by Cassie Cole
“Shit,” I said.
“What?” Daniel asked, looking up from the other end of the coop. “You see some wormy droppings?”
I removed my work gloves and pulled out my phone. Still no signal. “I need to make a call.”
I had to look up the phone number on my cell phone before thumbing it into the cordless phone on the wall of the kitchen. I was bombarded with memories of using the phone to prank call numbers in the phone book, hastily slamming the receiver down when I thought I heard momma coming.
The voice that answered sounded tinny in the old speaker. “First Bank of Austin, this is—”
“Jason,” I interrupted. “It’s me.”
“Cindy! We’ve been trying to call you for two days…”
My heart sank. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Oh. Nothing, actually. Everything’s been going alright. I’ve been holding down the fort.”
I sighed with relief. “What’d Mr. Cormoran say about my absence?” When I’d gotten the phone call about my dad that morning, I’d left the bank without saying anything to the bank manager. The only thing I’d sent out was a hasty email from my phone while driving out of Austin.
“He understands,” Jason said. “In fact, he insisted you take the full three days of bereavement before starting fresh next week. Said some things are more important than work.”
“That’s sweet of him,” I said, though I wasn’t surprised. Mr. Cormoran seemed like a softy at heart.
“He’s expecting you back Monday morning, though. Wants you to present to a new investor. Says it’s important.”
“I’ll see if I can swing that,” I said. If I needed to, I could always drive back to Austin for the presentation. “Hey. How’d the quarterly meeting go?”
“Honestly? It went well. Shockingly well. Your angle on how massive dips and rises are par for the crypto course? They ate it up.”
“Well it is the truth,” I said as Daniel came limping in the back door. “Alright, I just wanted to check in. I’ve got to go.”
“Hey, real quick: he’s expecting you back Monday for that presentation. Told the clients you’d assist them personally. I sent you the details.”
“I said I’ll try and swing it.”
“Don’t just try. If you can’t make it, you’d better let him know before—”
“I’m off the grid, but I’ll take a look at their info. Thanks Jason.”
I hung up before he could start bombarding me with more work. I worked better when I could look at the client data, not over the phone. The next time I was in town I’d find a coffee shop with Wi-Fi and sit down to catch up on emails.
I shook my head. Coffee shop? Who was I kidding? I’d probably end up sitting on the curb outside the feed store, waiting for emails to download across one bar of cell service.
“Everythin’ alright?” Daniel asked.
“Just work stuff back home. Everything there is fine. Wish I could say the same about this place.”
“Ahh.” Daniel removed his hat and ran his fingers through his straight black hair. Somehow, everything fell perfectly back into place. “Landon told me about the debt on the ranch.”
I sighed. “Yeah, it’s a shitshow.”
“How much debt are we talkin’?” he asked casually. Maybe a little too casually.
“If you’re worried about your pay, Landon already deposited the checks.”
He adjusted his hat, even though it needed no adjusting. “Naw, it’s just… I figured I could help. In case you wanted a second set of eyes on the sheets.”
“That’s sweet of you for offering,” I said. “I’ll let you know if I need the help.”
He nodded as if he were off the hook, then frowned. “I thought debt couldn’t be inherited from a parent.”
“You’d be right, in most cases,” I said, “but the universe is finding creative ways to fuck me over.”
A tiny smile touched his full lips. “Hate it when that happens.”
*
We tackled the interior stuff next. Daniel had a big notepad full of things in need of repair. I made the same joke about paper and pencil that I’d made to Landon, and his response was almost verbatim the same: “Pencil and paper works just fine.”
I glanced at the notepad. Every line except the last two were filled. “How about we just go through the big stuff?”
“This is the big stuff. The smaller stuff is on the next few pages…” He flipped to the next page, then the one after that, and by the third page I was holding out a hand to stop him.
The first order of business was the attic. I winced as we climbed into the darkness, expecting my hair to hit a sticky spiderweb at any moment. Daniel turned the light on and I saw that it was relatively clean up here.
“I fixed the shingles on the roof,” Daniel said, pointing at the underside of the roof. “You can’t tell from here, so you’ll have to trust me. But I’m afraid there is water damage. Here, and there, and a big spot over there.”
I nodded along, pretending I wasn’t totally clueless about this sort of thing. “How bad is it?”
“Doesn’t seem too rough. Probably just need to cut away the damage and replace the wood.”
Then he showed me the next water damage: the spot in the living room ceiling. “I saw this the first day I got here,” I said. “I swear it’s gotten larger.”
“Sure has. On account of us using the shower upstairs. Good news? It’s directly below the shower, so it’s probably a cracked gasket in the drain. Some plumber’s putty and a new drain gasket and it’ll be good as new.”
“What about the damage it already caused?”
“Eyeballin’ it? Doesn’t look bad. Hasn’t had time to mold over. Once I fix the leak it’ll dry up. I doubt it even leaves a stain.”
“Those are the kinds of solutions I like to hear,” I said with a big smile.
The broken floorboards were next, and as I’d feared, there were a lot of them. Daniel pointed out four before I told him to hit me with the total: 87 altogether needed replacing. And it wasn’t as simple as just ripping out the old ones and putting new boards down, because the new ones had to be stained to match the old ones, which was easier said than done.
“The good news for you? We’ve got a lumber supplier who owes us a favor,” Daniel said. “We’ll buy whatever he’s tryin’ to get rid of, cheap as can be. Cost you a tenth of the sale price.”
“How much would that be?” I asked. I wasn’t knowledgeable enough to tell if this was a three-digit price job or five-digit.
Daniel squinted down at the floor. “Don’t rightly know. I’ll get a quote. If you want me to pursue it.”
I chewed on my lip. As nice as all this info was, I still didn’t think I even wanted to make the effort. “What else is on the list?”
He led me to the downstairs half-bath. “This.”
He didn’t need to elaborate. The cabinet above the toilet had broken loose from its drywall screws, and now lay on the ground in about 50 jagged pieces. It broke the toilet bowl in half on the way down, along with a huge section of the ceramic floor tiles. Although the water was turned off now, evidence was that it had run for a while before being discovered: a ring of moldy grey circled the bathroom, indicating it had soaked under three inches of water.
“Yeah,” I said. “First thing I saw when I got here.”
“Normally, I’d say a half-bath is low on the priority list,” Daniel said. “But sellin’ this house? This is the first thing people see when they come through the front door. Don’t wanna give them a bad first impression.”
“Yeah, I know,” I sighed. “Any idea what the damage will be?”
“Well, the damage is awfully plain. Broken toilet, cracked tiles. That drywall is rightly fouled up, and…”
“I meant the cost,” I said. “What’s the damage in terms of cost to repair?”
“Oh.” He scratched the back of his head and stared off at invisible numbers. “I’ll need to get a quote. Might be ab
le to work some deal.”
“Alright,” I said skeptically. I could practically feel the money draining out of my bank account.
“Those are the biggest things.” He lowered the notepad. “The attic damage, the drain, the cracked foundation at the corner, the bathroom, the floorboards… We fix those and this place’ll start looking sellable.”
“And the little things?”
He flipped the page. “Outdated appliances. An air conditioner older than me, with inefficient ductwork all through the house. Paint. Baseboards that are peelin’ off. A foundation that’s due for a real inspection…”
“Okay, okay,” I said, taking the notepad from him. “Let me consider these and I’ll get back to you.”
He hesitated. “So you might not even try? You’ll just leave the place the way it is?”
I gave him a weary look. “It’s tough sinking money into a place that we probably won’t be able to sell.”
“Well, there’s more reason to fix stuff than just tryin’ to sell.”
I poured a glass of water. “Is that so?”
“Sure. If it goes to foreclosure, the appraisal of the home’ll be awfully important in the auction price. Landon said the bank’s gunna go after your other assets? Then the auction matters even if you’re not involved. The better price they get, the less losses they have to recoup from you. We shouldn’t pour a ton of money into repairs, but if we can clean up around the edges? Fix the glaring stuff? Hell, it could save you tens of thousands of dollars later. Especially if we can do the work for cheap.”
I put down the glass of water and turned to face him slowly. He was totally right. I was writing off the entire house as worthless in my head, and that was a mistake. It still had some value which would offset the bank’s loss. And auction aside, if we could increase the appraised value it would reduce the bank’s overall loss, especially if the loan was federally insured. Which meant less of a loss for the bank to squeeze from me later.
“Daniel,” I said. “I work at a bank, and even I didn’t think of that.”
He rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Yeah, well, you’ve had a lot on your mind. Glad I could help ya see the full picture.”
Heidi was barking at something out front. I started walking toward the door while saying, “Let’s start with the big stuff. Everything you mentioned. Get quotes and estimates for me, and I’ll decide if it’s worth it from there.”
“I’ll get two different quotes for materials,” Daniel agreed. “The absolute cheapest material, and a slightly higher quality alternative. The foundation stuff is an area we don’t want to skimp…”
We stopped on the front porch as we realized why Heidi was barking. Coming up the driveway in the distance was a cloud of dust from a car. My first assumption was that it was Robert Bonile coming to give me an update on the probate court, but then I got a better look at the car: a black BMW.
Daniel whistled. “And here I thought your Lexus was out of place.”
I had a sinking feeling as the car pulled next to mine. It was probably someone from the bank. If they were here to demand we vacate the property…
When I saw who stepped out of the passenger side, I decided that a bank representative wouldn’t have been so bad.
“Ahh, fuck,” I said.
“Cindy!”
Francis Honeycomb was a football player. That was the best way, the only way, to describe him. He was a football player back in high school. He still had a football player’s too-bulky physique. Hell, he was wearing a Greenville High D-2 State Champs t-shirt underneath his blazer. He peaked in high school, like most of his type, and as best as I’d heard he hadn’t done anything worthwhile since then except sit on his daddy’s ranch drinking Bud Lite and stockpiling army surplus weapons for the impending apocalypse.
“Francis.”
“I heard you was back,” he said in that same hick accent from a decade ago, “but didn’t believe it. I don’t think I believe it now, even with my own two eyes.”
“Not back for long,” I said. “What are you doing here? Isn’t it dangerous to come out of your bunker without a gas mask on?”
The driver door opened. Herald Honeycomb might have been attractive when he was younger, but now he was softer than sunflowers. His gut protruded so far it looked like he was pregnant, and he struggled to squeeze his belly past the steering wheel. In his white suit and matching vest, he looked like an even more cartoonish version of Boss Hog. The once hard jawline had been smoothed over by the sandpaper of time, with a few added chins, and the mere effort of climbing out of the car left him red and out of breath.
“Miss Jameson,” he said, wiping his forehead with a handkerchief. “You’re looking as pretty as ever.”
“Wish I could say the same.”
His tired eyes looked up at the house. “Heard the ranch is going under.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Everyone knows,” Francis blurted. “No use in hidin’ it, now.”
His father cut him off with a raised hand. “What’d your daddy do? Piss it all away at the Indian casino?”
“What did you say to her?” Daniel’s fingers gripped his notebook tight at his side.
Francis took a dangerous step around the car, face darkening. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Someone who’s supposed to be here.”
“Don’t tell us where we can’t go.”
Before the situation could escalate to masculine critical mass, I said, “The ranch is going under. I bet you’re disappointed my dad can’t hear you gloat. There. Are you happy?”
He shrugged his huge shoulders. “Just wanted to check out the property. Reckon I might buy it at the bank auction. It’d be nice to double the size of my ranch with just the loose change in my pocket.”
He shoved a meaty fist into his pocket and gave it a jingle to emphasize the point. I considered making a joke about how only rednecks still carried around pocket change, but he’d probably take it as a compliment.
I pointed. “Property line’s a hundred feet that way. You can gaze all you want from there. Unless you want me to call the sheriff on you for trespassing…”
His grin showed perfect white teeth. I remembered them being yellow. He probably paid to have them whitened, or had implants put in. “Sheriff Axelrod retired two years back. Bad knee. The new sheriff plays poker with me every Friday night. I’d love for you to call him down here.”
I tasted bile at the back of my throat. Good ol’ boy sheriffs were a real thing here in West Texas. It was true growing up, and I was certain it was true now. If an altercation happened, and the Honeycombs were friendly with the sheriff, then our word wouldn’t mean much against theirs.
Thankfully, all Herald did was grunt. “Some more of your cattle wandered onto our property.”
“Third time this month,” Francis added.
“Great,” I muttered under my breath. Like I wanted to deal with this minutia right now. Louder, I said, “We’ve had fence problems. I’ve got men working to repair our property line right now. It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t,” the fat man said.
“Let us know when we can retrieve the cattle,” Daniel said. “My brothers will come over and drive them home.”
Francis squinted, and not because of the sun. “You’re one of the Hughes boys. Heard you got fired from the Anderson ranch! You the one who can’t ride a horse?”
“Can’t ride a horse?” Herald said. “Surely that’s not true. Never heard of a cowboy can’t ride a horse…”
Daniel turned four shades of red, which was all the confirmation they needed. They roared with laughter. Daniel took it in silence. I put a comforting hand on his back.
“The cattle,” Herald said when he was done, “might stay at our ranch a while. The brands are faded. Can’t really be sure it’s yours.”
“You just said they wandered over from our ranch!”
“Maybe I’m mistaken. If y
ou disagree, call the sheriff!” Herald took another long look at the house and shook his head. “This place is hardly worth the time to examine. Best to buy the land and bulldoze these shacks. Turn it all into pasture. Hope you enjoy it while you can, Miss Jameson.”
He climbed back into his BMW. Francis lingered at the passenger door. “Bye, Cindy. It sure was good seein’ ya again.”
They drove away, kicking up another cloud of dust.
I put up a confident front. I was used to it dealing with banking executives and ornery investors. But it was all a temporary facade. The moment the car turned around I began shaking, trembling with anger and frustration and sorrow.
It was a lot of things. The way they’d ridiculed Daniel. Their cavalier attitude regarding the shitty situation I was in. But what really hit me hard was seeing them at all. They were like a relic from another life, a jumble of old problems I’d tied up and left here when I moved to Austin. It was easy to ignore them, and all the damage they’d caused my family over the years, while I was a six hour drive away.
Now, they were here, because I was here, and my fucking problems were here, and I couldn’t run from them yet.
“Hey,” Daniel said, putting a hand on my back. “You alright?”
I took a shuddering breath. His voice was already calming me back down. I wasn’t alone. “I think so.”
“I’ve known men like them,” he said in a sexy baritone, glaring off in their direction. “I wish I could… I don’t know what.”
“You damn near strode forward and tried to fight Francis right there,” I said, smiling. “I appreciate your desire to fight for my dignity. It was cute.”
We smiled at each other, a perfectly innocent moment.
Until it wasn’t.
He leaned in and kissed me, his full lips finding mine like a magnet. I was shocked, and didn’t know what to do…
…And then it was exactly what I needed.
I closed my eyes and folded into his arms, letting his hard face and strong chest and even his freaking cowboy hat shield me from the problems of the world.