Chapter 20
Rhett
Through the rain-streaked window of Boone’s cabin, I watch the taillights of the truck fade into the gray gloom. The red glow bounces off the wet mud of the driveway, then disappears around the bend toward the main road.
“Did she just...” Knox asks from behind me, his words trailing off.
“Yeah,” I say, turning away from the glass. “She took the truck and left.”
Boone’s sitting at his small kitchen table, his head in his hands. He looks up, his brow furrowed. “Where is she going in this weather? The roads are washing out.”
“Maybe she just needed to get out,” Knox says, stretching his arms over his head. His spine cracks, loud in the quiet room. “It’s been tense. We’re all living on top of each other. Even the dog is getting cabin fever.”
We retreated to Boone’s cabin after finishing the morning chores.
Feeding the livestock in the pouring rain is a miserable job, and we were all shivering and coated in mud.
The generators are keeping the essentials running, but the cabins themselves are freezing without proper central heating.
The wood stoves help, but the dampness seeps into everything.
“Why are we holding a secret meeting anyway?” Knox drops into the armchair, resting his boots on the coffee table. “Is this about the fact that she’s been stealing your sweatshirt? Because I think it’s the dog that’s the culprit, not her.”
“This isn’t about the sweatshirt,” I say. I pull the crumpled envelope from my back pocket and toss it onto the table in front of Boone.
Boone picks it up, his frown deepening. “What’s this?”
“Mail came yesterday,” I say. “I grabbed it from the box at the end of the driveway before the storm washed it away. It was addressed to the estate, but I opened it. It looked official.”
Boone pulls out the papers. His eyes scan the page, and then he goes still.
“What?” Knox leans forward, trying to read over Boone’s shoulder. “Don’t keep us in suspense.”
“It’s a notice from the County,” Boone says, his tone flat. “Code enforcement.”
“Code enforcement?”
“Anthony missed several regulatory inspections on the barns,” Boone reads. “Structural integrity, electrical wiring updates, waste management systems. They flagged the south barn and the stables back in June. There were follow-up notices in August and October. None of them were answered.”
“Anthony was sick,” I say. “He probably didn’t even open them. Or he forgot.”
“Well, the county doesn’t care,” Boone says. He slides the paper across the table so Knox can see. “Look at the fines.”
Knox whistles. “Holy shit.”
The total at the bottom of the page is bold and black. Eighteen thousand, four hundred and fifty dollars.
“They’re threatening to condemn the structures if the repairs aren’t completed and the fines paid by the date of the next inspection,” Boone says.
“When is the next inspection?” I ask.
Boone checks the paper. “Two weeks.”
“Two weeks?” Knox rubs his face. “Eighteen grand? Plus the cost of repairs? We don’t have that kind of cash sitting around.”
“I have some savings,” I say. “But not enough to cover that and the materials. Do you have access to your rodeo winnings?”
Knox shakes his head, looking frustrated.
“I’m waiting on a payout from that Wrangler shoot I did last month.
Gary said the check is stuck in accounting.
And with the circuit on hold... I don’t know when I’ll see another prize check.
Most of my assets are tied up in investments I can’t liquidate without taking a huge hit. ”
“And I put everything I had into the new tractor last spring,” I add. “I’m liquid, but not that liquid.”
Boone leans back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. “So we’re broke. And the ranch is about to get shut down.”
“Can we fix the stuff ourselves?” Knox asks. “The repairs? We’re competent guys. We can do the wiring. We can fix the railings.”
“We can do the labor,” I agree. “But we need materials. Lumber, wire, fixtures. That costs money. And the fines... the County won’t take a promissory note. They want cash.”
Boone looks at me. “Is it even our place to pay this? It’s her ranch. Her debt. Maybe we should just tell her. Let her handle it.”
“And let the barns get condemned?” I counter. “If they condemn the barns, we can’t house the cattle. We lose the herd. We lose the hay storage. This place becomes worthless. Not just to her, but to us.”
“She’s going to freak out,” Knox says. “She’s already on edge. If we tell her Anthony let this happen, that he ignored the letters... she’s going to lose it.”
“She’s already lost it,” I mutter.
We’ve all noticed it. The distance. The way she moves around the main house like a ghost. She still sleeps right in the middle of the floor, but she makes an effort to pretend that we aren’t there either.
We’re all stuck in the main house. The generators can’t handle the load of heating three separate cabins in this weather, so we’ve all moved into the big house. It’s crowded. Too crowded.
“We’re spending a fortune on fuel for those generators,” Knox points out. “We can’t keep this up for months. We need the power back on permanently. Which means fixing the grid issues, which is part of the inspection.”
“So we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t,” Boone says. He drums his fingers on the table. “If we pay the fines, we’re investing in a property she might sell out from under us. If we don’t, we lose the work we’ve put in for years.”
“Do you think she would really sell it out from under us?” I ask. “After everything? After the storm?”
“I don’t know,” Boone admits. “She’s angry, Rhett. She’s hurt. And she’s stubborn as hell. She sees us as the enemy. She thinks we’re trying to steal her birthright.”
“She told me as much,” I say. “The other day. She said my kindness wouldn’t change her mind. She thinks we’re manipulating her.”
“Are we?” Knox asks. “Are we manipulating her?”
“I don’t know,” I say again. “But I know we can’t fix the financial mess without talking to her. The best way out of this is taking out a loan, and even if that’s successful, we can’t just drop eighteen thousand dollars without her knowing.”
“She won’t take the money,” Boone says. “She’s too proud. She’ll see it as us buying her off.”
“Then we don’t frame it as buying her off,” I say. “We frame it as a loan. Or an investment. Or we just present the problem and the solution together, and make her realize she has no other choice.”
Knox groans. “This is going to go well.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s going to be a disaster.”
Six hours later, the front door opens.
Knox and I are in the living room, waiting. The rain hasn’t let up, but the wind has died down to a moan.
Saramaria walks in, Blue bounding in ahead of her, shaking water all over the rug. She’s soaked, her hair plastered to her head, but she looks... lighter. There’s a color in her cheeks that wasn’t there this morning. She smells faintly of perfume and old books, overlaying the wet dog scent.
She stops when she sees us. The light fades from her eyes, replaced by the usual wary guard.
“Hey,” she says.
“We were wondering when you’d get back,” Knox says, standing up. He looks at me.
I take the cue. I walk over to the mantle and pick up the County notice.
“Is this about the truck? I left a note.” She sounds defensive.
“This isn’t about the truck, Saramaria,” I say. “We need to talk.”
She stiffens, her hand tightening on Wellsy’s collar. “What is it?”
I hand her the envelope.
She takes it, her frown matching Boone’s from earlier. She opens it, pulling out the papers.
I watch her face closely as she reads. I see the shock register. Then the confusion. Then the dawning of the reality.
“Eighteen thousand dollars?” she whispers. “How... when did this happen?”
“Anthony missed the inspections,” I say, keeping my tone even. “He was sick, Saramaria. It wasn’t malicious. But the County doesn’t care about intent.”
She reads on, her eyes scanning the page frantically. “Next inspection... two weeks?”
“Yes.”
“If they condemn the barns...” She trails off, her mind working fast. She knows what it means. She’s a lawyer. She knows liability.
“If they condemn the barns, we have to move the cattle,” I say. “And in this weather, moving them could kill half the herd. We don’t have anywhere else to put them.”
She looks up, her eyes wide. She opens her mouth to speak, to deny it, to argue, but she stops. She looks at the paper again.
Her hands shake.
It’s a subtle tremor, but I see it. The paper rattles in her grip. She tries to steady it with her other hand, but that one is shaking too.
“I can fix this,” she says, but her voice wavers. “I have money. I have savings. I just need to transfer it. But the banks might be closed because of the storm, and I don’t know if I can get it cleared in time.”
“Banks are open online,” Knox points out gently.
“But the transfer might take days to process,” she says, panic rising in her scent. It’s sharp, like ozone. “And then there’s all the repairs. What if they come out here and... and...”
She looks at me, lost.
“Saramaria,” I say. I step closer, invading her space just enough to ground her. “We can handle the repairs. The physical ones. We know what needs to be done. We can do the work before the inspector gets here.”
“But the materials,” she says. “The wood. The wire.”
“We can front the cost,” I say. “Knox and I have enough liquid to buy the supplies. Boone can source the lumber from the mill on credit.”
I don’t tell her that we might need to take an extra loan to handle all of it.
“You can’t...” She shakes her head. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You didn’t ask,” I say. “We’re offering. Consider it a loan against the lease. We can work out the details later.”
She stares at me. The panic in her eyes slowly recedes, replaced by a overwhelming look of gratitude. It makes my chest tight.
“You would do that?” she asks. “Even after... everything?”
“We live here too,” Knox says from behind me. “We don’t want to see it fall apart any more than you do.”
Saramaria looks down at the notice, then back at us. She swallows hard. “Okay. Okay. Thank you.”
She sets the paper down on the table, her hand lingering on it. She looks toward the window, where the gray rain is still falling.
“I just...” She lets out a breath. “I need to get out of this house. I need to clear my head.”
“You just got back,” Knox says.
“I know,” she says. She turns to me. “Do you think... is there a horse I could ride? Just for an hour? I need to feel the wind. I need to move.”
I hesitate. The horses are slick with mud; the ground is treacherous.
“We have the mustang in the east pasture,” I say slowly. “He’s green, but he’s gentle enough.”
“No,” she says, a sad smile touching her lips. “I was thinking... I wish Blossom was still around. I wish I could take her out.” She looks at the floor, her eyes distant. “She knew me. She knew how I rode. We didn’t need words. We just... went.”
The mention of the old mare hangs in the air. We all remember Blossom.
“She was a good horse,” I tell her.
“Yeah,” Saramaria whispers. “She was the best.”
She stands there for a moment, lost in a memory I can’t see. Then she shakes herself, the wall slamming back into place.
“I’m going to go change,” she says. “If you guys are making a supply list for the repairs, I want to see it.”
She turns and walks down the hall toward her room, Wellsy trotting faithfully behind her.
I look at Knox.
“We’re doing it, then?” Knox asks.
“We’re doing it,” I say.
Knox picks up the notice. “Eighteen thousand dollars. We’re going to be eating ramen for a year.”
“Probably,” I say.
But as I look down the hall where she disappeared, I know it doesn’t matter. The relief on her face when I said we’d handle it... that was worth more than eighteen grand.
We’re in trouble. We all know it. We’re investing in a sinking ship, a woman who wants us gone. But watching her walk away, shoulders slumped under the weight of her grandfather’s mistakes, I know there isn’t a single place I’d rather be.