by Lexie Ray
“You could’ve told us earlier,” Hunter persisted, as if it were my damn fault the ranch was going under.
“Would an hour earlier have made a difference?” I asked. “I didn’t think it was my place to tell you. That’s why I didn’t.”
We all looked to Chance, the de facto captain of this sinking ship.
“So what’s the plan?” Tucker asked, clapping his hands together. “What are we going to do to put the bank off?”
“There’s no putting the bank off anymore,” I said, only because I didn’t think Chance could bring himself to say it. “The original loan — and its accrued interest — must be paid in full by the end of the month.”
“I thought everything was okay,” Emmett said.
“Nothing’s ever okay,” I said, but stopped when Chance shot me a look. “We had a deal with the bank, but all of you know how hard it’s been around here. The drought has been screwing everyone over. We can barely keep up our expenses, let alone pay taxes or even think about trying to repay what we owe.”
“You don’t have to pay me,” Zoe said, sidling into the room. “It’s enough of a kindness that you all are letting my son and me stay here.”
Chance looked up. “We value your work here. Of course you’re still going to get paid.”
“I can’t accept it, then,” she said. “Not in a situation like this when you all need to be scraping together whatever money you can find. Living here saved our lives. I won’t take your money from you.”
Chance bowed his head again, unable to find the words to form a response to that.
“Let’s go through it line by line,” Tucker said, false cheer in his voice. He was trying — all of them were — to find the sunny side, to come through victorious against yet another opponent. “Where can we scrimp and save? What are we spending too much money on? All of us can go without pay to try and help make the repayment.”
“All of us have been going without pay for a while now,” Chance said quietly. “You know that.”
“All right,” Tucker said. “Let’s try it this way: What can we do without? How much of the herd can we cull to settle the debt? It’ll be hard for a while, but we’ll eventually get them back.”
“We don’t have a herd big enough to settle the debt,” Chance said, and everyone blinked at that.
“How much is it, exactly, that we need to repay?” Emmett asked.
“I don’t think you want to know,” Chance said. “Enough that we should seriously consider Bud Billings’ offer.”
The entire front room blew up.
“That rotten motherfucker is never going to get this ranch,” Hunter spat.
“I’d rather starve than sell to him,” Tucker put in.
“There has to be another way,” Emmett said.
“There isn’t.” Chance stood and tried to resume his pacing, but plopped back down in the chair, exhausted by all of this. “I’ve run the numbers. Every single combination of them. Selling the contents of the barn. Selling the herd. Selling the horses.” Here, Emmett made a sound of protest, but Chance ignored him. “Selling the house. The trucks.”
“What about parceling the land?” I asked.
“I don’t want to break up the ranch,” Chance said. “It’s what Mom and Dad wanted for us. It said so in their will. As long as I’m alive and able, I’m keeping this ranch together.”
“But you’re seriously considering selling to Bud?” I asked, dubious.
“Only because I’m worried for all of you,” Chance said. “This is the life we all know. This is what we’ve been doing for our whole lives. What are we supposed to do once the bank takes this place away from us? How are any of us going to survive?”
“The bank’s not going to take it,” Hunter said vehemently. “We’ll figure something out.”
“I think it’s time to start thinking about what we want to do after the ranch,” Chance said. “Ten thousand dollars isn’t much, but it’ll pay the rent for a few months at an apartment until you can get back on your feet.”
“This isn’t like you to give up,” Tucker said. “Do you think Mom and Dad would’ve wanted this place to go to Bud Billings? Fuck, no.”
But Chance continued on as if he hadn’t paused. “Tucker, I bet you can go back to the police force — any police force. It doesn’t have to be Dallas. You’d be recommended anywhere. Get yourself a cushy spot in a small town like this one. Emmett, you’d be snapped up in a second for vets and horse farms.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Emmett said. “We should be a horse farm, too, in addition to the cattle. We could sell the horses for much more than what the cattle are going for, and it would diversify the ranch.”
“The horses would be starving and thirsty right alongside the cattle,” Chance said tiredly. “Now isn’t the time, and I don’t think there ever will be a time for that. Take your ten thousand dollars and invest in your own dream.”
“This is a pointless exercise,” Hunter said angrily. “This is our ranch. We’re going to save it.”
“You would make an excellent spokesman for the Marines,” Chance said, looking at him. “You’re a success story because you turned everything around. You could find work with them that you really might find rewarding — or with another organization that helps veterans.”
“But that’s not what I want to do,” Hunter said angrily. “What would you do? Become a football star like everyone always wanted you to be? You’re no Brett Favre.”
Hadley walked in the front door with a bag full of supplies. “Am I missing a meeting?” she asked. “Why do you all look like someone just died?”
“The bank’s trying to take the ranch,” Hunter told her, reaching for her, in need of physical comfort.
“There’s no trying,” I said, attempting to get through to him. “It’s a done deal. It’s happening. We don’t have the money to pay the loan in full without obliterating the ranch.”
“How much?” she asked, pure business. “I’ll liquidate my assets.”
“We couldn’t accept that, Hadley,” Chance said.
“Nonsense. What’s mine is Hunter’s is the Corbins’.”
“We owe upward of five million dollars,” Chance said. “No offense, Hadley, but I don’t think getting rid of your every worldly possession is going to make a dent in that.”
“I wish it would,” she said, as all of us stared, aghast. “I can try to get a loan, use my business as collateral.”
“Not for five million dollars,” Hunter said grimly. “Your business is new. No one is going to want to take that risk.”
“I’m an established physical therapist with a great reputation,” she said. “Look what I did for your sorry ass.” He smiled and kissed her, and I thought of Paisley, my panic growing.
“What would I do if the bank took the ranch?” I asked suddenly, staring at Chance. He’d foretold everyone’s post-ranch futures except for mine, and my inner turmoil turned outward. I didn’t have an identity away from this place as much as I craved to have one.
“You can do whatever you want to do, Avery,” Chance said, defeated. “I’m sorry, you guys. I’m sorry that it’s come to this. But I think I’m going to call Bud Billings and tell him that a deal’s a deal. Anything else we do is just holding off the inevitable, selling land parcels included. This ranch hasn’t made us money for a long time.”
It was what I had been thinking to myself for years, but hearing Chance say it out loud — Chance, the champion of this place — really hammered it home.
“I just want you all to be happy and successful,” he said, putting his face in his hands, muffling his words. “I think you can do it outside of the ranch, even if it wasn’t what Mom and Dad wanted for us. I think they would understand, now, how hard it is, that we tried our best, that we’re doing this to look out for each other.”
Chance’s shoulders hitched, and Zoe went to him, laying her hand on his head in an oddly intimate gesture.
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��You all have your health, and whether you realize it or not, you’ll find your happiness somewhere else,” she said. “Ten thousand dollars is much more than many people have. You’ll be smart and creative with it, from what I’ve seen. You Corbins are pretty good at taking care of yourselves. You’ll be fine.”
“I just really wanted us to keep this place,” Chance sobbed. “It’s all we have left of our parents.”
With that, it suddenly became clear to me just what my role would be. I thought I would want to be rid of this place, but now that the reality of that imagining was upon me, I understood that I didn’t have an identity beyond the ranch. This ranch was just as big a part of me as it was the rest of my brothers. Even if all of them would go on to be successful at other pursuits, this was the one they wanted the most, the one our parents had left us. It really was our legacy, and if I didn’t speak up, Bud Billings, of all people, would take charge of it.
“We’re not losing the ranch,” I said quietly, but no one paid me any mind. Hadley was comforting Hunter, Tucker was sitting, mostly composed except for his hands, which were gripping the armrests of the chair he was in so tightly that his knuckles were white, and Emmett was furiously scrolling through his phone as if it would save him from all of this. Zoe kept her hand on Chance’s head as he wept for all that he thought he had lost us.
“Listen to me,” I said, louder. “Everyone stop. This isn’t over. We’re not going to let the bank take this ranch.”
“You said it was a done deal,” Hunter reminded me. “Just now. We all heard you.”
“We’re just going to move forward,” Tucker said, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself of that fact than anyone else. “We don’t have to pretend to hang on here anymore. We’ll keep moving forward and everything will be okay.”
“We will move forward, but it will be with this ranch,” I said even more forcefully this time.
“It’s not fair to get everyone’s hopes up, Avery,” Emmett said. “I seriously doubt you have five million dollars just sitting around, or else you would’ve told us by now — I hope.”
“I don’t have five million dollars just sitting around, but I know someone who might,” I said.
Now even Chance was looking at me. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the Summers Ranch,” I said, feeling lightheaded. “More specifically, I’m talking about Paisley Summers.”
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific than that,” Chance said.
“Isn’t Paisley that girl who used to hang on you all the time in school?” Emmett asked.
“Oh, I’ve seen her around,” Hunter said. “She’s hot.” He endured a good-natured smack from Hadley.
“Is Paisley just going to loan you that money?” Tucker asked, eyeing me. “Her father’s the one who owns that ranch.”
“It’s not a loan,” I said. “It’s a contract.”
“I don’t like the way this sounds,” Chance said.
“We’ll have to iron out the details with Paisley and her father,” I said, “but they’re apparently looking to erase the debt and merge the two ranches.”
“What?” Chance asked quietly.
“What do we have to do to get that deal?” Tucker asked, smelling a turd for what it was.
“We don’t have to do anything,” I said, swallowing hard. “I just have to marry her.”
I wasn’t sure what I expected out of my brothers, or how they should’ve reacted, but that statement was met with a dead silence.
“I don’t know what I’d be angrier about,” Chance said quietly, breaking it, “that this was a joke, or that it wasn’t.”
“Well, I can assure you that it isn’t a joke,” I said. “I, um, ran in to Paisley in town last night. That’s when we discussed it.”
“But why would she want to marry you?” Chance asked, genuinely confused.
“Aw, come on,” Tucker said. “He’s a handsome bastard. Don’t be mean to him.”
“She’s always been in love with him,” Emmett said. “That’s why. Right?”
“I’m not saying that Avery’s unlovable,” Chance said, rolling his bloodshot eyes. “But if Sam Summers wanted to merge the ranch, why would he need the marriage?”
“Sam wasn’t the one who approached me,” I said. “It was Paisley. She seems to think that it would be a better deal for me to, ah, marry her.” I would never get used to saying that out loud. “The money isn’t on the table unless the wedding is.”
“Well, that’s one way to catch a man,” Zoe said almost admiringly.
“Are you worth five million dollars?” Hunter asked. “Does she know how big the debt is?”
“She says she knows it’s a lot, but that they have the money,” I said, so embarrassed that it was hard to sit still under the scrutiny of everyone crammed in the room.
“Would you be her five million dollar love slave?” Tucker joked.
“Not funny,” Zoe chided gently.
“Sorry.”
“But what does that five million dollars buy?” Chance asked. “I know that it would resolve the debt, but what is Summers looking to get out of it?”
“Just me,” I said weakly. “And the merger.”
“What in the world is so special about you?” Chance demanded. “Five million dollars?”
“Chance, don’t pick on him.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess you’d have to ask Paisley.”
All of us Corbins were seated around the rich oaken dining room table at the Summers house within a couple of hours, Paisley and Sam at each end of it and the rest of us sandwiched in the middle. Sam looked tired, but that probably came with the territory of running the Summers Ranch, which was a little bit larger than our own. Paisley, on the other hand, looked fiercely triumphant, as fresh as if she hadn’t spent all night drinking and having sex with me. She grinned at me, but I had trouble looking at her. I knew I was doing this to save the ranch, but the slow spiral of panic that had begun back in the front room of the house was only deepening. Was I making the right decision? I looked around at my brothers, who were all cautiously optimistic, Paisley, who was ecstatic, and Sam, who was, if anything, resigned. Was I the only one who was dreading this? That would look bad, if so. I tried for at least a neutral face, or what I thought was a neutral face, but there was no telling what my face was doing.
“I guess we’d like you to try and explain to us why you’re interested in repaying the loan and merging the ranches instead of trying to buy our property outright,” Chance said again. We’d been talking around each other in circles for the last half hour.
And once again, Sam spread his hands. “Your parents were good people. You’re running a good operation the right way. We’re quickly becoming the last of our kind, our ranches, and we should look out for each other. And I can’t say no to my daughter. She’s had her eye on Avery for a long while now.”
That was everyone’s cue to stare at me, trying to determine if I was worth all of this, and I tried very hard to look normal.
“Avery and I are very passionate,” Paisley threw in. “And I know that if we combined our resources, the Corbin-Summers Ranch would be one of the most successful in the state.”
“My daughter wants what she wants. I can’t deny her happiness, if Avery makes her happy.”
“I hate to use such arcane terms, but does a dowry make sense?” Paisley asked innocently. “I’m marrying Avery, I’m inheriting the ranch from my father, and the ranch comes with me wherever I go. Does everyone understand that?”
“Okay,” Chance said slowly. “Say we — Avery — agrees to all of this. Well, we’re speaking in terms of the ranch merger now.” The wedding was already decided, apparently. “What, exactly, is expected in this merger?”
“Which brother is in charge of the Corbin Ranch?” she asked.
“We all hold equal shares,” Chance said.
“Chance is in charge,” I cut in. It was ludicr
ous to suggest otherwise. “He handles all the books, all of the business side of it.”
“CEO of the Corbin side of Corbin-Summers Ranch,” Paisley said, pointing at Chance. Then, she jerked a thumb into her own chest. “CEO of the Summers side of Corbin-Summers Ranch.”
Everyone stared at her. Even though Paisley had professed her love for the ranch life just last night, I never imagined in a million years that she would be interested in — or capable of — running one herself.
“What do you know about running a ranch?” I blurted out.
“Enough,” she said with a smile. “And I have you boys to teach me the rest of the ropes, right?”
I glanced over at Sam, who was staring down at his hands.
“What about your father?” I asked. “Mr. Summers, where do you figure in to all of this?”
“I’m well past retirement,” he said. “I’d be pleased to offer you boys and Paisley any sort of advice on the business, though I know you all got quite an education from your lovely parents. But I’ve worked hard in my life. It’d be nice to take a backseat to all of this and watch you young things struggle for a while, instead.”
“I just can’t help feeling like this is a charity case,” Chance said.
Tucker raised his eyebrows in warning — Tucker was always leaping to defend us from Chance, who came off too strong too often — but Paisley broke the tension with her bell of a laugh.
“Charity case?” she repeated. “I’m in love with Avery.”
And maybe that was the most unbelievable thing of all, that Paisley could keep the candle burning for me all these years. Did I love her? I didn’t think so. Did I have feelings for her? That, too, was under question. Was I ready to marry her? Hell, no. Did I have a choice? Probably not.
For approximately the thousandth time, I cursed myself for falling into this carefully laid trap. There wasn’t anything I could do but marry Paisley Summers because it was for the sake of my family’s ranch. She could say she loved me all she wanted. I was still convinced she was delusional.
“So where should we start?” Chance was asking. “Tear down the fences between our properties? Keep them and put in a gate? Look at consolidating ranch hands and equipment?”