Chapter 2
Chapter Two
“Are the new resort managers coming in today?”
Cody turned his horse so he could get a good look at his younger brother, Walker, who had a smart-ass look on his face, and he hadn’t even said anything smart-ass.
Yet.
“As far as I know,” Cody answered.
As if he didn’t know. As if he didn’t have an estimate down to the minute on when they would arrive. He was eager to get the hotel opened and get some of the responsibilities of the resort off his plate.
He’d inherited this big parcel of land from the father he’d barely ever known, and it was important to him to make something out of it.
Maybe it was to give a middle finger to the old man now that he was dead, a middle finger he hadn’t gotten the chance to give him during his life, on behalf of his mother, who had grieved the loss of a relationship that had been shit anyway for so many years it had put her in an early grave, and for his brother and sister who had always seemed to long for a relationship with that bastard.
Cody couldn’t say that he personally grieved the lack of relationship.
If he grieved anything, it was the fact that his father had been a lonely, miserable, selfish asshole until the end. That was sad in its own way.
But the old man had cultivated that life. He’d alienated every person who could have possibly cared about him. Had abused every connection he could have had. Had abandoned the one woman who’d ever loved him.
His father’s isolation hadn’t been accidental. Rather, a pursuit of years of hard work at being a genuinely terrible human being.
Cody had no choice but to accept it.
There was no point taking his father’s miserable personality personally.
However, he could take the ranch and turn it into something that the old man could never have dreamed of.
Sharing the land, sharing all this beauty, rather than gatekeeping it, that would piss his dad off, and Cody liked that idea.
He liked it a lot.
That didn’t mean he wanted to run a resort, though.
Painted Ridge was a working ranch. That was part of the draw. At least, when he had done up his business plan for the resort, it had been part of the draw as far as the bank was concerned.
Ranching was tough business. If you weren’t factory-farm level, it was tough to pay to keep the lights on.
But they were a couple of hours away from Bend, which was a major tourist town, and also pretty heavily populated year-round, which made them a good getaway, not only for people coming out this way to vacation, but for people who lived somewhat locally.
All things that he had factored in when he had created the plan for the resort.
They would still ranch cattle. The cattle operation would take place as it always had, running about a mile away from the Painted Ridge Resort.
Then, in the resort area, they had cabins and the hotel, and they would have some walking paths in the trees, one of which would take their guests to the new bakery that was opening near the highway, on the ranch property.
There were more adventurous hiking trails for people to take solo, or guided, on foot or a rented bike. Then there were trails for guided trail rides.
They also had kayaks, and fishing equipment for rent, plus a sauna near the river.
It was damn near fancy on the resort side of the ranch.
“It’s a couple, right?” Walker asked.
“Yeah,” Cody said, looking out at the horizon.
He and Walker had been out early that morning, not that it was notable that they were out early, but it had been a little bit earlier than normal.
Because he had this meeting to deal with at some point, which meant he needed to get ranch chores done as quickly as possible.
“And they’re from… New York?”
“I don’t know if that’s where they’re from, but they’ve been running a bar there.
It’s really busy. They’ve helped launch quite a few businesses.
It seems like he runs a lot of front-of-house stuff, and she’s the brains of the operation.
Good at keeping records and managing things.
They were at a bed-and-breakfast before that. In Maine, I guess.”
Thinking about them, about her, made Cody’s stomach tighten.
Last time he’d talked to her, he’d felt like he needed to lock the door. That husky, feminine voice coming through the other end of the phone had done something to him.
Something hot and dirty that he needed to recover from – and quickly – since she was about to arrive with her husband in tow.
“Still. Seems a far cry from a ranch,” Walker said.
“Yeah. It does,” Cody said, not entirely connected to what his brother was saying because his mind was still on Marlowe’s voice.
“But I think it will be good. A good perspective. I don’t know jack about running a luxury resort.
I don’t even know what kinds of things people want from that.
I mean, I do, because now I’ve done a lot of research on it, but I sure as hell don’t want to be responsible for executing it. ”
“Yeah, if I’m honest, you’re not the hospitality type.”
“Which is why I’m outsourcing. Because I’m not the hospitality type, but I’m not a dumbass.”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Shut up, Walker. If it weren’t for me, you’d be in prison.”
“Honestly, I’m only thirty. There’s plenty of time yet. Prison could still wait for me.”
“Don’t make it a goal.”
“You’re always saying that I should have goals,” Walker said.
“You have goals, at least I hope you do. Which includes marketing my new resort and managing the VIPs.”
“Oh, I didn’t know I needed a set goal for that. I thought I could just show up and look pretty.”
He looked at his brother, and all his universal golden boy good looks and appeal.
Sadly, that was all he had to do. Show up, smile, charm everyone.
It was annoying as hell. But Cody was lacking that easy charm that Walker had. So, he was outsourcing that too.
Cody turned his horse away from Walker and encouraged him into a gallop as he took off across the vast expanse of land, toward the barn.
The sun was just getting up over the mountains, all the sharp, angled blue, capped with snow so beautiful it could easily take your breath away.
Even if you had looked at that view every day for most of your life.
And he had.
But this land had been off-limits to him. At least, while his dad was living.
Because he’d had kids and then wanted nothing to do with them. He had sent money, sometimes, and their mother had hung on for every crumb that asshole was willing to offer her.
It killed him. Just thinking about it killed him even now.
But the land was his, and he was going to focus on that.
Focusing on the future.
The barn was freshly painted, bright red, standing out against the pine trees on the periphery of the property line, short, scrubby sagebrush dotting the landscape in front of it.
He rode the horse inside and dismounted, working quickly to get her put away.
He was walking out about the time that Walker was headed in.
“Got anything you need me to do?”
Cody nodded. “Yeah, we have a whole host of new requests for venue tours for weddings.” They’d be opening the place up in the summer, offering wedding packages that would include a ceremony and reception spot, local wine, cake, dinner, and a photographer.
“Can you get those scheduled. And then also… do them when they actually happen.”
“Sure thing. I’d like to meet the new arrivals at some point.” Frankly, Walker should be the welcoming committee, but Cody was the Director of Operations, which meant overseeing everything. Ranch, resort, and any gray area between.
“Well, they are moving onto the ranch. So, I think we’ll have ample time to meet them.”
The husband-and-wife team would have an apartment in the hotel. The facility had forty-five rooms, and they had five additional cabins down by the river.
It was a massive undertaking. Right now, they had around sixty employees between the ranch and the resort, and it was going to grow.
They weren’t just doing something quaint and small.
He had gone and visited hotels in Wyoming and Montana, getting a good idea of how they ran so that he could bring that sensibility here.
He’d hired an architect who had done a place out in Jackson to do the plans for the hotel, and he had a designer who did a place in Livingston to outfit the interior.
It was a huge investment. Luckily, his past life as a rodeo cowboy had netted him a substantial chunk of cash.
It was the same with his brother, Walker.
Walker was a tiedown roper, Cody had been a bull rider, and between the two of them, they had won over a million in prizes.
It was a strange thing, coming into land, which was better even than coming into money.
This property was worth way more than they had ever earned, and getting it as a jumping-off point had really set them up.
He would never have imagined that he could have come close to being anything like a nepo baby. Growing up on the wrong side of the tracks in Mustang River was an inglorious thing.
It wasn’t like the town had been anything special, not when he was a kid.
It had grown a lot in recent years, as tourism in Bend had expanded, it had spilled over into smaller places like Mustang River.
It had developed quite a bit.
But back then? It had barely been anything.
All the shops on Main Street had been empty, and now, with a return to people wanting to patronize these small, cute towns, they had new boutiques, restaurants, and bookstores.
He was going to have a bakery and a restaurant in the hotel.
It was the sensible thing to do. They’d found a chef who had been looking to move out of the Bay Area, looking for a slower pace, and she was going to be heading up the kitchen.