at him when she thought he was being unreasonable. “I think maybe, just maybe, you might be letting your protective instincts as a son blind you to your mother’s feelings. It’s even noble, I think,” she said gently. Almost sympathetically. “If you’d only—”

“This wedding can’t happen. I’m going to make sure of it.” Maybe that was too blunt, but he wasn’t going to pretend he felt any differently to some stranger planning a wedding.

“Over my dead body,” the woman muttered, then blushed when she seemed to realize she’d said it out loud.

Shane held her blue gaze that seemed to match the sky above them.Regardless. “We’ll see about that,” he returned. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He didn’t wait for her response. He slipped the hat on his head and marched for MacGregor.

One way or another, this wedding would not happen. Even if he had to fight the determined, pretty wedding planner on top of his mother and grandmother and Ben Donahue.