Page 8 of The First Day of Breeding Season (Wildfire Ranch #4)

DREW

Brynn excuses herself to take a quick shower. I want to wait outside her room like a lovesick puppy, but I need to look at her research material before dinner. I promised her we’ll talk bulls, and I can’t let her down.

Back in my room, I lean over my bed, where the material Brynn gave me is scattered.

I flip open the folder and immediately grin at the top sheet, which summarizes the contents and lists, in bullet points, questions she has for me and ideas she wants to discuss.

She’s even noted to herself, in brackets, that she should pace herself with these topics over the summer.

I scan the list, looking for her analysis of other big breeders in the region that I might look at acquiring a bull from. It’s midway down, so I flip through the articles, looking for that information mid-way through the folder.

She strikes me as a very thorough and organized person. Someone who plans ahead, maybe compulsively, so she has to keep all the information she collects in a particular order or she’d never find it again.

Sure enough, there is her target research in the middle of the thick stack. It’s a list of ranches that I’m already familiar with, and a couple I’m not, and pinned behind that list are two articles about herd diversity.

I quickly look up the ranches that I’m not familiar with, making some bullet pointed notes on my phone to ask her about.

Then I flip through the rest of the folder. She’s thorough and her notes are meticulous. Which makes the envelope shoved in the back stand out, and I open it before I realize that the letterhead, from Climax Springs Fertility Clinic, isn’t about cattle breeding.

My brow furrows as I can’t help but notice bolded words on the page. Single Parenthood. Family Planning Services. Donor Sperm Packages.

The room feels suddenly smaller, the air heavier. I sit on the edge of the bed, staring at the pamphlet like it’s a snake coiled in my hand.

Single motherhood. At Brynn’s young age?

I exhale slowly, my grip tightening on the paper. It’s none of my business. Hell, I barely know her. But the thought of her making this kind of plan—going through this kind of thing alone—settles in my chest like a stone.

I think about her bright eyes and determined smile. She’s so young, so full of life, but there’s a quiet, independent strength in her that I can’t ignore. No family, no one to lean on. And now she’s planning to have a baby on her own.

My jaw clenches as I shove the envelope back into the folder. I don’t have the right to care. But a wild protectiveness is pounding inside me now.

I can’t shake the image of Brynn swelling with child. Of her holding a baby with darker hair than hers.

It shocks me how much I want that. How clearly I want her , like that.

If Brynn Hughes wants a baby, I can give her a baby. She just has to say the word and I’ll breed her up good.