by Cassie Cole
Cindy
We made small talk over the first finger of whiskey—though I didn’t know it was whiskey until we had a taste. We chatted about Austin over the second finger.
By the third, I was spilling the beans to him. I desperately needed to talk to someone other than the estate lawyer with the walrus mustache.
“I could’ve told you the oil dried up,” Landon said. He sat next to me at the table, one leg crossed over such that his knee poked up near his chin. Jesus, he had long legs. “Been an issue around these parts for a while. It’s why we’ve struggled to find ranching work. Everyone’s going belly up.”
I gestured with my glass. “You know, it’s just like my dad to leave me with a pile of debt he accrued on this damn ranch. As if this place wasn’t already an emotional burden.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “That somethin’ you wanna talk about?”
His accent became more pronounced with alcohol, I noticed. It was cute. “Let’s stick to one problem at a time.”
“Fair enough.” He sipped his drink. “I didn’t think children could inherit debt from a parent.”
“They generally can’t! But there are some exceptions, and one of them applies to me because I was blessed with a selfish prick for a father.”
“That, uhh, sucks.”
“It does. Hence the whiskey.”
“I’m sorry.” He uncrossed his leg and crossed the other one, brushing my leg in the process. Just a little bit. “I know how much this ranch must mean to you. Parting with it is going to be devastating.”
“Yeah…” I said, looking off. I almost told him that I’d intended to part with it the entire time, just on different terms.
“How much debt are we talkin’ about?” he asked. Then he held out a hand and added, “If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Honestly? I don’t even know. I spent 10 minutes going through papers and felt overwhelmed. I need to sit down and crunch the numbers but I can’t bring myself to do it just yet.” I began to pour another drink. “The debt is all over the place. I have a pile of credit card statements to sift through, a business line of credit at the bank, debts owed to local businesses for animal feed, hay deliveries, and God only knows what else.”
I put the bottle down, took a long pull from my glass, then pointed it at Landon. “And that’s just the little stuff. The biggest problem is the land devaluation. The new mortgage was made with the house and land appraised at a certain value. Now, with the mineral rights worthless, the land is probably worth one tenth as much. One twentieth.”
“Not to mention the general land value of the county dropping too,” Landon added.
“You know, you can’t use the phrase not to mention if you actually go and mention it.”
“Sorry,” he muttered, staring off. “I don’t suppose your dad’s life insurance puts a dent in any of that.”
He asked casually. A little too casually, while not really looking at me. But I was too tipsy to care, and well on my way to not-giving-a-fuck drunk. “Doubtful. How long does life insurance take to pay out, anyway? A couple weeks? It’ll all be over then.”
I leaned back in my chair to look at the ceiling, once again bringing our legs into contact.
I was feeling flirty. I didn’t have much control over anything at that moment, but I did have control over this situation. I raised my legs and stretched them out, resting them on his thigh. “I’m fucked, Landon. And not in the way I typically enjoy.”
He grinned a dirty grin at me, but instead of the obvious joke he said, “When I was in high school, I was on the baseball team.”
I was so surprised by the change in subject that I only said, “Okay.”
He leaned forward, intensity in his eyes. “I was a pitcher. One of the only kids my age with a real twelve-to-six curveball. I could make it fall off the table so quick nobody could come close to touching it.”
“I would have guessed you were a football player,” I said.
“Chase was the football player. I preferred a sport with more finesse. Anyway, we were terrible the first two seasons but by my junior year we’d put together a pretty solid team. Not much power; we didn’t hit home runs much. But we knew how to play small ball. Everyone was a threat to steal a base. We dropped down bunts, jammed hit-and-run plays down the other team’s collective throat. We went to the state championship, won that, then went to regionals.”
“And you won?” I asked.
“Nah, we got crushed. 22 to 6, or something close. Bad enough that the game would have been called if they had the slaughter rule.” He leaned back and sighed, clearly tipsy from the whiskey. I waited for him to continue the rest of the story, but all he did was toss back the rest of his glass and say, “Too bad.”
“Uhh. Is that it? Are you trying to compare your quirky sports journey to my massive financial crisis, or was there some other point?”
“Oh!” he said, leaning forward again. “The point I was going to make was we didn’t have enough money for real uniforms. And we couldn’t go to regionals wearing what amounted to hand-me-down scraps. So we held a bake sale.”
“A bake sale.”
He spread his hands like Jesus. “We could hold a bake sale to save your ranch! I figure we only need to sell 10, maybe 15 thousand cookies to cover what you owe the bank.”
It was exactly what I needed to hear. I started giggling, and eventually my entire body was wracked with shuddering laughs that I had to put my glass down to keep from spilling.
“It’s a shame life isn’t that simple,” I said, wiping tears from my eyes.
Landon feigned offense. “I think you’re seriously underestimating how good my brownies are. They’re made from a box and everything.”
“Oh, a box. You should have led with that.”
“Have you considered selling the ranch to a third party?”
I hesitated. Did he know that’s exactly what I’d originally intended? I searched his face for any hint but all I saw was curiosity. And guardedness.
“I hadn’t considered selling, but I’ll take any way out now,” I said carefully. “But any potential buyer would be made aware of the debt attached to the estate. Who would want to purchase a useless ranch that’s deep in the red? I doubt I could give this place away at this point.”
“Sure, but you never know,” Landon said. “There’s a whole slew of people who make their living buying foreclosures at auction for pennies on the dollar. If we could find one of them to buy it before foreclosure…”
“If we’re wishing for impossible things, then we might as well wish for the angel of natural gas to come down and give us eight more weeks of drilling.”
“It’s better than giving up,” Landon insisted. “We could spend a little money, fix the little things to make this place presentable, and give it one last chance.”
“Maybe,” I said, giving the fantasy as much consideration as it deserved. I closed my eyes and savored my current level of drunk. Problems seemed far way when viewed through the unbalanced lens of alcohol.
Landon’s hand touched my ankle. His tattoos spilled out from underneath the sleeves of his shirt, dark and mysterious. I tensed, waiting. Anticipating.
Desiring. Alcohol wasn’t the only way to distract from one’s problems.
His fingers wrapped underneath my calf and tightened, giving me a glimpse of his strength, and I imagined his hand sliding up my thigh and along my waist, unbuttoning my jeans and pressing close…
My fantasy evaporated as he lifted my leg and set it on the ground. He stood up, stretched, then yawned. “I’m turning in.”
“Thanks for the therapy, cowboy,” I said in a slutty voice.
He pointed at the glass with a less-than-steady finger. “Thanks for the drink. Next time I’m buying.”
If there is a next time, I thought as his footsteps echoed through the house.
13
Landon
I didn’t want to go to bed. I wanted to stay, and have another drink,
and make Cindy laugh some more because she laughed with her whole body instead of just making noise, and because I wanted to do anything to lessen the misery she was feeling.
A flash of insight was all it took. The moment her legs rested on my thigh I imagined myself pushing toward her, grabbing her face with both hands and kissing away her pain, and everything that would happen beyond that. And that glimpse of the future, sweet as it may be, was enough to jolt me back to responsibility.
I retreated upstairs like I was fleeing battle, a coward. A beautiful woman wanted to sleep with me and I was turning her down because of the other, selfish reasons we were there on her ranch.
My mind devised excuses. She was drunk; her legs on my thigh didn’t mean anything. They were the girly equivalent of a drunk male friend giving too many “I love you man,” hugs. And even if she was flirting, she was vulnerable. Dealing with the one-two emotional punch of death and financial ruin. I didn’t want to take advantage of her when she was like that.
But you’re willing to take advantage of her in other ways, whispered a voice inside my head.
I paused in front of my bedroom. I could go back downstairs and tell her. Come clean about the entire thing. Get it out in the open.
No, that was stupid. After hearing about her finances, things might have changed. We might call off the entire thing. Like everything in life, it all depended on the details.
I wondered how much debt the estate really had. Cindy was careful to avoid giving an exact number, either out of politeness or embarrassment. She made it sound irreparably bad, but I was skeptical. Especially with the possibility of the insurance money coming through. Maybe I could offer to help with the finances since she was avoiding it. That would make me seem helpful. Two birds.
Nah. Better to get Daniel on it instead, since he was better with numbers. He could probably bring it up more naturally in conversation when discussing the repairs.
If not, I could always go through the records by myself the next time she left the ranch. But I didn’t want to go behind her back like that. In spite of what we were already planning, doing that would be crossing another line.
Before the alcohol could talk me into something stupid, I went into my room and locked the door.
14
Cindy
I bolted upright in bed at the sound of my alarm, sweat covering my entire body. I was breathing like I’d just finished doing intervals on the treadmill.
A dream. It was only a dream.
A sexy dream.
Landon opening my bedroom door, sneaking in like a cat. Pawing his way to the bed, pulling back the covers and sliding in next to me. A muscular arm reaching under my neck, his other hand caressing across my belly, testing how I felt under his fingertips, and his breath was sweet and his cheeks were bristly and rough as he finally leaned in for the kiss, moving his body on top of mine, smothering me with his muscular chest…
I shook it off, a motion which made me aware of my hangover. Just a dream.
“Get it together,” I muttered to myself.
It was only my imagination, but it felt like Chase and Landon could read my mind at breakfast. They watched quietly as I poured a mug of coffee, chewing their toast and looking up at me through their eyelashes. I scooped eggs from the pan on the stove and sat at the table.
“Landon told me about the issues,” Chase said the moment I joined them. He put on his most serious face, which only made his smooth youthful face look ridiculous. “Sorry to hear about that. Truly, I am.”
“I’m sorry too.”
“I think our plan is solid,” Landon said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and folding it on his empty plate. “Fix up what we can while we’re here, just in case you can find a buyer.”
“Why bother?” It was fun throwing ideas around over a bottle of whiskey, but this morning I was in no mood for fantasies. “There’s no chance of anyone buying a ranch with this much debt. Especially when they could wait a little bit longer and buy it at auction without any strings attached.”
“You’ve already paid us for the week,” Chase pointed out.
“Then take it and go.” If I sounded heartless, it was only because I felt that way. “Consider it a gift. Use the rest of the week to find a new job at a ranch that isn’t hopeless.”
“I don’t much like taking a paycheck without earning it,” Landon said.
I liked you better when you were in my dream, I thought. I focused on my plate of eggs and said, “I don’t care what you like. I’m your employer, and I’m saying your services are no longer required.”
I said it with as much authority as I could muster. I didn’t even feel bad. I could be an asshole when a situation called for it.
But Landon and Chase looked at each other, picked up their plates, and carried them to the sink. “Whatever you say.”
They left.
I sighed with relief. With my head pounding, the last thing I wanted was a prolonged argument. All I wanted was some peace and quiet. Another day of going through the financial documents, figuring out what had to be kept and what could be thrown away, and then heading back to Austin. Where the real world was.
If I was going to deal with potential financial ruin, I wanted to do it from the comfort of my condo. Not this goddamn ranch.
But as I finished my breakfast and went to do the dishes, I noticed Landon and Chase coming out of the barn with horses in tow. By the time I ran into the backyard they were mounted up.
“The hell are you doing?”
Landon looked confused. “We’ve got a full schedule today. The final repairs on the fence, then some thin scouting for snakes. We found a calf yesterday with a bite.”
“Rattlesnake for sure,” Chase chimed in.
“I fired you. All three of you. You’re free to leave.”
Landon’s smile was sickly-sweet. “We have a job to finish. If you want us gone before the end of our contract, you’re gunna have to shoot us.”
He kicked his horse into a gallop. Chase tipped his hat at me and followed, their hooves pounding out onto my property.
I didn’t like being in situations where I had no control. It’s what I liked about trading crypto by myself, and managing the department at the First Bank of Austin. Having two stubborn cowboy wannabees ignoring what I said and doing whatever they wanted on my own damn property was like having spurs dug into my sides.
I stormed into the barn to find the third stubborn cowboy. Maybe I could talk some sense into him. At the very least yelling at him might make me feel better.
I froze in the doorway of the barn. Daniel was climbing over the wall of the stall to my right, holding onto a rope hanging from above for support. Cautiously, he stuck one leg out toward the horse inside the stall, who looked confused by the cowboy’s actions.
“Daniel?”
He spun around, losing his footing on the stall and swinging out into the open space on the rope. He flailed for a moment before realizing he was only a few feet above the ground. He let go, landing softly in front of me.
“Hey,” he said in his thick accent, flustered like I’d caught him watching porn. He rose and took a limping step forward. “I was just, uhh, tryin’ somethin’. Testin’ the weight the boom can hold…”
I eyed the stall. The horse was fully saddled and ready for a ride. He was trying to mount it.
A cruel thought tickled the back of my mind. I could call him out on his inability to ride a horse. Ridicule him for it until he rushed out of here, driving their pickup truck away. If I convinced him to leave then his brothers might follow.
But he looked so embarrassed, eyes cast down to the ground and rubbing the back of his neck. I couldn’t do that. It would be like kicking a puppy.
A handsome, rugged puppy.
“Good thinking. Testing the weight,” I said.
The small comment was enough to protect his pride. “Yeah. I’m, uhh, gunna go muck out the stalls now.”
“Want some help?” I asked in a spurt o
f sympathy. “It goes faster with two.”
He smiled, which made his green eyes sparkle. “My dad taught me never to turn down a helpin’ hand. Though ya might not want to work in those…”
I looked down at my pajama pants, which were baggy and dragging on the ground. “What, you’ve never seen a girl shovel shit in pajamas?”
I went inside and changed into jeans and a t-shirt, then joined Daniel in the barn. Growing up on the ranch, horse dung didn’t gross me out. It was one of the first tasks my dad gave me when I was old enough to do chores. We tackled the empty stalls first. Daniel wheeled the barrow inside and then we used shovels and pitchforks to scoop everything out. While he dumped out the wheelbarrow I scattered fresh straw over the ground.
It was simple, mindless work, and we quickly fell into a groove. When all the stalls were clean I went out to the flower beds around the side of the house, which were overrun with weeds like tall blades of annoying grass, blocking out the color of the flowers. It was a small detail compared to all the big things needing to be fixed, but it was something that would instantly make the house look more presentable.
As my fingers dug into the soil to remove the weeds and roots, I remembered planting flowers with my mom. She loved daffodils the most, insisting we plant new bulbs every fall. When winter eventually receded and the morning chill hinted at spring she would rush outside to check if any had bloomed. They never bloomed for long—typically only a few weeks here in Texas—but for those few weeks my mother always wore a smile.
I stopped halfway through weeding, my hands covered in damp soil. There was something stuck in my throat. A nostalgic memory that I didn’t want to address. Daniel was moving on to the chicken coop so I joined him: scooping droppings and collecting eggs, dumping out the dirty water and filling it from the spigot. Daniel checked each hen to make sure none were sluggish or sick while I examined the nesting boxes and replaced bedding.
I found myself zoning out as we completed the tasks. It was a relaxing change of pace from my normal job of poring over candlestick charts, checking price fluctuations and looking at portfolios to make sure—