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“Elizabeth is training three new therapists at the ranch, getting prepared for her maternity leave, and we have a full roster for the summer.”

He looked over at Gus’s sister-in-law Elizabeth, who was sitting there next to Brody holding his hand, with his other hand resting protectively over her stomach. Brody was raising Elizabeth’s son from her first marriage, and this was the first one for the two of them. It was amazing to him, the domesticity all around him. But even for Landry, who had his child now, and who had gotten things together with Fia, it wasn’t typical.

It hadn’t been a smooth road.

Not at all.

But then, everybody else was a little bit different than the King family. The way that they had managed to make connections with each other even before they were all in relationships spoke volumes. As did the continued isolation of his own family.

Denver had a point about Daughtry being the only one to work off the ranch. He was actually the only person in any of the families to have a job away from Four Corners. But the thing about Denver was that he didn’t have any alliances within their alliance. Yes, he had been part of putting the collective together, but even while he tried to improve the image of the King family by working with best practices and building a better reputation as a rancher—and not a loan shark—he didn’t have close friendships on the ranch. They kept to their own.

It was the stark difference between the Kings and everybody else.

And, he supposed, it was a stark difference betweenhimand everyone.

But this ranch, this place, it was the source of nothing but feeling. And it was better for him to spread some of that out, rather than consolidate all of it here.

He’d loved this ranch once. With everything. Had wanted nothing more than to follow in his father’s footsteps. To carry on the legacy of the King family until he’d understood that the legacy was broken.

Then it was Denver’s turn to speak, and he knew that Bix would follow shortly after.

She began to vibrate with barely contained energy beside him as Denver went up to the front of the room. He put his hand on her knee, to still her movements, but a crack of electricity went between their skin. She looked at him, her blue eyes wide. Color stained her cheeks. She had made it pretty clear she felt that all too. That she’d been jealous. And he was doing his level best to throw barriers up in the way of it. He wasn’t sure why. He had a lot of pretty excuses, but while he was looking into her eyes just now, he couldn’t quite figure out what they were.

But his brain didn’t let them get to that place. Maybe because there were too many revelations rolling around in there already.

And anyway, then Denver was talking.

“My new brewing manager, Bix Carpenter, is going to give a presentation about her plans, and has a business proposition for all of you.”

Bix stood up, a folder clutched to her chest. And he didn’t care that everybody was watching. He reached up and took her hand, and squeezed it once. “You’re going to do great.”

She let out a slow breath, and released her hand from his without any real urgency, and then she walked up to the front of the room, and took her position on the stage. “My name is Bix, and I’ve been working on King’s Crest for two months now. I’ve met a lot of you. What you probably don’t know about me is that Daughtry found me in the woods. I’m not kidding. I was homeless, and he gave me a job. He is maybe the first person ever to believe in me.”

He felt blindsided by what she was saying. He hadn’t expected that.

“The whole family has been so supportive of me, and of my taking on this venture. And because of them, because of the way they believed in me, we ended up getting together this brewery. We are in the process of making a custom beer for King’s Crest. And inspired by all of the hard work that goes into this ranch, what I would like to propose is that we also make a beer for each of your ranches. Now, we would need an investment from each of you. And I understand that we’ve already asked for that recently. I was here at the last meeting. But I think it’s going to be worth it. I really believe that it’s going to make something special. Something different. And I know that I opened this by letting you all know that I’m a rescue. But I do know a thing or two about making alcohol. That’s actually what I was doing in the woods.You can’t arrest me for it, Daughtry. You don’t have any proof.”

In spite of himself, he laughed, and so did everybody else.

“This is what we would need as a starting investment.” She went on to make her presentation, and he felt... bizarrely proud. Not so much of himself, because no matter that she tried to give him credit, it was her. He was proud of her.

“We’ll invest,” said Fia King—formerly Sullivan—and it surprised him that Fia was the first to put her hat in, even though she was with Landry. She liked to remind Landry of the time he had told her that the budget was the budget, and there was nothing that could be done to move it.

She’d felt personally attacked by that, considering she was the one asking for a budget increase. But then, at the time, everything between her and Landry had been a full-on personal attack. Things had cooled down, though she was still opinionated, which was why he was surprised she hadn’t made them sweat a little bit.

“I’m in,” said Sawyer.

“Count us in too,” said Gus.

Well. That was the kind of thing that made him wonder... Made him wonder if maybe everybody else felt a little more connected to them then he realized. Or maybe not. It didn’t really matter. Or maybe it did.

Because it had made this venture a bigger success than it would’ve been. And it was giving Bix a win.

Though, who could possibly fail to be moved by Bix’s story, he didn’t know. And hell, maybe that was the real genius in her sharing it. Maybe it was about her, and if it was, he was glad enough of that. Because she deserved it. She really did.

He could see her draw up with triumph. Her joy at winning palpable.

There was no more business after that, and she swept down from the stage, and right to him.