“Everything. I’d like to know how you run the various experiences you have for your guests, and, frankly, how well it pays.”
“Sure. Let’s go this way.”
Brady ran a critical eye over the all-terrain vehicles Lucas led them to, noting how clean and polished they looked even though they were strictly functional. He thought about the old four-wheeler he’d put back into working order. Repairing it had been far cheaper than buying a new one, but he wondered if it also advertised the fact that they didn’t have the cash flow they needed.
Oh, yes, he thought. This place was very different than Eaglecrest.
Lucas talked about the improvements that had been made over the years. Like Zannah’s family, his had been in the area for nearly one hundred years, but they had always focused on raising and selling cattle until Lucas had taken over the business. He quickly realized they were leaving too much money on the table by not offering adventures that would take advantage of the unique area.
“People want to feel like they’ve accomplished something, even if they’re only supposed to be on vacation,” he said as they reached the top of the mesa where the zip line was located.
“I’m seeing that they like to challenge themselves,” Brady said. “Face danger and prove they’re not cowards.”
“Yup, that’s pretty much it, but they like to have fun, too.” He pointed to the zip line, where two young men waited to assist the customers. “Care to try it?”
“Sure.”
“I’ll drive around and meet you at the other end.”
Even as the attendants helped him into the gear, checking and rechecking the safety harness, Brady could feel his excitement growing. His mind clicked over possible locations for this kind of thing, even as he wondered if there was enough business to maintain two zip lines in this area. When he had talked to Fordham on the phone, he’d made it clear that he was only fact-finding, which the other man seemed to understand, stating that he was proud of his operation and didn’t mind showing it off. Brady didn’t want to undercut Fordham’s prices, but he knew this was what people wanted. This was the kind of thing they needed to be offering their guests.
If they could afford the insurance.
Once he had signed a waiver, and was safely strapped in, he was released and sent sailing through the air. He couldn’t resist a shout of joy at the sheer exhilaration of it, the sense of freedom. Even though the trip only lasted a few minutes—and he grew a little alarmed when the ground seemed to be rushing up to meet him—he slid easily into the landing area, where two more people waited to help him out of the harness.
Lucas hadn’t arrived yet, so Brady had time to ask the teenagers manning the zip line about the kinds of guests who used it. They responded that it was mostly kids and families who liked a thrill.
Brady didn’t know what kinds of additional exciting activities Eaglecrest could offer, but he knew it had to be unique.
Lucas drove up a few minutes later. “So, what do you think, Brady?”
“I think I’d like to do that every day. I can see the appeal. So,” he went on slowly, making a circular motion with his hand to indicate the zip line venture. “If you don’t mind my asking, how much does this whole adventure cost? Not only the customers, but you, too.”
“I barely break even,” Lucas admitted. “But it brings in people who want the other experiences, as well. Groups of locals come over for the zip line, families celebrating birthdays, church groups, even corporate clients who bring people over from Tucson for a day of team building—you know, the kind where you have to depend on your team members to catch you as you fall backward, things like that.”
Brady nodded. He’d heard of those, had even participated in a few, but not many. Maybe because he’d always worked with his family. He knew he could trust them. Maybe he and Zannah should try something like that. He liked the idea of catching her if she fell.
“I’ve thought for a long time that golf would do well here,” Lucas went on, “but I’m not willing to give up rangeland to build a course. Might work over at Eaglecrest, though. They’ve got more available acreage than I do.”
The two men visited the other attractions, then came back to the main lodge. As they shook hands and said goodbye, Lucas said, “Hey, would you be interested in joining some of us for poker? You’d get to know some of the locals.”
“Sure,” Brady said, pleased and surprised. It was a way for him to begin being part of the community. His little guest cabin already felt like home. “I’d like that.”
As he drove away, his mind was busily turning over ideas for Eaglecrest.
Now all he had to do was convince Zannah to give some of them a try. He paused as he was climbing into his car. Perhaps he should seriously consider doing a trust exercise with her.
* * *
ZANNAH LOOKED UP from the computer screen where she had been studying facts and figures to see Brady strolling in the door. There was something about his manner that made her eye him warily.
She could almost hear the jet engine backwash as ideas raced through his mind. She was so certain of what his next words would be that she didn’t even congratulate herself when they came.
“Hey, Zannah, I have an idea,” he said, taking off his hat and hanging it on the hat rack before sitting down in a chair facing her.
“Despite the fact that those are words sure to strike terror into my heart, I’ll do the polite thing and ask you to tell me all about it.” She folded her hands on top of the desk and made a big show of listening attentively.
“Smarty-pants,” he murmured, but she could see him fighting a smile. “Now that we’re full partners, I think we need to participate in some trust-building exercises.”
“Trust building?” she asked in a flat tone.
“Sure,” he said, sitting forward and warming to his subject. “It’s when a group of coworkers or, say, you and your partner get together to complete a series of tasks, depending on each other for help. We’ve done this any number of times with the employees at the various Gallagher companies.”
“I know what it is, Brady. Social workers often participate in that type of thing. I’m trying to figure out why we need to do them.” She picked up a pencil from the desk and began turning it end over end as she listened.
“To build trust.” He said each word slowly, obviously to help them sink in.
She used the pencil to point to herself, then to him. “You mean, between the two of us?”
“Yes, and every other employee. We can divide them into two groups,” he said, warming to his subject. “One group will cover the evening’s activities while the other one takes part. Then, the next night, we’ll switch. As the bosses here, we’ll have to work both nights.”
When he paused, she asked, “Is this where I’m supposed to applaud?”
He ignored that, obviously too caught up in what he was saying. “Of course, we’ll have to pay them for their time.”
“That should get everyone on board,” she conceded, feeling a bit ashamed of herself for scoffing at him when she hadn’t even heard him out. “But it sounds like a huge amount of coordinating. What kind of activities are we talking about here?”
“Oh, you know, walking over hot coals—”
“What?”
His expression was pure innocence as he went on. “It’s only for a few feet—”
“Brady,” she said, exasperated. “Be serious. Are you sure this is necessary?”
He spread his hand wide as he said, “Why not? It can’t hurt, and it might help.”
“Help what? Help who?”
“All of us. I think it would help everyone to get off on the right foot together.”
“All the other employees have worked together for years. They’re already on the right foot. They all pretty much grew up together, know each other, trust each other.”
Embarrassment flushed Zannah’s face pink. “Oh, of course. That makes sense.”
She glanced at the bookkeeping program she’d been updating. With Brady’s infusion of fresh cash, she was finally able to achieve some measure of balance in the books.
She dropped the pencil on the desk and sat up straight as she asked, “What do you have in mind?”
“Some group activities, some between pairs who work together. And I think we need to start right now.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you think too much?”
“’Course not. Thinking things through is better than going by feelings or knee-jerk reactions.”
“Okay, what do you want to try?”
“Trust fall, where one person falls backward into the waiting arms of their partner. A blindfold walk where one person has to depend on another to guide them through an obstacle course. That sort of thing.”
Zannah raised one eyebrow at him. “Do you honestly think you’re going to get Chet and Juan to do something like that?”
“Won’t know till we try.” He stood up. “There’s one activity that you and I need to try right now.”
“Does it involve both of us getting back to work?”
“In a minute.”
He dragged his chair around to her side of the desk and indicated she should scoot her chair away from the desk and face him. “We’re going to look into each other’s eyes for sixty seconds.”
Zannah was unable to hide her alarm. “Stare into—?”
“Oh, come on. Not like that. Don’t look so much like we’re going to chase each other around the office with fire axes.”
“That might be easier,” she answered.
“I don’t know what you’re so worried about.” He sat back with his hands relaxed on the arms of the chair, tilted his head to the side and regarded her with a puzzled half smile.
What was she worried about? Him, obviously. Seeing him every day, several times a day, often when they were at odds, rarely on the same page, made her feel out of stride, almost as if she were riding a horse that had suddenly gone lame. She only wanted to get back in her own comfort zone.
“Never mind,” she said hastily. “What does this actually accomplish?”
“It really helps you to understand someone. My mom used to make my brothers and me do this whenever we got into an argument.”
“Did it work?”
“Heck, yeah. There’s nothing worse than having to sit and stare into the eyes of one of your brothers as they’re beaming twin lasers of fury into yours. Makes sixty seconds seem like a lifetime.”
“And did it help you to understand your brothers?”
“I am the middle brother, after all. Mostly it helped me figure out how to get what I wanted from them without making them mad.”
“That is so you,” she marveled.
“Come on.” He set the timer on his phone and placed it on the desk, then scooted up until they were knee to knee. He reached out both hands, palm up, encouraging her to offer hers.
Zannah had a fleeting memory of touching his hand when he’d helped her up once, a few weeks ago. His hands had been warm and smooth. At Sadie’s, his hands had been reassuring. For some reason, her heart fluttered anxiously. Telling herself she was being silly, she placed her hands in his.
She immediately realized once again that her hands felt work-roughened and harsh against his smooth palms and tried to pull away.
“Come on, Zannah. We can do this for sixty seconds.”
Easy for you to say, she thought in dismay.
“Quit wasting time. Look at me.”
At any other time, she would have taken exception to his bossy tone, but she reminded herself that she had agreed to this. After all, it was only for a minute. She could do this. Once she had decided that, she settled in, meeting his gaze with her own after he started the timer.
Her first realization was that she had been wrong about the color of his eyes. They weren’t strictly brown, even though they appeared to be. The irises were almost black around the outer edge, but closer toward the pupil, there was an array of yellow-gold and light brown.
No, she thought dreamily, the intriguing effect was a combination of those colors. It was really quite beautiful. Why hadn’t she ever noticed it before? As she watched, that array seemed to spark outward as if he’d seen something pleasing to him, but she quickly decided it was her imagination.
She noticed the beating of her own heart, and the unaccustomed warm feeling that was sifting through her.
She had felt like this before, she assured herself. After all, she’d had male friends her entire life, several boyfriends. This was no different than that. Not at all.
Sitting like this, so close together, focusing on each other, with her hands in his, her total attention on his eyes, should have made her feel panicky, ready to jump up and sprint for the door.
Instead, she was...content, she decided. Did that mean she trusted him?
When the timer sounded, she pulled her hands away, reached up to brush her hair away from her face, adjusted her collar, then pushed her chair back, ready to return to the computer.
“That was a really long minute,” she said.
“I set it for two. I knew it would take you a while to settle into it.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she protested. “That was sneaky.”
“No, that was strategy.” He stood up and pulled his chair around to the other side of the desk before he grabbed his hat and headed for the door. “And that is something you need to be able to trust your partner to do.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
STRATEGY, BRADY THOUGHT as he loped out the door. Exactly what had he been strategizing? He’d done that identical exercise dozens of times over the years. Never had he felt the jolt of awareness he’d experienced with Zannah. He had to get himself under control, because this partnership would never work if he was more interested in her as a woman than he was as a partner.
He was a fine one to talk about trust, he thought in annoyance. Ordinarily, if he saw a woman who interested him, he would have pursued her, asked her out to see where things went.
But this was different. He’d been uneasy about Gus’s plan to keep their agreement a secret. The challenge from his dad had been to find a business different from any he’d worked in before. He should have remembered that didn’t mean to throw good business practices out the window.
All their subterfuge had done was to give Zannah, an already skittish partner, even less reason to trust him.
The staring-into-each-other’s-eyes exercise probably hadn’t helped. While she had been looking at him, trying to find a reason to trust him, he’d been thinking very different thoughts, ones that should make him blush and would almost certainly have made her take a swing at him.
He had to keep his mind on his task, he decided, and headed toward the main house where he would get Sharlene and Chet to help him figure out a schedule for the team building he was planning. He had begun to make headway with the staff, especially when he had bought drinks for them one evening, then sat around talking about the ranch.
Piece of cake, he thought. Only had to keep his mind on business.
* * *
“HONUS, DAISY, YOU two have the right idea about sleeping standing up. I don’t remember the ground being this hard.”
Because no one but the horses was listening, and they wouldn’t tell anyone if he wasn’t tough, Gus followed his complaint
to his animals with a loud groan as he sat up and pushed his sleeping bag down so he could rest his elbows on his knees and rub his face with both hands.
He looked around, bleary-eyed, at his camping spot. He’d remembered it from years ago when he and Esther had been young, before the kids had come along. They’d gone camping and found this place where wind had eroded an overhanging cliff to provide shelter while also depositing sand that made a softer bed than the usual hard ground. He had even been careful to scoop out a depression in the sand to give support to his hips.
“Well, it must have been softer forty years ago,” he muttered to his equine audience, who couldn’t have cared less about his discomfort. He’d managed to find them a patch of grass near a trickling stream. Summer heat would dry it up in the next few weeks, but for now, it was perfect for them.
“I should have cut some grass for my bed. Might have helped.”
He rubbed some warmth back into his legs and hauled himself to his feet, then stretched, popping several stiff joints.
This was a heck of a lot harder than it had been the last time he’d been out camping by himself.
Shame settled on him. That had been when Esther was dying. Some cattle had wandered far from the herd, into the foothills, and he’d gone after them. Someone else could have done it. Chet had been a young hand then, but experienced with cattle. He would have been happy to locate the animals and probably would have brought them back in record time. But Gus had seen it as an escape from a situation he couldn’t fix—a position he’d rarely been in since the miserable childhood he and Stella had escaped.
Feeling helpless had made him stupid. After a few days in the mountains, he’d gone home, been there for her and Zannah. Still, after all this time, the shame lingered.
“So,” he said, pulling his mind away from an old mistake he couldn’t correct, and still addressing his horses. “Either of you two interested in some coffee? No? Your loss.”
Rancher to the Rescue Page 16