They talked for twenty minutes until Reese had to say goodbye. The meeting at Dos Estrellas was scheduled for two, and she wanted to check on her father one last time before leaving.
“I hope you feel better soon,” she said.
“Me, too. But I get to miss school, so that part’s good.”
Reese enjoyed their easy banter. “Send me pictures of the pizza party.”
“I will. Goodbye, Reese.”
“Goodbye, sweet pea.” Reese disconnected before softly saying, “I love you.” She and Celia weren’t quite close enough for her to speak the words. Not yet, anyway. Maybe one day. She refused to push.
In the kitchen, she found her father sitting at the table, having his customary afternoon coffee.
“I thought the doctor said caffeine was bad for you,” she scolded.
“Would you rather I have a whiskey?”
“Dad!”
“I’ve given up everything worthwhile. You’re not taking away my coffee.”
“Fine.” She patted his shoulder and kissed the top of his head. “I won’t tattle on you.”
“Your Aunt Louise sent me an email earlier. She wants to come for a visit at Christmas.”
“Great!” Reese’s mood brightened. She adored her father’s younger sister, who’d been like a second mother to her after her parents divorced. “How long’s she going to stay?”
“I told her no. That we were busy.”
“What!” Reese dropped into the chair across from her father and gaped at him.
“It’s not a good time.”
“You can’t hide your Parkinson’s forever.”
“I’m not ready to tell her.”
“It won’t be Christmas without family visiting.”
“Your Aunt Louise is a busybody. Always thinks she knows what’s best for people.”
“She loves you.”
“She’ll interfere.”
Reese bit her tongue. Her father was the one sick, not her. It was his choice whom he told and when, regardless if she disagreed.
“Off to your meeting at Dos Estrellas?” He was attempting to distract her, and she let him.
“Depending on how long the meeting lasts, I may come straight home and skip going back to the bank.”
“I’m still trying to wrap my brain around you being the trustee of August Dempsey’s estate.”
She’d finally informed her father last night, when she was able to do so. “Strange, I know.”
“August must be having himself one heck of a good laugh up in heaven.”
“He did choose the bank to act as trustee.”
“Probably didn’t realize you’d be the one running the show.”
There was no way for Reese to respond without violating her client’s privacy, so she said nothing.
“Poor man,” her father said. “He must have hated seeing the ranch fall to ruin like it did.”
“Dos Estrellas is hardly in ruins.”
“It’s buried in debt.”
Buried was an exaggeration. Waist-deep, maybe. “I can’t discuss the ranch finances with you.”
“He should have sold it to me when he had the chance.”
Reese shook her head. “And what would you do with Dos Estrellas? Let’s be honest, you’re having enough trouble running the Small Change.”
He grunted in displeasure. “Don’t count me out yet.”
“Never.” She smiled and kissed his head again before retrieving her briefcase and a travel mug of coffee from the counter. “I’ll see you later.”
“Good luck,” he called after her.
Reese passed Enrico on the way to her car, and they exchanged hellos. The ranch foreman was heading inside to give her father a report. The loyal employee had been doing that more and more of late, three or four times a day. And because her father was being regularly checked on, Reese was able to leave the house, confident he’d be all right.
In the indeterminable future, whether her father agreed or not, they would need to hire a caretaker. Reese could anticipate how their conversation would go and was dreading it.
During the ten-minute drive to Dos Estrellas, she mentally prepared for the meeting. This, she realized, was the third day in a row she’d see Gabe. She should get used to it. With her new responsibilities, they would be in frequent contact. The notion gave her a not-so-small shiver of anticipation—which she promptly squashed. Her attraction to Gabe was inappropriate, and even if they were to date, the timing couldn’t be worse. He had a ranch in serious financial trouble to run alongside two brothers he didn’t get along with.
Reese slowed to take the turn into the Dos Estrellas driveway. She parked in the same spot as yesterday, instantly reminded of her and Gabe’s awkward, yet strangely intimate, parting. She’d have sworn he was about to say something revealing and romantic to her. When he didn’t, she blamed her overactive imagination playing tricks on her.
But there was that moment between them on the hilltop when he’d fastened her into the poncho...
Enough, she told herself. This has to stop.
Raquel Salazar answered Reese’s knock on the door, smiling affectionately. “Come in, chiquita.”
Little girl? Reese could hardly call herself that. Raquel, however, was the motherly type who called everyone by an endearment.
“I have the office all set for you.” Raquel indicated a door off the living room. “This way.”
August’s home office was a masculine mixture of functional and comfortable. Situated behind a heavy antique desk was an oversized executive chair. It nearly swallowed Reese when she sat down. Certificates lined one wall. August, it appeared, had been a member of several professional organizations, including the Arizona Cattlemen’s Association.
On the other wall hung family portraits spanning several decades, back to the first Dempsey who’d originally purchased the land and built the ranch. A well-worn leather couch sat beneath the portraits and looked cozy enough to sink into for long hours of reading or listening to the old-fashioned stereo system.
Notably absent was evidence of modern technology. No computer. No TV, flat-screen or otherwise. No smartphone docking station or Bluetooth speaker. In fact, the one phone was an antiquated desktop model with a push-button dial pad, and the clock required a weekly winding to run.
Reese glanced around the room. “Where did August keep the ranch records?”
“In here.” Raquel walked to a black lateral filing cabinet adjacent to the couch and opened the top drawer.
Reese could see rows and rows of hanging file folders with various headings: Payroll, Vehicles, Insurance, Veterinary Care, to name a few. “What about the financial information?”
“Ah.” Raquel pulled out an elongated brown binder, which she placed on the desk in front of Reese. “Do you mean this?”
“Wow.” Reese opened the binder and stared in amazement at the three-to-a-page checks and the thick stack of stubs. “I didn’t know anybody used manual checks anymore.”
“August didn’t trust computers.”
“So I see.” Reese sighed, flipping through the stubs and noting the entries. “What about income? How did he track that?”
Raquel opened a side drawer of the desk. Inside were a half dozen green accounting ledger books stacked one on top of the other.
“Great.” Reese definitely had her work cut out for her. “Prior year tax returns handy?”
Those were in the next drawer down. Reese was relieved to see they’d been prepared by a local CPA.
Thankfully, Hector Fuentes had given her a flash drive with August’s plan for the ranch, including a month-by-month and year-by-year schedule. Reese wasn’t sure what she’d have done with handwritten notes.
“I’ll tell the boys you’re here,” Raque
l said and left, her footsteps soundless on the thick, colorful area rug.
Reese removed her laptop from her briefcase and powered it up. She also pulled out a copy of the entire living trust. When, a few minutes later, no one had yet arrived, she began examining the first accounting journal. It was meticulously updated until four months ago. After that, the entries were sketchy, then they stopped altogether.
August had probably gotten too sick to continue, which didn’t bode well for the ranch finances.
Cole entered the office, removing his cowboy hat and running a hand through his windblown blond hair. Not the person Reese expected to see first.
“Hi.” She greeted him in her best assistant bank manager smile. “Have a seat.”
Raquel had brought in three chairs from the dining room and placed them across from the desk. Cole chose the one on the right and, sitting, balanced his hat on his knee.
“Will this take long?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Depends on a number of things.”
“Like?” He couldn’t have a bigger chip on his shoulder if he tried.
“The number of questions you all have. How quickly we get through reviewing the records. What shape they’re in.” Terrible, these past four months. “How cooperative you are.”
He answered by slouching in the chair, crossing his boots at the ankles and his arms over his stomach.
Reese wasn’t impressed or intimidated.
Gabe entered the office next with Josh right behind him. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they arrived together. But that was impossible, right?
“Hey, Reese.” Josh grinned affably before taking the middle chair. “It is okay if I call you Reese?”
“Of course,” she replied, trying not to stare at Gabe like a love-struck teenager.
He’d clearly come from the pastures or barn or wherever it was he’d been working. He smelled of the outdoors and looked ruggedly handsome with his tanned complexion and two-day growth of beard. With a nonchalance both unconscious and incredibly sexy, he sat, rolled down his shirtsleeves and rebuttoned them at the cuffs, but not before Reese caught sight of strong, prominently muscled arms with a light dusting of hair.
She remembered those arms from when they’d held her the night of their senior prom. She’d thought then they were the kind of arms a woman could rely on to take care of her and keep her safe.
“Are we ready to start?” Thankfully, her voice didn’t betray the riot of emotions warring inside her.
Chapter Four
Gabe listened as Reese read from a document on her laptop computer. His father’s plan for Dos Estrellas. Given the amount of detail, he’d trusted his legitimate sons no more than he’d trusted Gabe acting alone to make the right decisions for the ranch.
If it were possible for Gabe to move farther away from Josh without being obvious, he would. Why his mother had felt the need to place the chairs within inches of each other, he didn’t know. To promote comradery was his guess. As if sitting close would dissolve years of animosity and resentment.
Admittedly, Gabe’s opinion of Josh had risen the smallest fraction yesterday following his remark about Gabe’s right hook. Cole, well, he continued to annoy Gabe. The guy took attitude to a new level with a temper to match. To be fair, he probably thought the same thing about Gabe. And, no, that didn’t make them brothers or even pals. Simply two people with good reason to be angry at each other.
Struggling to stay focused, he concentrated on Reese. It didn’t help. She was far too distracting.
Today, she wore dress slacks and a tan sweater that, despite being bulky, hinted at the lovely, lush figure beneath. She wore minimal makeup—something Gabe preferred. Her one exception, pink lipstick accentuating a very kissable mouth.
Come to think of it, the other day on the mountain she hadn’t been wearing any lipstick, and Gabe had still thought her mouth was kissable. Was every red-blooded male who came into the bank like him, appreciating her looks?
He supposed his brothers were entertaining similar thoughts. Josh had intimated as much yesterday, and Cole was practically licking his chops, which didn’t sit well with Gabe. Was she noticing Cole in return?
Gabe’s sudden sense of possessiveness regarding Reese made him pause. He had no claims on her and no interest in her, other than as the trustee of the Dempsey Living Trust. Best he remember that.
“Your father’s first recommendation,” Reese said, “is to sell off any excess cattle.”
“Which we’ve already done.” Gabe’s remark had everyone turning in his direction. “This past fall we sold off about a quarter of the herd. Had to in order to pay for Dad’s treatment.”
At his mother’s insistence, they’d admitted his father to a cancer center in Tucson. There, he’d been poked and prodded and subjected to an array of experimental drugs. The treatment may have extended his father’s life by a few weeks. It certainly hadn’t improved the quality of it.
“Can we sell more cattle?” Cole asked.
“We’re down to sixteen hundred head. If we deplete the herd any more, we won’t have enough breeding stock for next year.”
“Can we buy more cows when the time comes?”
The question came from Josh, and Gabe resisted a biting reply. His brother clearly hadn’t been listening to any of their conversations this week.
“Not unless you have a way of printing money.”
Reese rested her elbows on the desk. “Your father did establish a line of credit with the bank before he died, secured by the ranch. One hundred thousand dollars.”
Gabe hid his surprise. He had no idea.
“But I would advise drawing on the line very conservatively until the ranch is generating enough income to cover the interest payments.”
“Beef is high now anyway,” Gabe said. The elevated prices had been good when it came to selling their stock, but would be bad for buying. “We’d be smarter to wait on buying more cows until the spring or next summer when prices drop.”
“In that case,” Reese continued, “we’ll move to the next item on your father’s list. Maintain the current herd through winter.”
Gabe reined in his impatience. “Which is going to be a problem.”
“How so?” Josh asked.
At his brothers’ blank stares, Gabe said, “We’ve had no rain since last fall, and grass doesn’t grow without water. At this rate, we’ll have to buy hay and grain to supplement the grass or the herd will suffer.”
Reese nodded thoughtfully. “I see.”
Gabe wondered if she did see. She was the daughter of a cattle rancher and must have some idea about weather and its effect on grazing lands. The Small Change was in the same position as Dos Estrellas; they would need to buy supplemental feed, as well. There was one big difference. The Small Change wouldn’t be buying supplemental feed with the last cent to their name.
“How much money is in the ranch checking account?” Cole asked.
The question irked Gabe, though he’d wondered the same thing. From what he’d seen of Cole, all his brother cared about was money and getting his hands on some. Reese had tried to warn him yesterday after the reading of the will, specifically, about Cole’s wanting money rather than part ownership of the ranch.
Reese returned to her computer screen. After a minute, she said, “Less than ten thousand dollars, I’m afraid.”
“What about his life insurance? Was there a policy?”
Gabe bristled. Cole didn’t even have the decency to refer to their father as Dad.
“Yes.” Reese returned Cole’s probing stare. Kudos to her, thought Gabe. She had no fear. Then again, he’d seen her trying to pull a thousand-pound horse out of a sinkhole by herself. That was the definition of no fear. “The proceeds went to Raquel.”
“Aren’t
they part of the estate?”
She shook her head. “Gabe’s mother is the owner of the policy and the beneficiary.”
“Is that legal?”
“Perfectly.”
Cole’s mouth turned down. He wasn’t happy about the policy or Reese’s clipped tone, but he said nothing.
Good thing. Gabe’s mother had stood faithfully by his father for years, including the last two, which had been the hardest. She deserved something, and Gabe’s father had wanted her to have a small nest egg. If Cole had objected, Gabe would have been compelled to give him more than a piece of his mind.
Last night, over coffee, his mother had hinted at giving the money to Gabe. He’d refused and not because of his father’s wishes. With all their futures uncertain, he, too, wanted his mother to have some money to fall back on.
“The next item on your father’s plan is to slowly increase the herd.”
“How do we accomplish that if we’ve sold off a quarter of the cattle and can’t buy more?” Unlike his younger brother, there was no rancor in Josh’s voice.
“Aggressive breeding,” Gabe answered for Reese. “And choosing the right time of year.”
“What determines that?”
“Availability of feed and beef prices.”
“Which are high.” Josh said.
He appeared interested, but Gabe remained skeptical. It would take a lot more than a token show of interest to change his mind about either of his brothers.
“Prices are high today,” he said. “But they can change in a matter of weeks. And, like I mentioned before, weather’s affected the growth of grass. Poor feed results in poor-quality cattle. Whatever extra money we have will pay for grain and hay. There’s also the matter of land. Each acre can feasibly sustain only so many cattle. Right now, with a shortage of grass, it’s about two head.”
“That’s all?”
Josh’s question showed just how little he and Cole knew about the cattle industry. What was their father thinking when he left them two-thirds of the ranch? Gabe had his work cut out for him. He could either try to teach them the cattle business or watch them fail and drag him down, too.
Her Holiday Rancher Page 5