CHAPTER TWO
Katarina
“You’ve got to be kidding me? We’re broke?” I cried.
The lawyer nodded solemnly and I fought the overwhelming urge to scream until my voice cracked. Because the shit news just kept coming.
It had been four weeks since we scattered my father’s ashes, and his absence was still an aching chasm in all of us. We’d been just about getting by with us all pitching in and Leo helping out too but I knew we were barely keeping our heads above water. What I didn’t realize is that right under that water were sharks, waiting to take chunks out of us.
Daddy had always kept me away from the business side of the ranch, insisting that when the time came, he would take me through it all and show me the ropes. I always wondered why he was so protective of the books and now I guess I knew.
I scrubbed my hands through my hair, tugging on the pale blonde ends and the pain traveled up my scalp, grounding me. Glancing out the kitchen window, I watched as Daisy walked one of the horses back into the stables, her lasso clipped to her waist. She was a whizz at roping cattle, could out-rope any of the ranch hands and I’d wondered if she would enter rodeo events but she had other passions.
“How long?” I asked.
“Beg pardon, Miss Cartwright?” Peter Davidson, my father’s lawyer, asked.
“How long until we lose the ranch?”
“Oh forgive me, I see. Well, you’ve got enough to get you through the next few months but unless you do something soon, likely six months, give or take a few weeks. I’m so sorry. Charlie was a good friend of mine and this is the last thing I want to be telling you girls.”
I nodded, my tongue glued to the roof of my mouth. “What if we sell off some of the land? Or sell the little cabin behind the house?”
Peter didn’t meet my eyes as he shook his head. “You could try and sell off some land, but it won’t be enough. Charlie’s been in the red for years. I’m amazed he managed to keep it going this long. He’d been borrowing. And as his beneficiary, it now falls to you.”
Of course it fucking did.
“FUCK!” I shouted, unable to keep it in.
Peter twitched at my outburst.
“I apologize.”
He waved a large hand. “No need, I can only imagine the grief—” He rolled his lips inwards at my stern glare. If one more person told me that they didn’t know how I was coping, I would go on a rampage.
“We’re gonna lose it all,” I said absently.
“You have six months.” Peter tried to be positive.
I snorted. “I honestly don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing, Peter. Daddy always kept me away from the business side of the ranch. Now I know why.”
“I understand. But six months is a lifetime away yet, you’ve got time. I’ll leave you to it but let me know if you need anything.” He shuffled his papers and put them back into his plain black briefcase. He drank the rest of his coffee before I showed him to the door.
“Once again, Katarina, I’m very sorry.”
“Thank you, Peter. I appreciate that,” I said nicely even though I wanted to scream. It wasn’t everyone else’s fault that they were sorry all the time.
I slammed the door, slightly harder than I meant to but, oh well. I trudged back into the kitchen and decided 11am was the perfect time to have wine. I grabbed a glass from the cabinet and the wine from the fridge, thinking I’d need to switch to box wine soon enough if we needed to start cutting costs. I pulled the cork out of the bottle with my mouth and dropped it into the sink.
The glug glug glug sound of the liquid pouring into the glass had always been one of my favorites and today I just let it pour. Right to the fucking top. I slurped the rim so none spilled over the side and then drank half of it down in one go, letting out a very unladylike belch but no one was around to hear it. I giggled to myself and covered my mouth. Then giggled again. A full laugh left my body, and I laughed and laughed until my stomach ached, and then I cried.
I heard noises out in the hallway and covered my mouth, wiping at my eyes.
“Everything okay?” Maddy asked, coming into the kitchen with August right behind her.
“Sure!” I said, too loudly. Was I drunk already?
“You sure, sure?” August asked, raising her brow at my large, half-drunk wineglass.
“Is there some rule about drinking at 11am?”
“Hell no, not in this house!” Leo boomed, coming in behind them. Maddy snickered and I was pleased to see her smiling again.
“I forgot to ask, did Tills get off to school okay?” I asked, suddenly feeling like the worst big sister in the world. It was her first day back and although we were a pretty close-knit community in Reverence, kids could still be dicks.
“Yeah?” Leo looked to Maddy for confirmation.
“Yeah!” Maddy agreed and then when Leo looked away she pulled an eh face at me. She was probably trying to protect Leo’s feelings; he’d wanted to be the one to drop Tilly off at school.
“Cool, thanks again, Leo. I’ll shoot her a message at lunch and see how she’s doing.”
“No sweat, happy to help,” Leo smirked, his dimples popping.
“How’d it go with the lawyer? He had a sad face when he left,” August asked, concern dipping her auburn brows in.
Shit. I couldn’t rain all over their parade and stress them out even more. They had enough to deal with. I was the oldest and Daddy trusted me to run this ranch so I would take one for the team.
“Yeah, everything’s fine. Ranch is all ours. No long-lost brothers or sisters coming out of the woodwork trying to claim their inheritance,” I joked weakly .
August cocked a brow at me. “Maybe leave the joking to Maddy, you’re no good at it.”
I stuck my tongue out at her because I’m thirty-one going on thirteen apparently…
“Somebody needs to teach you some manners.” Leo hooked an arm around August’s neck and pulled her into his chest, rubbing his knuckles across the top of her strawberry blonde head until she squealed.
“I’m fwenty-fwo!” came August’s muffled cry.
Leo looked at Maddy with mock fear. “Dang, we might be too late.”
I snorted, rolling my eyes and left them to their silly games. I had shit I needed to think about.
I went to Daddy’s office at the back of the house. The door had remained shut for the last few weeks. None of us wanted to go in there and disturb anything he’d left behind, we wanted to keep it just the way he had left it. However, desperate times called for desperate measures. I needed to learn everything I could about the ranch finances and how the hell I was gonna run this place.
Opening the door, his scent immediately surrounded me. Pine, like Lysol and sandalwood from his cologne. The smell brought up so many memories, in that painful and all too realistic way that scents could, and in that moment I wanted nothing more than to have a hug from my father. Just one more. I paused in the doorway, letting the grief wash over me before I pulled myself together. I had too much to do, too much to figure out and four sisters depending on me to fix this.
His wide desk was made from walnut wood and piled high with paperwork so that felt like the best place to start but when I began shifting through it all, I quickly got overwhelmed. I put the stack of papers on the later pile and instead focused on the filing cabinet which looked to be in better order.
The smell of mothballs enveloped me as I tugged it open, coughing from the pile of dust I’d disturbed. Rummaging through the first section of papers, I found the deed and title for the ranch, which was handy and I’d be sure to make copies of it at some point. Some legal paperwork about the cabin at the bottom of the yard which was a little rundown. Daddy had moved into it a few years ago and given us girls the main house, it was his safe haven away from the screeching, he’d said. It was old and not in the best condition, he’d been meaning to restore it for a while but just hadn’t gotten around to it.
There was a ton of other stuff that I didn’t understand but I guessed now was the best time to deep-dive into it. I got comfy in the leather wingback chair in the corner next to the floor to ceiling bookcase and started reading. By nightfall I had three piles: stuff I didn’t understand, stuff to ask Mr. Davidson about, and stuff I kinda got.
I stood, yawning and stretching my aching back until my neck cracked. I paused for a moment, letting my muscles adjust. As soon as I hit thirty-one, it was like my body decided to break. I’d wake up after a good night’s sleep and my neck cricked, I sneezed too hard and my back went out. Getting older was tough.
I ventured out into the kitchen where I could smell dinner cooking. Everyone was crowded around the dinner table which was piled with bowls of potatoes, carrots and greens and steam was rising from a beef brisket in the center. My mouth watered.
I saw Tilly, glaring at the beef brisket and guilt instantly swamped me at being a shit big sister twice today. I’d been so wrapped up in looking through Daddy’s paperwork that I’d forgotten to text her to see how her first day was going .
“Hey baby girl, how was your first day back?” I asked, running my hand affectionately over her hair.
She scowled at me and ducked her head from my grip. “Fine.”
I looked over at Daisy who just shook her head at me.
“Just fine?” I ventured.
“Yes. Lots of weird, pitying looks and people being far too nice like I could break any second,” Tilly muttered, pushing her plate away. “I’m not hungry, may I be excused now?”
I put her attitude down to being a teenager and tried not to let it bother me. I looked around, wondering who she was talking to, but three pairs of eyes were watching me. Now Daddy was gone, I was Tilly’s guardian. The role didn’t bother me, I’d looked after her most of her life, so nothing had changed but now it was official parenting.
I needed to step up more than ever.
“Oh, me? Uh, yeah I guess. Um…go and…uh do your homework?” I squeaked at the end, unsure how to parent a teenager. Maddy gave me a thumbs up.
Tilly huffed and shoved away from the table before flouncing from the room and up the stairs. I waited a beat and then her door slammed shut.
“Teenagers,” Daisy tutted.
“Cut her some slack, you were a nightmare at her age,” August sighed.
“I was not!”
“Daisy, you were fucking horrendous and the rest of us were a dream,” Maddy laughed. “You want some dinner, Kat? I made it.”
I arched a brow at her. “ You made it?”
Maddy rolled her eyes. “Fine, it was Leo.”
“Then hell yes, that boy makes good food.” I sat down at the table. “Wife him up,” I murmured when Maddy put a plate in front of me. She snorted but didn’t say anything more than that.
I ate my food, listening to them talk about their days.
Daisy was trying to get a job in marketing and event management having just graduated from community college but pickings were slim in a small town.
August was working part time at the local library. She loved it there, amongst all those books and it gave her time to work on the ranch, looking after the horses including her beloved Marshmallow.
A couple of years ago August had been making waves as a barrel racer with Marshmallow. But there was an accident on the circuit, Marshmallow got spooked and fell, landing on August. Luckily, August only broke her hip but decided that as much as she loved it, barrel racing was too dangerous so she quit, instead choosing to spend her time here managing the horses.
Maddy was on her rest days. She was a local firefighter and she worked forty-eight hours on shift and then had forty-eight hours off. During her off days she also pitched in at the ranch.
After dinner we all hunkered down in the living room to watch a movie before one by one, the girls retired to bed. But I was too wired. My brain kept turning over everything that I needed to do and how unequipped I felt to deal with any of it. Finally, when the clock ticked over into 3am, I took myself upstairs to bed.
Sleep didn’t come though, my brain wouldn’t switch off, wouldn’t give me a break. It was having too much fun giving me anxiety. I threw the covers back and swung my legs out of bed and went to the window, staring out at the bright moon.
“I’m looking for a sign, Daddy. Help me please?” I murmured. Nothing came to me but just asking for help alleviated some of the noise in my brain and I eventually managed to drift off into a fitful sleep.
I awoke the next morning to a quiet house which immediately made me suspicious. I checked the time on my phone and saw it was nearly eleven. I’d overslept! With a groan, I pulled myself out of bed, grateful for the ranch hands, and knowing Maddy would be stepping in for me. After such a late night, my brain wasn’t alert.
“Coffee…I need coffee,” I rasped, my voice gruff from sleep. I trudged downstairs in my pajamas and found a pot that was still fairly warm.
“Thank you, Jesus.” I grabbed a mug and filled it before I heard a knock on the door. In my sleep deprived state, I didn’t stop to think about who could be at my front door at 11am on a Tuesday morning.
As I approached, I saw a man through the glass, with his back to the door, looking out over the land. Tall, very tall. I was five feet ten, the tallest of my sisters so I definitely appreciated a taller man. He was broad, his clothes looked a little small for him, his black leather jacket pulled tight across his back. His chestnut hair was in need of a trim and curled at the edges but he was one fine looking gentleman from behind.
Hello, sir.
When I opened the door and he turned around, my pulse thudded to a stop. I gasped, dropping the mug of coffee and spilling it all over the porch. It splashed up my bare legs but I didn’t notice the sting.
He was as surprised as me, his sky-blue eyes wide. His red lips formed a stunned O. He gave me a once over, settling on breasts which I now realized were not being held prisoner by a bra as they normally would be.
He snapped out of it and cleared his throat.
“Uh, hey, Katarina.” His voice was deep, too deep. Deeper than I remembered.
Rage vibrated through me, unlike anything I’d felt before.
How dare he.
How fucking dare he turn up here after everything.
The lack of sleep, the grief and the anger at seeing this asshole on my porch sent me spiralling.
“You motherfucker! I’ll fucking kill you!” I screamed, right before I launched myself at him.