Chapter Sixteen
CREW brACED HIS shoulder against the stall wall in the barn Tuesday morning and drilled another screw into it.
The wall he was repairing had been split by a horse that panicked and had kicked hard enough to remind everyone how much damage pain and fear could do.
He had measured, cut, and leveled. Every step precise. Easily fixed.
If only life worked the same way.
He’d been at the ranch a little more than a week, but the distinct smell of horses, hay, and leather had already become a familiar part of his routine.
One he looked forward to. Outside, fall painted the grounds in bold autumn colors that carried their own energy, enlivening everything around them.
Inside, it was all small sounds: the scrape of wood, the whir of the drill, the impatient snort from the mare in the next stall.
Energy moved differently in the barns. A calmness lingered in them, making it a little easier to breathe, which brought memories of Robbie.
There was a sense of freedom in not having to suppress them.
Even when he was in prison, he’d felt protective of those memories.
As if at any moment someone might read his mind and steal them away.
He didn’t feel that way around Birdie. She made him want to open up and share his thoughts.
She was the antithesis of the women he’d once been surrounded by.
She had the purest heart he’d ever known, and there was nothing fake about her.
She didn’t prejudge. She listened and came to her own conclusions.
That was the troubling part.
There were so many reasons they shouldn’t have gotten together the other night. So many reasons he should not be thinking about her every damn minute of the day. But the better he got to know her, the closer he wanted to get.
He sensed someone in the barn as he lined up another screw and cocked his head to listen.
Straightening as footsteps approached, he saw Tiny by one of the stalls, a red bandanna wrapped around his forehead.
Crew had gotten up at the crack of dawn the last few mornings, unable to sleep because of thoughts of Birdie, which brought loads of guilt because of all her family was doing for him.
He’d gone running and had noticed Tiny checking on the animals in the rehab barns.
Talk about the antithesis of people he’d once known.
Tiny was the kind of man Crew’s father would have judged on his appearance alone and probably would have made derogatory comments about him.
It made Crew sick to think of how many times his father had dismissed people for their appearance or lack of wealth.
It made him even sicker to think he’d learned to do some of those same things early on.
Crew had kept his head down this week, observing the lay of the land, the pecking order, trying not to piss anyone off.
He’d learned a few things about Tiny and Wynnie.
He’d seen them checking in with clients and ranch hands.
Their smiles were genuine, their words thoughtful, kind.
They weren’t just the salt of the earth.
They were the very heart of it, what everyone should strive to be, and that brought another dose of guilt.
He scrubbed his hand down his face and went back to fixing what was in front of him and pretending that was enough.
“How’s it going, son?”
Crew’s nerves flared at the word son. He was Crew to his father when things were good and son when they weren’t. He wondered if Tiny had somehow caught wind of him and Birdie. Steeling himself for that possibility, he turned to greet him.
“Not bad, Tiny. How are you?”
“The fences are holding, the horse that came in last week is gaining weight, and I’m still vertical. I’d say it’s a good day. How’s that cabin treating you?”
“It’s great, thanks. No problems.”
“Glad to hear it.” He lifted his chin in the direction of the wall Crew was repairing. “Any trouble here?”
“No, sir. I’ll be done soon.”
Tiny nodded. “Heard you got your hands on my tractor.”
Fuck. “Yeah. Sorry about that. I should’ve talked to Cowboy first. It won’t happen again.”
“I hope you’re talking about being sure to speak with Cowboy first and not saying you won’t be fixing things, ’cause I appreciate someone who steps in to help others.”
“Yes, sir,” he said with relief. “That’s what I meant. I’m happy to do whatever I can to help out.”
“Have you given any thought to what you might do after this? Where you see yourself going?”
That squashed his relief. Was this Tiny’s way of saying they’d given him a chance and it was time to move on?
Crew squared his shoulders, facing his dilemma head-on.
“I haven’t figured that out yet, and to be honest, I’m struggling to find a way to make amends with Dare.
Colleen and I are talking about it, but I know he and Billie are avoiding mealtimes because of me.
I don’t blame them. This is their home, so if you want me to move on, I completely understand, and I greatly appreciate the chance you’ve given me. ”
Tiny’s eyes narrowed assessingly. “Is that what you want to do? Take off?”
“No, sir. But I don’t want to make things harder for your family.”
“You didn’t have to come here looking for Dare.
You could’ve turned down our offer to stay,” Tiny said bluntly.
“The fact that you’re here, sticking it out, and working on yourself is earning the respect of damn near everyone on this ranch.
You’re doing what you set out to do, whether Dare accepts it or not.
We opened our doors to you because we believe you’re due a second chance, whether you or Dare believe you are or not. The choice is yours to stay or go.”
Guilt and gratitude clawed their way up Crew’s throat.
He could take off and start over in some other state, allow Dare and Billie to get back to the life they’d had before he’d shown up, and explain to Birdie that it was for the best.
That was the part that stuck like barbed wire in his chest. He and Birdie couldn’t be together, but he couldn’t walk away from her or from seeing this through.
Holding Tiny’s gaze, he said, “I don’t walk away from things that are important to me.”
LATE THURSDAY AFTERNOON, after the flow of customers had slowed to a trickle, Quinn was holding down the front, while Birdie sat at a counter in the back with Carly, her notebook open, the pages already a mess of notes, arrows, and underscores.
She was trying hard to look like she understood what she was being taught.
She did not.
But she wanted to, and Carly needed her to.
Carly wasn’t taking the time to teach her in order to torture her.
She was doing it because she cared and because this mattered to both of them and to Marie.
Birdie was determined not to let them, or herself, down.
Google was her friend. She’d learned about makeup and fashion from videos and tutorials.
She’d buckle down and do the same with this and fine-tune the knowledge she was collecting, no matter how long it took.
Carly pointed to her laptop screen. “This is the accounting program. It’s already connected to our bank account, so it will do the heavy lifting for you.
But you need to understand how it works because you’ll be paying the bills, setting up bank rules, and reviewing all the reports.
We’re looking at the general ledger, which is a record of all our financial transactions, organized by account: assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, and expenses.
The program will create the financial statements. ”
Birdie scribbled, General ledger—assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, expenses. Financial statement. “Tell me again what a financial statement is.”
“It’s a report that summarizes the company’s financial position and includes the balance sheet, income statements, and cash flow.” She navigated to another page on the software. “This is where you’ll see the details of all the transactions from the shop. We talked about them yesterday, remember?”
Birdie nodded earnestly. “Yeah, totally. I was just making sure we were on the same page.”
“Great. Everything feeds into the general ledger automatically. All the sales, expenses, payroll, and the value of our inventory. But you still have to review it to make sure it reconciles in case you miscoded something. That’s why you need to keep every receipt.
You can’t just trust that the report is right.
An error could throw everything off, and you want to make sure your ROI is solid. ”
Birdie took notes like it made perfect sense and said, “Solid ROI, which is revenue on—”
“Return on investment.”
“Oh, right. Got it.” She scribbled it down.
“I know there’s a lot of terminology to remember. I’m glad you’re taking notes. The income statement has a line item with the costs of goods sold. If that number starts creeping up, you need to know why. Something’s eating your profit margin.”
“Right.” Birdie wrote, ledger → what’s eating profit margins?? in her notebook and underlined it twice.
As Carly went on explaining, Birdie glanced longingly at her phone, upside down beside her notebook.
She hadn’t missed a text. She just wished she had.
She and Crew had deliberately made the decision not to exchange numbers Friday night.
At the time, it had felt like they were taking away temptation.
Now it just felt like an itch she couldn’t scratch.