“In my case it took us a little while to get together, but once we did . . .” Riley held up her hand with the wedding ring on it.
Reagan wanted to ask Riley about trying for a baby, but Aniyah wasn’t exactly known for keeping secrets. She’d have her sister over for some girl talk after she was back from Florida.
“Which means,” Aniyah started again. “I’m not the only one who is starting to think about marriage. What about you and Carter? Should I place my bet at the café?”
Terror seized Reagan as she shook her head. “No! I mean, it may be over a year, but we’re really casual. I mean, we didn’t even say we loved each other until today.”
Aniyah raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow and then looked at Riley who rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it myself.”
“What?” Reagan asked Aniyah.
“You’re a coward in hiding.”
“I am not!” Reagan shot a glare to Aniyah before looking to her sister for backup. Only Riley didn’t appear to be jumping to her defense.
“Rea, she’s right. I stood up to Dad almost immediately. A couple days, sure, but you’ve been hiding for over a year. And hiding is the right word. If you are that unsure about your feelings, then cut Carter loose. He’s too good of a man to tie up and not do anything with.”
“Or to. If you get them nice soft ropes, then you could tie him up, and I bet he’s not so nice in bed. It’s always the nice ones that are freaky-deaky,” Aniyah added helpfully. And correctly. Carter’s abilities in bed made his kissing seem amateurish.
“See, told you,” Aniyah said smugly. “Her face is so red it matches her hair.”
Riley snickered and Reagan glared at her sister.
“Look, it’s all out in the open now. What are you going to do with it?” Riley asked.
That was the thing. Reagan didn’t know. She knew she loved him, but could love conquer a crazy father? And would it be the same now that it was out in the open? “I don’t know.”
Aniyah shook her head and Riley sighed.
“I will, though. I’ll have the whole flight to Florida to think about it. And I’m not a coward,” Reagan said with more vigor than she felt. Right now she wanted to hide under the covers. Who knew that the woman who could disable a GPS or shoot a target at 800 yards could also be a coward? When they’d been hiding the relationship, it had been exciting. It had been her versus her father to see who could outsmart and outspy each other. But now . . . now it seemed she was unable to make any decision and that did not sit well with her.
Riley hugged her then and squeezed her hand. “Stop thinking about Dad. This is about you and Carter. It’s your life together that matters. If you two love each other and want to be together, then nothing and no one will come between you. I mean, Matt and I are still going strong. We love each other a little more each day and so will you and Carter. If that’s what you want.”
Reagan thought she told them goodbye, but she found herself staring after the taillights with only one thing going through her mind. What did she need to do to figure this out?
11
Reagan and Diego worked all afternoon cleaning and loading the plane. Diego was her horse handler for this trip. He had worked with her since she started her company, and by now he was a seasoned veteran at prepping the plane—fueled, cleaned, and checked. All that was left was filling it with hay in the morning. During the busy season between August and Christmas, Reagan would usually take two or three handlers with her. This trip wasn’t overly booked, so Diego took it since the others had families they wanted to spend time with before they went a week or more without seeing them during the height of the flying season, plus all the horses on the ride back had grooms accompanying them.
“We’re all set, Reagan,” Diego told her as he checked the portable stalls they’d loaded into the cargo plane she’d bought earlier in the year. The plane was an old cargo plane used by UPS that she’d painted white with a royal blue tail. K AIR was on the tail in white while a royal blue line ran the length of the plane with Keeneston Air written in script along the back half of the plane. She was still paying it off since it had cost well over a million dollars, but it had been worth putting everything on the line to achieve her goal.
Reagan had the only plane solely used for transporting horses. She had started with a small plane that could only fit two horses at a time. She’d flown it by herself until this year when she sold it and upgraded to the larger cargo plane. Now she had specialized loading equipment that guaranteed her horses never touched the ground between the trucks and the plane. Owners or their grooms could now travel with their prized horses as well. Soon movie studios had also taken to reserving the whole plane to move animals for movie shoots. She had a dedicated team of professionals to take care of the horses during the flight and she flew the plane carefully to keep horses calm and safe.
With the larger plane, Reagan had the ability to take up to twenty horses on a single flight. And at five thousand dollars a horse and close to three thousand horses or movie animals flown in the last year, that was enough to look into paying off the cargo plane and buying a second plane to add to the fleet she wanted to grow. She already had looked into hiring a second team of pilots for the potential new plane.
“Thanks, D,” Reagan told the man she’d hired away from Desert Sun Farm. He was a couple years older than she was but had been working with horses since he was eighteen. All of her handlers had extensive experience with horses. They had all worked with horses for at least ten years and even had basic training in emergency veterinary care. “We’ll meet back here tomorrow morning at seven. Daniel will be copiloting with us tomorrow. I think we’ll only have one passenger, Mrs. Bristol, and potentially a second. Her boyfriend mentioned the possibility of tagging along.”
“No problem. I’ll see you in the morning then.”
Diego locked up the cargo ramp and headed to his car as Reagan finished the paperwork she’d be submitting in the morning. It was five o’clock by the time she left the airport. She hadn’t thought about Carter all afternoon, but knowing he was with her dad right now made it hard not to drive straight to Mo’s farm to check on him. Instead, she needed to sink into her bathtub and take a serious look at her future. Love, marriage, family . . . they were all things she thought about any given day, but never in combination with Carter.
* * *
Carter pulled his pickup truck to a stop in front of the security building on Desert Sun Farm. The building looked like one of the horse barns, but it was made with thick walls and steel doors. There were conference rooms, a kitchen, and a state-of-the-art security center on the first floor to protect the family who owned the farm. Mo and Dani weren’t just the best friends of Carter’s parents. They were also royalty of a small Persian Gulf island nation called Rahmi.
Carter was buzzed into the security center and headed downstairs into the basement. There was a long hallway lined with secure holding rooms in case they needed to detain someone. At the end of the hall were the gym and showers. Carter could already hear the rock music blaring and the sounds of pads being hit and weights dropping to the rubber floor.
The first person he saw was his brother-in-law’s father, Cole Parker. Cole had been FBI before he retired. Ryan had taken over the Lexington office. Speaking of which, “Hey, Cole, have you seen Ryan?”
Cole looked over at Carter from his place on the treadmill with surprise. “Carter, never seen you here before. Ryan’s on a case. He’ll be back tomorrow or so. Is everything okay?”
“I need some information on racketeering.” If Ryan couldn’t answer them, Cole definitely could.
“You can talk later,” Cy called out from the boxing ring. “You’re here to work, not chitchat.”