Six
SIX
Tag
M y phone rang close to 9 p.m. right as I was finishing up a few things in the barn.
I picked it up. “Hey, Jesse.”
“Uh, Tag, we have a problem.”
His tone communicated disaster loud and clear. I stopped dead in my tracks. “Please don’t tell me that.”
“I answered the ranch phone a few minutes ago, and it was a woman who said she booked a cabin here at Meadowbrook for three weeks.”
“Booked? How?”
“That’s what I was wondering.”
“We had a bookin’ system in place back last year, but Deborah oversaw all that, not me.”
“Any chance she left the system active?”
“I suppose it’s possible.” Even as I said those words, a realization hit my brain. That recurring charge on my account I didn’t recognize was probably for a booking system we didn’t use anymore. Reading statement memos wasn’t in a cowboy skillset—not this one’s anyway. But I should’ve done my due diligence. It’d been almost a year since we had guests. Money thrown straight down the drain.
Dammit. Do better, Taggart.
“Okay, then. Tell me what to do. She’s picking up a rental at San Antonio airport and wanted to confirm her reservation.”
“Three weeks you said?” I put Jesse on speaker while he confirmed and opened an app to see if I had any sort of reservation email. Sure did. I quickly scanned the information. She paid her first night’s fee and the rest was due on arrival. How was I supposed to take the rest of her money? Digitally? I didn’t have a clue. Deb was supposed to do all this.
Reservation total was $1,756.76.
My gut said turn her away and send her somewhere else.
But the part of my account bleeding from Cooper’s stupid bail said that was good money. I’d have to charge her less since the cabins were out of commission, but still. If I could squeak by getting—did a little mental math—$900, that would be an easy grand.
If a person booked a cabin at a remote ranch, surely they’d be a loner and not underfoot. Not like they’d be expecting the Ritz or anything. I could provide breakfast and do what the website promised—a trail ride and tour during stay’s duration—and get nine hundred bucks out of the ordeal.
I put the horse meds back in the barn fridge and slammed the door, quickly turning to head for the house. I had a room to get ready, breakfast to buy, expired food to empty out of the fridge, a front porch to tidy, and so on. Housekeeping and domestic tasks got the backest back burner around here.
I asked, “So what did you tell her?”
He hesitated. “I…pretended we got disconnected.”
I skidded to a stop in the middle of the barnyard, growling in frustration. “Come on, Jess. Please tell me you didn’t actually.”
Cade laughed in the background like this was some sort of comedy hour. “Yeah, I?—”
“Alright, listen. We don’t have time to shoot the breeze. Call her back. Apologize for the bad connection. Tell her the cabins are still damaged from the flood we had in April. Ask if she is willin’ to take a room in the main house. And we will charge her $43 per night.”
“Okay. Will do.”
“Call me right back.”
He let me go, and I picked up my pace. I had a lot to do and only a little time to do it, assuming she still wanted to come.
Five minutes later, he called me back. “It’s a go. She’s coming.”
I started running right as the rain clouds opened yet again.