Free Betting on Grace by Nicole Edwards

they didn’t like being left in
the dust.
    “Yep. Dead serious.”
    Mercy smiled, on both the outside and the inside, her
stomach churning with exhilaration. “When? Where?” she asked, putting her
coffee mug down on the table so that she didn’t drop it.
    “Sunday mornin’. Before it gets too hot.”
    “Scared of a little heat, Pops?” she teased, knowing
that he was more concerned about the horses than anything else.
    He merely replied with a tilt of one dark eyebrow up
toward his hairline.
    “Fine. Sunday mornin’.” Mercy stood, nearly knocking
her chair over. “I’m gonna let everyone know.”
    “Great,” Jerry muttered, still smiling as he sipped
from his cup again.
    Mercy headed to the door, ready to run outside and
announce to the ranch that she was going to leave her father in the dust, but
she stopped instead. Turning to look at her father, she smiled at him. “Love
you, Pops.”
    “Love you, too, girlie,” he replied, his eyes
softening. “This much.”
    Mercy grinned. Her father had started telling them
that when they were little. It had been a game at first because he didn’t use
his arms or his hands to signal how much he was talking about. According to
Jerry, he meant this much as all encompassing. It was still something he
said to them, and every single time, Mercy felt just as giddy as she had when
she was a little girl.
    “You might wanna take some ridin’ lessons this week,”
she informed him as she pushed the screen door open. “You’re gonna need ’em.”
    With that, she went outside, the sound of her father’s
roaring laugh following her as she did.
    Yep, it was safe to say that this week was looking up.
And she could only hope that the anticipation of the race would help to keep
that unwelcome dream from disrupting her sleep.
    If not, she was going to have to do something about
Cody Mercer because that damn mechanic was getting on her last nerve.
    The
worst part about it … he didn’t even know.

Chapter Six
    Lane’s afternoon was ending about as well as his
morning had started. From the instant that his eyes had peeled open, thanks to
the annoying sound of his cell phone’s alarm, it seemed as though he had been
on his feet. And now, when he would’ve preferred to be heading back to the
bunkhouse for a quick shower and then over to the dining hall for supper, he
was being summoned to the arena.
    For what, he had no idea.
    The text had come from Mercy, which was a little
surprising, but the message was clear.
    Get to the arena now.
    Yes, ma’am. It wasn’t like he didn’t have other things
to do, thank you very much.
    Fortunately, he hadn’t been on the scheduled trail
ride for the day, but that meant he’d been busting his ass working on fixing
one of the back stables that had practically caved in on itself about a month
ago. They had moved the existing horses from that stable several weeks before
that, due to its condition, but now that they had acquired several more, they
needed the thing desperately.
    It felt as though they had been working more in the
last couple of months than in the three years that he’d been there, combined.
They were expanding, that was for sure. Not that he minded that the ranch
seemed to be doing well. As far as he was concerned, Dead Heat Ranch’s success
was his success. And loving what he did made it all the sweeter.
    But with work came exhaustion, something Lane was definitely
feeling. He wanted to go jump headfirst into the swimming pool to cool off.
Shit, it had been almost two months since he’d taken the time to do even that
much. Then again, his priorities these days, other than work, were Gracie and Grant.
He was more than willing to spend every spare second he had with the two of
them. Even if it meant he had to forego sleep.
    Lane looked up to see that he was only a few feet from
his destination, a sigh of relief escaping him. Getting out of the blazing sun
was his goal, and the arena was going to offer some much-needed